"_Quién sabe_?"

Rhoda turned to Kut-le in anger.

"Don't be more brutal than you have to be!" she cried. "What harm can
it do for this man to give me word of my friends?"

Kut-le's eyes softened.

"Answer the señorita's questions, amigo," he said.

The Mexican began eagerly.

"There were three. They rode up the trail one day ago. They called
the dark man Porter, the big blue-eyed one DeWitt, and the
yellow-haired one Newman."

Rhoda clasped her hands with a little murmur of relief.

"The blue-eyed one acted as if locoed. They cursed much at a name,
Kut-le. But otherwise they talked little. They went that way,"
pointing back over the trail. "They had found a scarf with a stone
tied in it--"

"What's that?" interrupted Kut-le sharply.

Rhoda's eyes shone in the firelight.

"'Not an overturned pebble escapes his eye,'" she said serenely.