changes in the
boarding-school system, and had established an experimental farm at the
agency. He had supervised the purchase of livestock for the improvement
of the tribal flocks and herds. In addition there had been the personal
demands that shower incessantly upon every Indian agent who is
interested in his work.

Reports from the reservation agriculturists, whose work was to help the
Indians along farming lines, were not encouraging. Drought was
continuing without abatement.

"The last rain fell the day before the murder on the Dollar Sign road,"
said Rogers. "Remember how we splashed through mud the day we ran out
there and found that man staked down on the prairie?"

"And now the Indians are saying that the continued drought is due to
Fire Bear's medicine," observed Lowell. "Even some of the more
conservative Indians believe there is no use trying to raise crops until
the charge against Fire Bear is dismissed and the evil spell is lifted."

In spite of the details of reservation management that crowded upon him,
Lowell found time for occasional visits to the Greek Letter Ranch to see
Helen Ervin. He told her the details of the Talpers shooting, so far as
he knew them.

"There isn't much that I can tell about the cause of the shooting," said
Lowell, in answer to one of her questions. "I could have had all the
details, but I cautioned Jim McFann to say nothing in advance of his
trial. But from what I have gathered here and there, Jim and Talpers
fell out over money matters. A thousand-dollar bill was found on the
floor under Talpers's body. It had evidently been taken from the safe,
and might have been what they fought over."

Helen nodded in comprehension of the whole affair, though she did not
tell Lowell that he had made it clear to her. She guessed that in some
way Jim McFann had come into possession of the facts of his partner's
perfidy. She wondered how the half-breed had found out that Talpers had
taken money from the murdered man and had not divided. She had held that
knowledge over Talpers's head as a club. She could see that he feared
McFann, and she wondered if, in his last moments, Talpers had wrongfully
blamed her for giving the half-breed the information which turned him
into a slayer.

"Anyway, it doesn't make much difference what the fight was over,"
declared Lowell. "Talpers had been playing a double game for a long
time. He tried just once too often to cheat his partner--something
dangerou