ere from
her cousin, understands Mira better than I. She sympathises--"

"But where is she--Mira, I mean? We know she's drawing the profits
regularly from the 3-bar-Y. But that foreman of hers is as mute as a
clam. . . . And now Bert, her best cowboy, has disappeared. Hm-m!
What d'ye make of it, Mahon?"

It was not like the Inspector to draw the opinions of his staff, and
Mahon regarded him slyly.

"You have a theory, sir. I haven't. I only see what's clear. Mira's
over in Montana--"

"And so you think Mira Stanton is living on her past in
Montana--gamboling about with Whiskers, I suppose? And Blue Pete lies
in the Hills? Comfortable disposal of the whole affair. I envy you."

"I've searched the Hills in all his old haunts, sir--"

"And I'm dam glad you didn't find him."

The Inspector tore open the letter in his hand, smiled, and passed it
back.

"You have a copy of the Assistant Commissioner's letter to me of the
tenth," it ran. "In observance of his orders I would suggest that you
send Sergeant Mahon, who is, I believe, the best for the purpose in the
Division."

Mahon flushed. A gleam of boyish excitement made him look five years
younger. Eagerly he searched the Inspector's face.

"I'd like it, sir. I'd do my best. I've done bush work in the Hills,
and Blue Pete knocked something into me about trails."

"It always surprises me," began the Inspector maliciously, "how eager
young husbands are to get away--"

"May I take Helen, sir?"

"No--you--may--not! What do you think this is--a honeymoon? In the
first place you'll probably be located in some defunct end-of-steel
village where even the ghosts are abominable. In the next place you'll
be too busy to know you're married. Horse-thieves? Bah! This is
different stuff. You'll be up against something new. We've more than
a suspicion that those devils, the Independent Workers of the World,
are at the bottom of it. When you get on the trail of the I.W.W., Boy,
there'll be no chivalry of the plains. It'll be knives, and poison,
and dynamite . . . and darkness for deeds of darkness. All the
criminals you've met are saints compared with these foreign devils.
Thank the Lord, they've come no further from the States as yet than the
construction camps!"

He rose and deliberately removed the tunic that was to him the badge of
office.

"Speaking unofficially," he observed, "my advice is to shoot first and
enquire after. Remember th