"Well, that's the finest tree I ever saw outside of California," said the prospector.
He undid the lariat and dismounted, spade in hand.
"Dead horses aint exactly common objects hereabouts," said he. "If this one owned such a thing as a boss when he was alive, perhaps his boss might be lying hereabouts, too."
It was a shrewd guess, and as he stepped round the corner of the rock it was instantly verified. The body of the man lay there, stiff and dried like that of his beast. The clothing seemed to have partly protected the trunk and limbs from the birds of prey, but the white skull shone bare and ghastly. The long boots proclaimed him an American.
"Here's my man, sure enough," said Stephens, as he leaned on the spade and looked down at the remains. "Think of him getting rubbed out like this all alone up here in the mountains. No one's ever been near him since, I guess. I wonder who he was?"
He went back to the dead horse and looked over it once more. There were iron shoes on the forehoofs. "That's another proof, if one were wanted, of his owner being an American," he said. "Perhaps I could find his brand." He struck a match and held it close to the animal's quarter, but the skin there had been rent and frayed by the wild things that had devoured the meat, and he could not distinguish it.
"Saddle's gone, I see," he added, "and bridle and saddle blanket, and hobbles, if he had them round his neck, and every mortal thing. It's a wonder they left the horseshoes. These accursed Navajos haven't any scruple about stripping a dead horse. It's only a dead man that they're so scared about touching."
He went back to the corpse and looked at it a second time. "Gun's gone," he said, "but that's of course. And they didn't need to touch him when he was dead to get it, for, according to the way Mahletonkwa told it, they got his gun from him when he was alive. Pistol's gone, too, I see. Likely they got that off him living, before they shot him with his own gun. They couldn't take the clothes off him till he was dead, and so they preferred to leave them on him. Wish I knew who he was." He cast his eyes around. "Here's where he stood 'em off," he went on, looking at a tiny, stone-built enclosure, barely big enough to hold three people at once, that nestled against one side of the high rock, where it overhung. "That's the place he chose, sure. That's one of those cubby-holes those old cliff-dwellers used to put up under the rocks all about the country; I guess they used them to shelter in when they were out on guard. It wasn't a bad notion of this poor chap to get in there, but those infernal Navajos got away with him all the same--cunning devils that they are! Well, I might as well dig his grave right here."