Part 32 (1/2)

”Now what's all this about?” he asked.

The girl told him, and the man ruminated for a minute or two. ”Well, he's gone, and I don't know that I'm sorry there wasn't a circus here,”

he said. ”I figured there was something not square about that fellow any way. Registered as Guyler from Minnesota, but I've seen somebody like him among the boys from Silverdale. Guess I'll find out when I ride over about the horse, and then I'll have a talk with him quietly.”

In the meanwhile, the police trooper who had handed him the packet returned to the outpost, and, as it happened, found the grizzled Sergeant Stimson, who appeared astonished to see him back so soon, there.

”I met Courthorne near his homestead, and gave him the papers, sir,” he said.

”You did?” said the Sergeant. ”Now that's kind of curious, because he's at the bridge.”

”It couldn't have been anybody else, because he took the doc.u.ments and signed for them,” said the trooper.

”Big bay horse?”

”No, sir,” said the trooper. ”It was a bronco, and a screw at that.”

”Well,” said Stimson dryly, ”let me have your book. If Payne has come in, tell him I want him.”

The trooper went out, and when his comrade came in, Stimson laid a strip of paper before him. ”You have seen Courthorne's writing,” he said: ”would you call it anything like that?”

”No, sir,” said Trooper Payne. ”I would not!”

Stimson nodded. ”Take a good horse, and ride round by the bridge. If you find Courthorne there, as you probably will, head for the settlement and see if you can come across a man who might pa.s.s for him.

Ask your questions as though the answer didn't count, and tell n.o.body what you hear but me.”

Payne rode out, and when he returned three days later, Sergeant Stimson made a journey to confer with one of his superiors. The officer was a man who had risen in the service somewhat rapidly, and when he heard the tale, said nothing while he turned over a bundle of papers a trooper brought him. Then he glanced at Stimson thoughtfully.

”I have a report of the Shannon shooting case here,” he said. ”How did it strike you at the time?”

Stimson's answer was guarded. ”As a curious affair. You see, it was quite easy to get at Winston's character from anybody down there, and he wasn't the kind of man to do the thing. There were one or two other trifles I couldn't quite figure out the meaning of.”

”Winston was drowned?” said the officer.

”Well,” said Stimson, ”the trooper who rode after him heard him break through the ice, but n.o.body ever found him, though a farmer came upon his horse.”

The officer nodded. ”I fancy you are right, and the point is this.

There were two men, who apparently bore some resemblance to each other, engaged in an unlawful venture, and one of them commits a crime n.o.body believed him capable of, but which would have been less out of keeping with the other's character. Then the second man comes into an inheritance, and leads a life which seems to have astonished everybody who knows him. Now, have you ever seen these two men side by side?”

”No, sir,” said Stimson. ”Courthorne kept out of our sight when he could, in Alberta, and I don't think I or any of the boys, except Shannon, ever saw him for more than a minute or two. Now and then we pa.s.sed Winston on the prairie or saw him from the trail, but I think I only once spoke to him.”

”Well,” said the officer, ”it seems to me I had better get you sent back to your old station, where you can quietly pick up the threads again. Would the trooper you mentioned be fit to keep an eye on things at Silverdale?”

”No one better, sir,” said Stimson.

”Then it shall be done,” said the officer. ”The quieter you keep the affair the better.”

It was a week or two later when Winston returned to his homestead from the bridge, which was almost completed. Dusk was closing in, but as he rode down the rise he could see the wheat roll in slow ripples back into the distance. The steady beat of its rhythmic murmur told of heavy ears, and where the stalks stood waist-high on the rise, the last flush of saffron in the northwest was flung back in a dull bronze gleam. The rest swayed athwart the shadowy hollow, dusky indigo and green, but that flash of gold and red told that harvest was nigh again.

Winston had seen no crop to compare with it during the eight years he had spent in the dominion. There had been neither drought nor hail that year, and now, when the warm western breezes kept sweet and wholesome the splendid ears they fanned, there was removed from him the terror of the harvest frost, which not infrequently blights the fairest prospects in one bitter night. Fate, which had tried him hardly hitherto, denying the seed its due share of fertilizing rain, sweeping his stock from existence with icy blizzard, and mowing down the tall green corn with devastating hail, was now showering favors on him when it was too late. Still, though he felt the irony of it, he was glad, for others had followed his lead, and while the lean years had left a lamentable scarcity of dollars at Silverdale, wealth would now pour in to every man who had had the faith to sow.

He dismounted beside the oats which he would harvest first, and listened with a curious stirring of his pulses to their musical patter.