“No?” swiftly.  “Where is he?”

Manning’s free hand, his distorted hand, caught at the table before him.

“That’s what I came to ask you,” he returned equally swiftly.  “He came here, to work for you, six months ago, when he left Bess.  Do you mean to tell me you don’t know where he is gone?”

Face to face the two men sat staring at each other.  The sounds from the lean-to had ceased.  In the silence they could hear each other breathing.  For perhaps a minute they sat so; while bit by bit on the rancher’s face incredulity merged into belief, and belief into understanding perfect.

“Know where he is?  Of course I do—­now.”  He leaned back in his chair.  “To think that I never suspicioned who he was all the time he was here, or even when he left.  I’m an ass, an ass!”

He did not now.  “Tell me where he is, if you know.”

“About twelve miles from here, unless he’s changed camp in the last week.”  The rancher looked at the other understandingly.  “He worked for me until about a month ago.  Then he left and started away alone.  We never got a word out of him while he was here, not even his name.”  Of a sudden came realisation complete, and his great bony fist crashed on the board.  “I’m dull as a post, but I begin to understand at last, and I’m with you absolutely.  I’ll take you there to-night, it won’t be a two-hour drive.  I’ll hitch up right now if you’re ready.”

For the first time in the last tense minutes Manning relaxed.  The hand on the chair arm loosened its grip.

“I’m glad you know where he is,” he said unemotionally.  “I don’t think we’ll go to-night, though.”  He fumbled in his pocket and produced two fresh cigars.  One he slid across the table to the other man and lit its mate carefully.  “I don’t think we’d better both go anyway.  In the morning you can fit me out with a fresh team, if you will.  I crowded things a bit on the way up.”

For a moment the rancher sat staring at his guest blankly, unbelievingly; then for the second time came understanding.

“Perhaps after all you’re right,” he acquiesced.  “It’s only eighty miles, and there’s plenty of time.”

Beneath the craggy brows the blaze still glowed undimmed in the old storekeeper’s deep-set eyes.

“Yes, there’s plenty of time—­after How Landor knows,” he said.

* * * * *

In the midst of the prairie wilderness Providence had placed a tiny dawdling creek.  At a point where the creek wandered through a spot a shade lower than the surrounding country, man, a man, had builded a dam.  In the fulness of time the accumulated water had formed a fair-sized pond that glittered and shimmered in the sunlight, until from a little altitude it could be seen for miles.  To this pond, for open water was very, very scarce on the prairie in September, came water fowl from near and afar; from no man knew where.  As steel filings respond