stolen horses, he hesitated about
entrusting their recovery to this strange Indian; and a tardy thought
came to him that the Police might question it. He cast the die in
favour of his first plan.

"You know them horses we been losing?"

Mavy kept his eyes fixed on the contractor's face, but he knew the
location of door and window with the unerring sense of the trapped wild
thing.

"If you can find the thief--or who he is--there's under-foreman's pay
for you. A dollar a day more--if money's any use to you. Will you
take it on?"

"No."

The reply was prompt and uncompromising. Torrance, flaming as usual
before unexpected opposition, was about to fire him on the spot, when
the noise of metal against metal drew Tressa to the door.

"It's Constable Williams and a new Policeman--a Sergeant. Father's
here, Mr. Williams. He was sending for you. There's been a dreadful
accident. A piece of the trestle fell and killed two of the men."

As Tressa stepped back to let the Policeman enter, the halfbreed slid
unobtrusively to the other side of the room and stood in the
semi-obscurity facing the doorway, his back tight against the wall.

"Yes," stormed Torrance, "and if it had killed a dozen of them it would
have served them right. They'd taken out the bolts and cut a rope."

Constable Williams, blinking at the sudden darkness of the sitting
room, stepped aside and made way for a straight, bronzed figure wearing
the stripes of a Sergeant, who was already acknowledging with a winning
smile Tressa's unspoken welcome.

"Torrance, shake hands with Sergeant Mahon. He's been sent up to
clear--"

The halfbreed, his squinting eyes staring as at a ghost, seemed to make
only a single movement. Then the entire window crashed out, and a pair
of heavy boots disappeared over the sill.

For one brief moment the contractor and his daughter were stupefied.
Not so Sergeant Mahon. With the crash he was at the door, tugging at
his belt. But Tressa was in the way, and by the time he reached the
open only a tiny cloud of dust rising above the edge of the steep drop
to the river bottom told the way the halfbreed had gone.

The Sergeant rushed to the bank and looked down the hundred-and-fifty
foot wall with a gasp. No need for a revolver there. With a shudder
he drew back.

Torrance stormed up beside him, rifle in hand.

"Where is he? Why don't you shoot? Let me--"

The Sergeant, with a deft twist, secured the rifle.

"