“Hyer you, Pinto!  What’s the matter with—­”

The ranger cut his sentence in two and slid from the saddle.  When his companion reached him and drew rein the ranger was bending over a dark mass stretched across the trail.  He looked up quietly.

“Man’s body,” he said briefly.

“Dead?”

“Yes.”

Neill dismounted and came forward.  The moon-crescent was up by now and had lit the country with a chill radiance.  The figure was dressed in the coarse striped suit of a convict.

“I don’t savvy this play,” Fraser confessed softly to himself.

“Do you know him?”

“Suppose you look at him and see if you know him.”

Neill looked into the white face and shook his head.

“No, I don’t know him, but I suppose it is Struve.”

From his pocket the ranger produced a photograph and handed it to him.

“Hyer, I’ll strike a match and you’ll see better.”

The match flared up in the slight breeze and presently went out, but not before Neill had seen that it was the face of the man who lay before them.

“Did you see the name under the picture, seh?”

“No.”

Another match flared and the man from the Panhandle read a name, but it was not the one he had expected to see.  The words printed there were “James Kinney.”

“I don’t understand.  This ain’t Kinney.  He is a heavy-set man with a villainous face.  There’s some mistake.”

“There ce’tainly is, but not at this end of the line.  This is Kinney all right.  I’ve seen him at Yuma.  He was heading for the Mal Pais country and he died on the way.  See hyer.  Look at these soaked bandages.  He’s been wounded—­ shot mebbe—­ and the wound broke out on him again so that he bled to death.”

“It’s all a daze to me.  Who is the other man if he isn’t Kinney?”

“We’re coming to that.  I’m beginning to see daylight,” said Steve, gently.  “Let’s run over this thing the way it might be.  You’ve got to keep in mind that this man was weak, one of those spineless fellows that stronger folks lead around by the nose.  Well, they make their getaway at Yuma after Struve has killed a guard.  That killing of Dave Long shakes Kinney up a lot, he being no desperado but only a poor lost-dog kind of a guy.  Struve notices it and remembers that this fellow weakened before.  He makes up his mind to take no chances.  From that moment he watches for a chance to make an end of his pardner.  At Casa Grande they drop off the train they’re riding and cut across country toward the Mal Pais.  Mebbe they quarrel or mebbe Struve gets his chance and takes it.  But after he has shot his man he sees he has made a mistake.  Perhaps they were seen travelling in that direction.  Anyhow, he is afraid the body will be found since he can’t bury it right.  He changes his plan and takes a big chance; cuts back to the track, boards a freight, and reaches Fort Lincoln.”