er leaned back in his chair with a meditative expression.

"We'll let it go at that," he said. "Perhaps you had better follow the
waiting course you seem to have decided on, but if suspicion gathers
round Prescott it won't be a drawback and you needn't discountenance it.
For one thing, it may divert attention, and after all he may be the right
man."

A look of comprehension shone in the corporal's eyes. He believed that
his superior, who never expressed a strong opinion prematurely, agreed
with him.

"Suppose either of the men lights out?" he suggested.

"You'll have to guard against it. If it happens, apply for a warrant and
follow him."

The officer returned to Regina the next day; and a week or two, during
which Curtis and his assistants laboriously searched the drying swamp,
passed uneventfully. Then one morning Prescott sat somewhat moodily in
the saddle of his binder which a powerful team hauled along the edge of
the wheat. The great stretch of grain blazed with color as it swayed with
a harsh rustle of warm-tinted ears before the breeze, but now and then
broad cool shadows sped across it as the white-edged clouds drove by.
Behind him followed two more teams and machines, half covered by falling
sheets of yellow grain, while their whirling wooden arms flashed in the
dazzling sunlight as they flung out the sheaves. Bare-armed and very
scantily attired men came after them, piling the stocks together.
Disturbed as he was, Prescott felt cheered by the prospect of harvesting
a record crop.

He had turned a corner and was proceeding along another side of the great
oblong when he noticed a wagon approaching, carrying two strangers and
several large trunks. As their dress differed from that usually worn on
the prairie, he wondered who they were and why they were driving toward
his ranch. The liveryman, who held the reins, presently pulled up his
team and Prescott; stopping his binder, waited to be addressed. An old
soft hat fell shapelessly forward over his deeply bronzed face, his neck
and most of his arms were uncovered. Before him the four powerful horses
stood fidgeting in the heat, a black cloud of flies about their heads.
Though not a man of striking appearance, he was in harmony with his
surroundings, and formed a fine central figure in the great harvest
field: a worthy type of the new nation that is rising in the West.

For a moment or two the strangers studied him carefully from the wagon.
The one nearest