the stables a minute or two ago?" George called to him,

"No," said the other approaching. "I'd just come out for some wood
when I saw you run round the barn."

George gave him a brief explanation, and the man looked about.

"Perhaps we'd better search the buildings; if there was any stranger
prowling round, he might have dodged you in the shadow. It's hardly
likely he'd make for the prairie; the first clump of brush big enough
to hide a man is a quarter of a mile off."

They set about the search, but found nobody, and George stopped outside
the last building with a puzzled frown on his face.

"It's very strange," he said. "I left the door shut; I couldn't be
mistaken."

"Look!" cried Grierson, clutching his arm. "There's no mistaking about
that!"

Turning sharply, George saw a dim mounted figure cross the crest of a
low rise some distance away and vanish beyond it.

"The fellow must have run straight for the poplar scrub, keeping the
house between you and him," Grierson explained. "He'd have left his
horse among the brush."

"I suppose that was it," George said angrily. "As there's no chance of
overtaking him, we'll have a look at the horses, with a light, and then
let Flett know."

There was nothing wrong in the stable, where they found the lantern
George had looked for flung down in the empty stall, and in a very
short space of time after they had called him Flett appeared. He
walked round the buildings and examined some of the footprints with a
light, and then he turned to George.

"Looks like an Indian by his stride," he said. "Guess I'll have to
saddle up and start."

"You could hardly come up with the fellow; he'll have struck into one
of the beaten trails, so as to leave no tracks," Edgar pointed out.

"That's so," said Flett. "I don't want to come up with him. It
wouldn't be any use when your partner and Grierson couldn't swear to
the man."

"What could have been his object?" George asked. "He seems to have
done no harm."

"He wanted to see if my gray was still in the stable," Flett said
dryly. "His friends have some business they'd sooner I didn't butt
into fixed up somewhere else."

"But you have no idea where?"

"I haven't; that's the trouble. There are three or four different
trails I'd like to watch, and I quite expect to strike the wrong one.
Then, if the man knows you saw him, he might take his friends warning
to change their plans. All the same, I'll get off."

He