ne. A girl who was with him had been pinned under the car and had
died instantly.

Jim had woven his bit in the pattern and passed on. The girl was
negligible; she was, she had been. That was all. But Jim's death added
the last element to the impending catastrophe. It sent Dick West alone.

XXII

For several days after his visit to the Livingstone ranch Louis Bassett
made no move to go to the cabin. He wandered around the town, made
promiscuous acquaintances and led up, in careful conversations with such
older residents as he could find, to the Clark and Livingstone families.
Of the latter he learned nothing; of the former not much that he had not
known before.

One day he happened on a short, heavy-set man, the sheriff, who had lost
his office on the strength of Jud Clark's escape, and had now recovered
it. Bassett had brought some whisky with him, and on the promise of a
drink lured Wilkins to his room. Over his glass the sheriff talked.

"All this newspaper stuff lately about Jud Clark being alive is dead
wrong," he declared, irritably. "Maggie Donaldson was crazy. You can
ask the people here about her. They all know it. Those newspaper fellows
descended on us here with a tooth-brush apiece and a suitcase full of
liquor, and thought they'd get something. Seemed to think we'd hold out
on them unless we got our skins full. But there isn't anything to hold
out. Jud Clark's dead. That's all."

"Sure he's dead," Bassett agreed, amiably. "You found his horse, didn't
you?"

"Yes. Dead. And when you find a man's horse dead in the mountains in a
blizzard, you don't need any more evidence. It was five months before
you could see a trail up the Goat that winter."

Bassett nodded, rose and poured out another drink.

"I suppose," he observed casually, "that even if Clark turned up now, it
would be hard to convict him, wouldn't it?"

The sheriff considered that, holding up his glass.

"Well, yes and no," he said. "It was circumstantial evidence, mostly.
Nobody saw it done. The worst thing against him was his running off."

"How about witnesses?"

"Nobody actually saw it done. John Donaldson came the nearest, and he's
dead. Lucas's wife was still alive, the last I heard, and I reckon the
valet is floating around somewhere."

"I suppose if he did turn up you'd make a try for it." Bassett stared at
the end of his cigar.

"We'd make a try for it, all right," Wilkins said somberly. "There are
some folks in this