button.

"There were two men here," Curtis remarked. "Both were mounted and came
up the trail from the settlement, but it looks as if the first one had
picketed his horse and started to make camp when the other joined him."

"That's so," Private Stanton agreed.

"Then there was trouble, but the men didn't clinch. One fellow hit the
other with something heavy enough to drop him in his tracks, then got
into the saddle and rode off, leading the other horse."

The evidence on which he arrived at this conclusion was slender, but
Stanton signified assent.

"Well," he said, "where's the hurt man?"

"I've a notion he's in yonder muskeg. The other fellow could have packed
him there on the led horse--the blood spots point to it--though he might
have hid him farther on in a bluff. It's getting too dark to search now;
we'll try to-morrow. But I guess we know who he is."

"Sure," said Stanton. "I'll swear to the hat. Chaffed Jernyngham about it
one day, and he put it in my hands and said there wasn't another of the
kind in the country. A man from Hong Kong gave it to him."

Curtis took up the bill.

"Five dollars, Merchants' Bank, and quite clean; not been issued long.
We'll find out if they've a branch at Regina or Saskatoon and trace up
the fellow they paid it to. The button doesn't count--quite a common
pattern. Now if you'll fill the kettle at the creek, I'll start a fire.
We'll camp near the birch scrub yonder."

CHAPTER VI

A DEAL IN LAND

On the morning after the corporal's discovery, Gustave Wandle was leading
his team to a drinking pool on the creek that crossed his farm. He was a
big, reserved, fair-haired man, with a fleshy face that was redeemed from
heaviness by his eyes, which were restless and keen. Though supposed to
be an Austrian, little was known about him or his antecedents except that
he owned the next half-section of land to Jernyngham's and farmed it
successfully. It was, however, believed that he was of an unusually
grasping nature, and his neighbors took precautions when they made a deal
with him. He had reached the shadow of a poplar bluff when he heard
hurried footsteps and a man with a hot face came into sight.

"I'm going across your place to save time; I want my horse," he explained
hastily. "Curtis, the policeman, has ridden in to the settlement and told
me to go up and search a muskeg near the north trail with Stanton.
Somebody's killed Jernyngham and hidden him there."

"So!"