none around the wound. The chances were
that the shooting had been done from ambush, and if this was a true
guess, it was a fair deduction that the assassin had hidden behind the
point of rocks just back of the bluff. For he could reach that point by
following the rim-rock without being seen by his victim.

Roberts next studied the ground just back of the point of rocks. The
soil here was of disintegrated granite, so that there were no
footprints to betray anybody who might have been hidden there. But Jack
picked up something that was in its way as decisive as what he had been
seeking. It was a cartridge that had been ejected from a '73[1] rifle.
The harmless bit of metal in his hand was the receptacle from which
death had flashed across the open toward Ford Wadley.

At the foot of the rim-rock the Ranger found signs where horses had been
left. He could not at first make sure whether there were three or four.
From that spot he back-tracked for miles along the edge of the rim-rock
till he came to the night-camp where Wadley had met the outlaws. This,
too, he studied for a long time.

He had learned a good deal, but he did not know why Ford Wadley had been
shot. The young fellow had not been in Texas more than six or eight
months, and he could not have made many enemies. If he had nothing about
him worth stealing--and in West Texas men were not in the habit of
carrying valuables--the object could not have been robbery.

He rode back to Battle Butte and carried to town with him the body of
the murdered man. There he heard two bits of news, either of which might
serve as a cause for the murder: Young Wadley had quarreled with Tony
Alviro at a dance and grossly insulted him; Arthur Ridley had been
robbed of six thousand dollars by masked men while on his way to
Tascosa.

Ranger Roberts decided that he would like to have a talk with Tony.

[Footnote 1: The '73 rifle was not a seventy-three-caliber weapon, but
was named from the year it was got out. Its cartridges could be used for
a forty-four revolver.]

CHAPTER X

"A DAMNED POOR APOLOGY FOR A MAN"

The big cattleman from New Mexico who was talking with the owner of the
A T O threw his leg across the arm of the chair. "The grass is good on
the Pecos this year. Up in Mexico[2] the cattle look fine."

"Same here," agreed Wadley. "I'm puttin' ten thousand yearlin's on the
Canadian."

A barefoot negro boy appeared at his elbow with a note. The owner of the