Lighting it with fingers that trembled, he looked around him.
There were signs of the confusion that had reigned during the day.

He saw on the floor the rope that had encircled Dale's neck--one end of it was tied to the fastenings of the kitchen door.
The tied rope was a mystery to Nyland, but it suggested hanging to his thoughts, already lurid, and he leaped for the pantry.

There he grimly viewed the wreck and turned away, muttering.
"He's been here an' gone," he said, meaning Dale; "them's his marks--ruin." Blowing out the light he went to the front door, paused in it and then went out upon the porch, from where he could look northeastward at the edge of the mesa surmounting the big slope that merged into the floor of the basin.
Faintly outlined against the luminous dark blue of the sky, he caught the leaping silhouette of a horse and rider.

He grinned coldly, and stepped back into the shadow of the doorway.
"That's him, damn him!" he said.

"He's comin' back!" He had not long to wait.