"Dropped it through a knothole in the wall. The only way they'll ever
get hold of it is by tearing the building down."

"Jack Harpe, if he _is_ the feller, will know you found it and try
again."

"Shore. We can't help that. One thing, we'll know before the day is
over whether it is Jack Harpe or not."

"How?"

"Remember me this morning telling you how I'd left my saddle-blanket
out all night and then going out in the corral for the same. I said it
so Jack could hear me. He did hear me, and he watched me go. He saw
me go out round the corral, and he saw me come back without the
saddle-blanket. Now anybody'd know I wouldn't leave my saddle-blanket
out behind the corral, would I?"

"Not likely."

"But a feller who'd just found a knife with blood on it in his warbags
might go out back of the corral to lose the knife, mightn't he?"

"He might."

"Well, that's what I did. Naturally, having already lost the knife
down through the knothole I couldn't lose her again. But I did the
best I could. I dug in the ground with a sharp stick, and I made a
li'l hole like, and I filled her in again, and tramped her all down
flat, and sort of half smoothed down the roughed-up ground like I was