Blake handed over the two empty cartridge shells.
"Thirty-eight," confirmed Knowles. "Same as were fired at Lafe before. Kid and Chuckie showed me how a thirty-eight fitted the hole in Lafe's silver flask. About where did the snake crawl down the hill?"
"Not far from here. He could not have gone any considerable distance along the top or side. He was down and riding away when I reached the crags, and I had not lost much time coming up the other side."
"It'll take an Indian to make out his tracks on this dry ground," remarked the cowman. "We'll try a look, though, at his hawss's hoof prints. Just keep behind, if you don't mind."
He threw the reins over the head of his horse, and dismounted, to walk slowly along the more level ground at the foot of the slope. Blake followed, as he had requested, but scrutinizing the ground with a gaze no less keenly observant than that of his companion.
"Mighty queer," said Knowles, after they had carried their examination over a hundred yards. "Either he came down more slanting or else--"
"What do you make of this?" Blake interrupted, bending over a blurred round print in the dust between two grass tufts.
"_Sho!_" exclaimed the cowman as he peered at the mark. "That's why, of course."
"You've seen a thing or two. You're no tenderfoot," remarked Knowles.
"I have myself shrunk rawhide shoes on horses' hoofs when short of iron shoes," Blake explained. "This would make a hard trail to run down without hounds."
The cowman straightened and looked at his companion, his weather-beaten face set in quiet resolve.
"I know what's better than hounds," he said. "This is one badman who has played his game once too often. I'm going to run him down if it takes all year and all the men in the county. There's a couple of Ute bucks being held in the jail at Stockchute, to be tried for hunting deer. I'm going to get the loan of them. The sheriff will turn out with a posse, and we'll trail that snake, if it takes us clear over into Utah."
"We'll have a fair chance to get him with Ute trackers," agreed Blake.
Knowles shook his head. "Unless you're particular to come along, Mr. Blake, I'd like you and Lafe to keep on with this survey. I've been worrying over the chance of losing my range, till it's got on my nerves."