as
one by one the stars faded out, and there was a mournful wailing amidst
the trees. Now and then, a shower of twigs came rattling down from
branches dried to brittleness by the frost, and the Sheriff brushed them
off disgustedly, as, huddling lower in the sleigh from which the horses
had been taken out, he packed the robes round him. He had lived softly,
and it would have suited him considerably better to have spent that bitter
evening in the warmth and security of Clavering's ranch.

"No sign of him yet?" he said, when Christopher Allonby and Clavering came
up together. "Larry will stay at home to-night. He has considerably more
sense than we seem to have."

"I have seen nothing," said Allonby, who, in the hope of restoring his
circulation, had walked up the trail. "Still, the night is getting
thicker, and nobody could make a sleigh out until it drove right up to
him."

"If Larry did come, you could hear him," said the Sheriff.

Allonby lifted his hand, and, as if to supply the answer, with a great
thrashing of frost-nipped twigs the birches roared about them. The blast
that lashed them also hurled the icy dust of snow into the Sheriff's
face.

"I don't know," said the lad. "Nobody could hear very much through that."

"Ugh!" said the Sheriff. "We will have a blizzard on us before long, and
Government pay doesn't warrant one taking chances of that kind. Aren't we
playing a fool's game, Clavering?"

Clavering laughed somewhat unpleasantly. "There are other emoluments
attached to your office which should cover a little inconvenience," he
said. "Now, I fancy I know Larry Grant better than the rest of you, and it
would take quite a large-sized blizzard to keep him at home when he had
anything to do. Once you put him out of the way it will make things a good
deal more pleasant for everybody. Larry is the one man with any brains the
homesteaders have in this part of the country, and while they would make
no show without him, we can expect nothing but trouble while he's at
liberty. It seems to me that warrants our putting up with a little
unpleasantness."

"Quite improving!" said Allonby, who was not in the best of temper just
then. "One could almost wonder if you had any personal grudge against the
man, Clavering. You are so astonishingly disinterested when you talk of
him. Now, if I didn't like a man I'd make an opportunity of telling him."

Clavering laughed. "You're young, Chris, or you wouldn't worry about
fo