le after mile, still frowning. The good bargain
he had made at yesterday's ale had well-nigh faded from his thoughts
now, and as he drew near to his home his private worries seemed to oust
his professional satisfaction over his own acuteness and the steady but
sure accumulation of the goods of this world. He had liked Wyvern well
enough during the earlier period of their acquaintance--in fact more
than well enough; but he had all the invariably successful man's
impatience of--even contempt for--the chronically unsuccessful; and in
this particular instance his oft repeated dictum to himself--and
sometimes to others--was "Wyvern will never do any good for himself or
for anybody else either."

Suddenly he pulled up his horse with a jerk, and emitted a whistle. He
was scanning the road, scanning it intently.

"Oh-ho! So that's how the cat jumps!" he exclaimed to himself, grimly.

He had reached the point where the track to Wyvern's farm joined the
wider road leading to his own. The frown became more of a set one than
ever.

"One horse spoor coming this way alone," he pronounced, "and I know what
horse made that spoor. Two horse spoors going back--and the same horse
made one of these spoors. That's the game, is it, directly my back is
turned? Well, it's a game that must be stopped, and, damn it--it shall
be."

In spite of which vehemence, however, that same little cold water
misgiving returned to render Vincent Le Sage's mind uncomfortable.

He rode on, slowly now, keeping his horse at a walk; he was near home
and there was no occasion for hurry. But as he went, he read that road
like the pages of a book. He would find Wyvern at his place? Not a bit
of it. For he had marked the returning spoors of the other horse.

Then again he reined in, suddenly and shortly, for the horse-hoofs had
ceased and with them mingled the print of boots--and the said boots
spelt one of each sex. From that point the spoor of one horse continued
alone. The other was a returning one. This, then, was where they had
parted.

Vincent Le Sage had every sign of the veldt at his fingers' ends, and
here, these imprints on a scantily used road, were as the very
elementary side of his craft to him. They had not been made to-day;
there were evidences of the effect of dew to show that. They had been
made yesterday, and tolerably late at night; that too, he took in, and
doing so felt more than ever justified in his resentment. What on