se, didn't you?"

Young Kitsong betrayed anxiety. "I don't know what you are talking
about."

"Which of you rode the blaze-faced sorrel?"

In spite of himself the boy glanced quickly at the girl, who shook her
head.

Hanscom addressed himself to her. "Senorita, which of your friends rode
the blaze-faced sorrel?"

Her head dropped in silent refusal to answer.

"Oh, well," said the ranger, "we'll find out in the course of time. My
eyesight is pretty keen, and I can swear that it was the man on the
sorrel horse that fired the shot that stopped the Kauffman team. Now one
or the other of you will have to answer to that charge." His voice took
on a sterner note. "What were you doing on Watson's porch last
Saturday?"

The girl started and flushed. "I wasn't on his porch."

"Oh yes, you were! You didn't know you left your footprints in some
flour on the floor, did you?"

Her glance was directed involuntarily toward her feet, as if in guilty
surprise. It was a slight but convincing evidence to the ranger, who
went on:

"Who was with you--Busby or Henry?"

"Nobody was with me. I wasn't there. I haven't been in the valley before
for weeks."

"You didn't go there alone. You wouldn't dare to go alone in the night,
and the man who was with you killed Watson."

She sat up with a gasp, and young Kitsong stared. Their surprise was too
genuine to be assumed. "What's that you say? Watson killed?"

"Yes. Watson was shot Monday night. Didn't you know that? Where have you
been that you haven't heard of it?"

Young Kitsong was all readiness to answer now. "We've been up in the
hills. We have a camp up there."

"Oh," said Hanscom, "kind of a robbers' den, eh? Has Busby been with
you?"

"Sure thing. We've all been fishing and hunting--" Here he stopped
suddenly, for to admit that he had been hunting out of season was to lay
himself liable to arrest as a poacher on the forest. He went on: "We all
came down here together."

"What were you doing chasing that team? What was the game in that?"

"Well, he shot at us first," answered the boy.

And Busby shouted from his position in the corner on the floor, "Shut
up, you fool!"

The ranger smiled. "Oh, it's got to all come out, Busby. I saw the man
on the sorrel horse fire that shot--don't forget that. And I know who
made the tracks in the flour. But I am beginning to wonder if you had
anything to do with warning the Kauffmans to get out."

He had indeed come to the end o