what he knew.

I refer to myself. The thing was sickeningly clear to me. Jim Starr had
nothing to do with it. I was the man for whom that bullet from the rim
had been intended. I was the unthinking, shortsighted fool who had done
Jim Starr to his death. It had never occurred to me that my midnight
reconnoitring would leave tracks, that Old Man Hooper's suspicious
vigilance would even look for tracks. But given that vigilance, the rest
followed plainly enough. A skillful trailer would have found his way to
where I had mounted; he would have followed my horse to Arroyo Seco
where I had met with Jim Starr. There he would have visualized a rider
on a horse without one shoe coming as far as the Arroyo, meeting me, and
returning whence he had come; and me at once turning off at right
angles. His natural conclusion would be that a messenger had brought me
orders and had returned. The fact that we had shifted mounts he could
not have read, for the reason--as I only too distinctly remembered--that
we had made the change in the boulder and rock stream bed which would
show no clear traces.

The thought that poor Jim Starr, whom I had well liked, had been
sacrificed for me, rendered my ride home with the convoy more deeply
thoughtful than even the tragic circumstances warranted. We laid his
body in the small office, pending Buck Johnson's return from town, and
ate our belated meal in silence. Then we gathered around the corner
fireplace in the bunk house, lit our smokes, and talked it over. Jed
Parker joined us. Usually he sat with our owner in the office.

Hardly had we settled ourselves to discussion when the door opened and
Buck Johnson came in. We had been so absorbed that no one had heard him
ride up. He leaned his forearm against the doorway at the height of his