"Then what makes you think I'll believe it now?"

"To be honest, I don't care whether you do or not."

Curtis sat silent a few moments.

"What you have told me amounts to this," he then summed up: "you have heard of a man who seems to look like Cyril Jernyngham."

"It's as much to the purpose that he acts like him. I've told you all I learned about his doings and you can judge for yourself. You knew the man."

"So do you," said Curtis pointedly.

Prescott smiled.

"Leave it at that. I want you to find out whether I'm correct or not. You made some inquiries along the new line?"

"We didn't go far west," Curtis admitted. "There were difficulties, and we couldn't see much reason for the search. It was quite clear to me that Jernyngham was knocked out near the muskeg." He looked hard at Prescott.

"It isn't easy to change that opinion."

"It seems your duty to test it. Even if the thing costs some trouble, can't you instruct your people in Alberta to find out whether a man called Kermode worked in any of the construction camps, and if they're satisfied that he answers Jernyngham's description, to have him followed up in British Columbia?"

"There's a point you haven't got hold of," Curtis replied. "When you struck a camp, asking after your partner, the boys were ready to talk to you; but it's quite different when a trooper comes along. I wouldn't have much use for anything they told him."

Prescott realized the truth of this. Traveling on foot in search of a working comrade, he had been received by the railroad hands as one of themselves; but he knew that men with checkered careers which would not bear investigation found refuge among the toilers on the new lines, and that even those who had nothing to fear would consider reticence becoming when questioned by the police. The only excuse for loquacity would be the sending of an inquisitive constable on a fruitless expedition.

"Then can't you try the bosses?" he asked.

"I guess they're not likely to have found out much about the man, and the boys wouldn't tell them. However, I'll send up a report and see what can be done."

"Thanks," said Prescott, and then asked bluntly: "What do you make of the brown clothes?"

"So you heard they were found!" said Curtis with some dryness. "I haven't done figuring on the matter yet."

"I don't suppose I'd help you by saying that they don't belong to me."

Curtis looked at him thoughtfully but made no answer for a while. Then:

"Did you ever see anybody wearing a suit like that?" he asked.

"Well," Prescott answered, "I believe I once did, but I can't think who it was. I've been trying hard to remember all day and it may come back."

He got up and Curtis walked to the door with him.

"Frost's keeping pretty keen," he remarked.

Prescott drove away, and the corporal was smoking near the stove when Stanton came in.

"You look as if you'd been studying the Jernyngham case," he said. "I'll allow it's enough to get on your nerves."

"Prescott's been here," replied Curtis. "He's heard those blamed clothes were found, and that's going to make us trouble. We've had Jernyngham interfering and mussing up the tracks, and now Prescott's getting ready to b.u.t.t in. I expect he'll be off to Navarino very soon, and we can't stop him unless we arrest him, which I'm not ready to do."

"Did he tell you he was going?"

"It wasn't needed; I've been figuring out the thing."

"Well," remarked Stanton with a thoughtful air, "he wouldn't let that land agent see him if he'd been guilty."

Curtis reserved his opinion.

"You're getting smart," he said with a grin. "Still, you don't want to hustle."

"Hustle?" Stanton rejoined scornfully. "Jernyngham was killed last summer and we haven't corralled anybody yet!"

"That's so," Curtis a.s.sented tranquilly, "I've heard of the boys getting the right man nearly two years afterward."

CHAPTER XXVI

PRESCOTT MAKES INQUIRIES

Supper was over and Laxton, the land agent, sat in the rotunda of the leading hotel at Navarino. It was a handsome building, worthy of the new town which had sprung into existence on the discovery that a wide belt of somewhat arid country, hitherto pa.s.sed over by settlers, was capable of growing excellent wheat. As soon as this was proved, rude shacks and mean frame houses had been torn down, and banks, stores, and hotels, of stone or steel and cement rose in their places. Great irrigation ditches were dug and a period of feverish prosperity began.

Though the frost was almost arctic outside, the rotunda was pleasantly warm and was dimmed, in spite of its glaring lamps, with a haze of cigar smoke. In front of the great plate-gla.s.s windows rows of men sat in tilted chairs, their feet on a bra.s.s rail, basking in the dry heat of the radiators. Drummers and land speculators were busy writing and consulting maps at the tables farther back among the ornate columns, and the place was filled with the hum of eager voices. The town was crowded with homestead-selectors, and many, braving the rigors of winter, were camping on their new possessions in frail tents and rude board shacks, ready to begin work in the spring. Indeed, determined men had slept in the snow on the sidewalks outside the land offices to secure first attention in the morning when cheap locations were offered for settlement.

Laxton had had a tiring day, and he was leaning back lazily in his chair, watching the crowd, when a man entered the turnstile-door, which was fitted with gla.s.s valves to keep out the cold. He looked about the room as if in search of somebody; and then after speaking to the clerk came toward the land agent. Laxton glanced at him without much interest, having already as much business on his hands as he could manage. The stranger wore an old fur-coat and looked like a rancher.

"Mr. Laxton, I believe," he said, taking the next chair.

The land agent nodded and the other continued:

"My name's Prescott. I've come over from Sebastian to have a talk with you."

"I suppose I'll have to spare you a few minutes," said Laxton with more resignation than curiosity.

"In the first place, I want to ask if you have ever seen me before?"

Laxton looked at him with greater interest. The man's brown face was eager, his eyes were keen, with a sparkle in them that hinted at determination.

"Well," he said, "I can't recollect it."

"Would you be willing to swear to that?"

"Don't know that I'd go quite so far; I don't see why I should."

Prescott took out a sheet of paper with some writing on it.

"Do you recognize that hand?"