now Prescott's getting ready
to butt in. I expect he'll be off to Navarino very soon, and we can't
stop him unless we arrest him, which I'm not ready to do."

"Did he tell you he was going?"

"It wasn't needed; I've been figuring out the thing."

"Well," remarked Stanton with a thoughtful air, "he wouldn't let that
land agent see him if he'd been guilty."

Curtis reserved his opinion.

"You're getting smart," he said with a grin. "Still, you don't want to
hustle."

"Hustle?" Stanton rejoined scornfully. "Jernyngham was killed last summer
and we haven't corralled anybody yet!"

"That's so," Curtis assented tranquilly, "I've heard of the boys getting
the right man nearly two years afterward."

CHAPTER XXVI

PRESCOTT MAKES INQUIRIES

Supper was over and Laxton, the land agent, sat in the rotunda of the
leading hotel at Navarino. It was a handsome building, worthy of the new
town which had sprung into existence on the discovery that a wide belt of
somewhat arid country, hitherto passed over by settlers, was capable of
growing excellent wheat. As soon as this was proved, rude shacks and mean
frame houses had been torn down, and banks, stores, and hotels, of stone
or steel and cement rose in their places. Great irrigation ditches were
dug and a period of feverish prosperity began.

Though the frost was almost arctic outside, the rotunda was pleasantly
warm and was dimmed, in spite of its glaring lamps, with a haze of cigar
smoke. In front of the great plate-glass windows rows of men sat in
tilted chairs, their feet on a brass rail, basking in the dry heat of the
radiators. Drummers and land speculators were busy writing and consulting
maps at the tables farther back among the ornate columns, and the place
was filled with the hum of eager voices. The town was crowded with
homestead-selectors, and many, braving the rigors of winter, were camping
on their new possessions in frail tents and rude board shacks, ready to
begin work in the spring. Indeed, determined men had slept in the snow on
the sidewalks outside the land offices to secure first attention in the
morning when cheap locations were offered for settlement.

Laxton had had a tiring day, and he was leaning back lazily in his chair,
watching the crowd, when a man entered the turnstile-door, which was
fitted with glass valves to keep out the cold. He looked about the room
as if in search of somebody; and then after speaking to the clerk came
toward