circumstantial.

'We've got some work to do to-night, Sandy.' cut in Howard shortly.
'If you've got anything to say, go to it.'

'Haw!' gurgled Bandy O'Neil, recently from a California outfit, a man
with a large sense of mirth. 'He's got his prize ring-tailed dandy to
spring, Al. Don't choke him off or it'll kill him.'

Sandy hearkened to neither of them, but hastened on. He described the
hidden sink in a boulder-ringed draw, the difficulty he had had in
bringing his horse to the scene and his own stupefaction. And when he
had done all of this with his customary detail he declared that he had
come upon a yearling bull, dead as a door nail and slaughtered after a
fashion that made Sandy's eyes widen in the starlight.

'It's throat was just sure enough tore all to hell, Al,' he said
ponderously. 'Like something the size of an elephant had gone after
it. And I says to myself it must have been a wolf, and I go looking
for tracks. And, by the Lord, I found 'em! Tracks like a wolf and the
size of a dinner plate! And alongside them tracks, some other tracks.
And they was made by a man and he was barefooted!'

Bandy O'Neil's roar of mirth was a sound to hearken to joyously from
afar.

'And,' he cried, dabbing at his tears, 'Sandy would sure take a man by
the mit and lead him to the spot, only just then a big bird, size of
half a dozen ostriches, flops down and sinks its claws into that there
bull calf and flies right straight over the moon with it! Ain't that
what you said, Sandy?'

'You're a fool, Bandy O'Neil, and always will be a fool,' muttered
Sandy Weaver stiffly. 'That same calf is laying right there now, and
if you don't believe it or Al don't believe it, I'll bet you a hundred
bucks and show you the place as fast as a horse can lay down to it.'

He ran on with his tale, having the end yet to recount. He had headed
his cattle down to meet Dave Terril; he and Dave had swung in together
and moved still further south to herd in with the boys coming up from
that direction; and being within striking distance of the ranch-house,
Sandy had ridden there alone.

'I wasn't sure but you might be there, Al,' he explained. 'And I
wanted to tell you what I saw. I rampsed right in and found somebody
waiting for you. Know who?'

'Carr?' suggested Howard.

'No, it wasn't. It was Jim Courtot. There wasn't anybody at the house
but old Angela and the Mex kid, and they let him in. He was setting
there waiting