ssisted, without further loss of time, and to do this he must obtain a
specimen of the man's writing to compare with that on the land sale
documents. There was, he thought, a way of getting it.

Reaching Sebastian in the evening, he was going to the livery-stable to
hire a team when he met an acquaintance who offered to drive him home. As
the man would pass within a mile or two of Wandle's homestead and there
was a farm in the neighborhood where he might borrow a horse, Prescott
agreed. His companion found him preoccupied during the journey. He put
him down at a fork of the trail, and Prescott, walking on quickly through
the darkness, saw Wandle's team standing harnessed when he reached the
house. This was a sign that their owner had recently come home, and
Prescott, opening the door without knocking, abruptly entered the
kitchen. The lamp was lighted and Wandle, standing near it with his
fur-coat still on, looked startled. Prescott was sensible of a burning
desire to grapple with him and extort a confession by force, but there
was a risk of the crude method defeating its object, and with strong
self-denial he determined to set to work prudently.

"I see you have just come in, and I'm anxious to get home, so I won't
keep you more than a few minutes," he said.

"How did you come?" Wandle asked. "I didn't hear a team."

"Harper drove me out. I walked up the cross trail; but that doesn't
matter. The last time we had a talk we fell out over the straightening up
of Jernyngham's affairs."

"That's so; you still owe me a hundred dollars."

"I don't admit it," said Prescott, who had laid his plans on the
expectation of this claim being made. "Anyhow, the dispute has been
dragging on and it's time we put an end to it. It was the small items you
wanted to charge Jernyngham with that I objected to, and I may have cut
some of them down too hard. Suppose you write me out a list."

"I can tell you them right away."

"Put them down on paper; then we can figure them out more easily."

"Don't know if I've any ink," said Wandle. "Haven't you a notebook in
your wallet? You used to carry one."

Prescott made a mistake in putting his hand into his pocket, which showed
that he had the book, but he remembered that it would not suit his
purpose to produce it.

"I'm not going to make out your bill," he said. "That's your business.
Give me a proper list of the disputed expenses and we'll see what can be
done."

He was a poor diplom