with, and then
clapped on the water-works. Wouldn't that bust yuah cinche!"

Douglass smiled but said nothing. Actuated by a common impulse, both men
mounted their horses and rode over to where the blue stallion lay
doubled up in a thickening pool of scarlet. Dismounting, they gave the
dead beast a critical examination.

"Good shootin'!" said Red, touching approvingly six blue-black blots on
the muscular hip that could be covered with the open palm; "but the
range were too far--over two hundred, I reckon--and they had lost their
force. Stern on all thu time, wa'nt he?"

Douglass nodded. "I tried to break his hip but the bullets were spent at
that distance. This is what got him, Red." He touched an oozing puncture
just forward of the shapely shoulder. "Looks like a small caliber high
pressure to me; let's have it out."

Some minutes later both men were bending over a bit of metal lying in
Red's palm. They were very thoughtful and a curious expression was
playing over their faces. "It's a seven millimeter Mauser," said
Douglass, quietly, "and there's only one such gun on this range. It's a
pretty big payment on account, Red!"

McVey's lips hardened but he evaded the other's eye. "Let's get the
direction," he said, "and maybe we can work it out."

In an incredibly short time these experienced frontiersmen had not only
located the spot from which had been fired the shot that undoubtedly
saved Miss Carter's life, but Douglass had as well found the discharged
cartridge shell. It was a seven millimeter Mauser case, and Matlock was
the possessor of the only weapon of the kind on this range! Furthermore,
they found the depressions in the loose soil where he had knelt when
firing the shot. It was a good three hundred yards from where the horse
lay and Red once more said, "Damn good shoot in,' Ken! It's worth
remembering when the time comes. A six-shooter ain't deuce high against
that Dutch joker at long range."

Tracking the shooter's footprints back to the gully oil the other slope
of the hill, they were found to lead to where a horse had been tied. The
horse tracks showed that the beast had cast his left hind shoe!

Back-tracking still farther, they ascertained that the tracks had
proceeded to this spot from an eminence at the head of a wooded coulie
which commanded the valley where the horses had been found. To these men
it was as plain as a printed page that Matlock had followed their
movements unseen, finally estab