though a farmer came upon
his horse."

The officer nodded. "I fancy you are right, and the point is this.
There were two men, who apparently bore some resemblance to each other,
engaged in an unlawful venture, and one of them commits a crime nobody
believed him capable of, but which would have been less out of keeping
with the other's character. Then the second man comes into an
inheritance, and leads a life which seems to have astonished everybody
who knows him. Now, have you ever seen these two men side by side?"

"No, sir," said Stimson. "Courthorne kept out of our sight when he
could, in Alberta, and I don't think I or any of the boys, except
Shannon, ever saw him for more than a minute or two. Now and then we
passed Winston on the prairie or saw him from the trail, but I think I
only once spoke to him."

"Well," said the officer, "it seems to me I had better get you sent
back to your old station, where you can quietly pick up the threads
again. Would the trooper you mentioned be fit to keep an eye on things
at Silverdale?"

"No one better, sir," said Stimson.

"Then it shall be done," said the officer. "The quieter you keep the
affair the better."

It was a week or two later when Winston returned to his homestead from
the bridge, which was almost completed. Dusk was closing in, but as he
rode down the rise he could see the wheat roll in slow ripples back
into the distance. The steady beat of its rhythmic murmur told of
heavy ears, and where the stalks stood waist-high on the rise, the last
flush of saffron in the northwest was flung back in a dull bronze
gleam. The rest swayed athwart the shadowy hollow, dusky indigo and
green, but that flash of gold and red told that harvest was nigh again.

Winston had seen no crop to compare with it during the eight years he
had spent in the dominion. There had been neither drought nor hail
that year, and now, when the warm western breezes kept sweet and
wholesome the splendid ears they fanned, there was removed from him the
terror of the harvest frost, which not infrequently blights the fairest
prospects in one bitter night. Fate, which had tried him hardly
hitherto, denying the seed its due share of fertilizing rain, sweeping
his stock from existence with icy blizzard, and mowing down the tall
green corn with devastating hail, was now showering favors on him when
it was too late. Still, though he felt the irony of it, he was glad,
for others had followed