Summer drew on with swift strides. Crimson flowers flecked the prairie grass, the wild barley waved its bristling ears along the trails, saskatoons glowed red in the shadows of each bluff. Day by day swift-moving clouds cast flitting shadows across the sun-scorched plain, but though they shed no moisture the wheat stood nearly waist-high upon the Marston farm. The sand that whirled about it did the strong stalks no harm.
Earlier in the season there had been drenching thunder showers, and beyond the grain the flax spread in sheets of delicate blue that broke off on the verge of the brown-headed timothy. Still farther back lay the green of alsike and alfalfa, for the band of red and white cattle that roamed about the bluffs; but while the fodder crop was bountiful George had decided to supplement it with the natural prairie hay. There was no pause in his exertions; task followed task in swift succession. Rising in the sharp cold of the dawn, he toiled assiduously until the sunset splendors died out in paling green and crimson on the far rim of the plain.
The early summer was marked by signs of approaching change in Sage Butte affairs. There were still a few disturbances and Hardie had troubles to face, but he and his supporters noticed that the indifference with which they had been regarded was giving place to sympathy. When Grant first visited the settlement after his misadventure, he was received with expressions of indignant commiseration, and he afterward told Flora dryly that he was astonished at the number of his friends. Mrs. Nelson and a few of the stalwarts pressed Hardie to make new and more vigorous efforts toward the expulsion of the offenders, but the clergyman refrained. Things were going as he wished; it was scarcely wise to expose such a tender thing as half-formed opinion to a severe test, and the failure that might follow a premature attempt could hardly be recovered from. It seemed better to wait until Grant\'s assailants should be arrested, and the story of their doings elicited in court, to rouse general indignation, and he thought this would happen. Flett had disappeared some weeks ago and nothing had been heard of him, but Hardie believed his chiefs had sent him out on the robbers\' trail. The constable combined sound sense with dogged pertinacity, and these were serviceable qualities.
It was a hot afternoon when George brought home his last load of wild sloo hay, walking beside his team, while Flora curbed her reckless horse a few yards off. She had ridden over with her father, and finding that George had not returned, had gone on to prevent a hired man from being sent for him. They had met each other frequently of late, and George was sensible of an increasing pleasure in the girl\'s society; though what Flora felt did not appear. Behind them the jolting wagon strained beneath its high-piled load that diffused an odor of peppermint; in front the shadow of a bluff lay cool upon the sun-scorched prairie.
"I suppose you heard that Baxter lost a steer last week," she said. "Most likely, it was killed; but, though the police searched the reservation, there was no trace of the hide. We have had a little quietness, but I\'m not convinced that our troubles won\'t break out again. Nobody seems to have heard anything of Flett."
"He\'s no doubt busy somewhere."
"I\'m inclined to believe so, and, in a way, his silence is reassuring.
Flett can work without making a disturbance, and that is in his favor.
But what has become of Mr. West? We haven\'t seen much of him of late."
"He has fallen into a habit of riding over to the settlement in his spare time, which isn\'t plentiful."
"Ah!" exclaimed Flora; "that agrees with some suspicions of mine.
Don\'t you feel a certain amount of responsibility?"
"I do," George admitted. "Still, he\'s rather head-strong, and he hasn\'t told me why he goes to the Butte; though the girl\'s father gave me a hint. I like Taunton—he\'s perfectly straightforward—and I\'d almost made up my mind to ask your opinion about the matter, but I was diffident."
"I\'ll give it to you without reserve—there\'s no ground for uneasiness on West\'s account; he might fall into much worse hands. If Helen Taunton has any influence over him, it will be wisely used. Besides, she has been well educated; she spent a few years in Montreal."
"She has a nice face; in fact, she\'s decidedly pretty."
"And that would cover a multitude of shortcomings?"
"Well," said George, thoughtfully, "mere physical beauty is something to be thankful for; though I\'m not sure that beauty can be, so to speak, altogether physical. When I said the girl had a nice face, I meant that its expression suggested a wholesome character."
"You seem to have been cultivating your powers of observation," Flora told him. "But I\'m more disposed to consider the matter from Helen\'s point of view. As it happens, she\'s a friend of mine and I\'ve reasons for believing that your partner\'s readily susceptible and inclined to be fickle. Of course, I\'m not jealous."
George laughed.
"He\'s too venturesome now and then, but he has been a little spoiled. I\'ve an idea that this affair is likely to be permanent. He has shown a keen interest in the price of land and the finances of farming, which struck me as having its meaning."
They had now nearly reached the bluff and a horseman in khaki uniform rode out of it to meet them.
"I\'ve been over to your place," he said to George, when he had dismounted. "I was sent to show you a photograph and ask if you can recognize anybody in it?"
He untied a packet and George studied the picture handed him. It showed the rutted main street of a little western town, with the sunlight on a row of wooden buildings. In the distance a band of cattle were being driven forward by two mounted men; nearer at hand a few wagons stood outside a livery stable; and in the foreground three or four figures occupied the veranda of a frame hotel. The ease of their attitudes suggested that they did not know they were being photographed, and their faces were distinct. George looked triumphantly excited and unhesitatingly laid a finger on one face.
"This is the man that drove off Mr. Grant\'s Percheron and stabbed my horse."
The trooper produced a thin piece of card and a small reading-glass.
"Take another look through this; it came along with the photograph.
Now, would you be willing to swear to him?"
"I\'ll be glad to do so, if I have the chance. Shall I put a mark against the fellow?"
"Not on that!" The trooper handed George the card, which proved to be a carefully drawn key-plan of the photograph, with the figures outlined. "You can mark this one."
George did as he was told, and then handed the photograph to Flora.
"How did your people get it?" he asked the trooper.
"I can\'t say; they don\'t go into explanations."
"But what do you think? Did Flett take the photograph?"
"No, sir; I heard him tell the sergeant he knew nothing about a camera.
He may have got somebody to take it or may have bought the thing."
"Do you know where he is?"
"I only know he got special orders after Mr. Grant was robbed. It\'s my idea he was somewhere around when the photograph was taken."
"I wonder where it was taken? In Alberta, perhaps, though I\'m inclined to think it was on the other side of the frontier."
"That is my opinion," said Flora. "There\'s not a great difference between us and our neighbors, but the dress of the mounted men and the style of the stores are somehow American. I\'d say Montana, or perhaps Dakota."
"Montana," said the trooper. "The big bunch of cattle seems to fix it."
"Then you think Flett is over there?" asked George. "I\'m interested, so is Miss Grant, and you needn\'t be afraid of either of us spreading what you say."
"It\'s my notion that Flett has spotted his men, but I guess he\'s now watching out near the boundary in Canada. These rustler fellows can\'t do all their business on one side; they\'ll have to cross now and then. Flett\'s in touch with some of the American sheriffs, who\'ll give him the tip, and the first time the fellows slip over the frontier he\'ll get them. That would suit everybody better and save a blamed lot of formalities."
Flora nodded.
"It strikes me as very likely; and Flett\'s perhaps the best man you could have sent. But have you shown the photograph to my father?"
"I did that before I left the homestead. There\'s nobody in the picture like the fellow who drove with Mr. Grant, and he tells me he saw nobody else. Now I must be getting on."
He rode away, and Flora reverted to the topic she and George had been discussing.
"So you believe Mr. West is thinking of living here altogether! I suppose he would be able to take a farm of moderate size?"
"It wouldn\'t be very large; he can\'t have much money, but his people would help him to make a start if they were satisfied. That means they would consult me."
Flora smiled.
"And you feel you would be in a difficult position, if you were asked whether it would be wise to let him marry a prairie girl? Have you formed any decision about the matter?"
She spoke in an indifferent tone, but George imagined that she was interested.
"I can\'t see why he shouldn\'t do so."
"Think a little. West has been what you call well brought up, he\'s fastidious, and I haven\'t found English people free from social prejudices. Could you, as his friend, contemplate his marrying the daughter of a storekeeper in a rather primitive wester............