Grant swung round toward the remaining men.

“You two will watch out behind the woodstack or in the granary.  No stranger’s to come near house or stable.”

“The woodpile,” said Flora, with a hard white face and an ominous sparkle in her eyes.  “You would command the outbuildings there.  If anybody tries to creep up at night, call once, and then shoot to kill.”

Edgar saw that she meant her instructions to be carried out; but he forced a smile.

“And this is the Canadian wheat-belt, which I was told was so peaceful and orderly!”

“It looks as if you had been misinformed,” Flora rejoined with a cold collectedness which he thought of as dangerous.  “One, however, now and then hears of violent crime in London.”

They were mounted in a few minutes, and after a hard ride the party broke up at dawn, dispersing so that each member of it could make independent search and inquiries at the scattered homesteads.  Meeting places and means of communication were arranged; but Flora and her father rode together, pushing on steadily southward over the vast gray plain.  Little was said except when they called at some outlying farm, but Grant now and then glanced at the girl’s set face with keenly scrutinizing eyes.  In the middle of the scorching afternoon he suggested that she should await his return at a homestead in the distance, but was not surprised when she uncompromisingly refused.  They spent the night at a small ranch, borrowed fresh horses in the morning, and set out again; but they found no trace of the fugitives during the day, and it was evening when Edgar and Grierson joined them, as arranged, at a lonely farm.  The two men rode in wearily on jaded horses, and Flora, who was the first to notice their approach, went out to meet them.

“Nothing?” she said, when she saw their dejected faces.

“Nothing,” Edgar listlessly answered.  “If the people we have seen aren’t in league with the rustlers—­and I don’t think that’s probable—­the fellows must have gone a different way.”

“They’ve gone south!” Flora insisted.  “We may be a little too far to the east of their track.”

“Then, we must try a different line of country tomorrow.”

The farmer’s wife had promised to find Flora quarters, the men were offered accommodation in a barn, and when the air cooled sharply in the evening, Edgar walked out on to the prairie with the girl.  She had kept near him since his arrival, but he was inclined to believe this was rather on account of his association with George than because she found any charm in his society.  By and by, they sat down on a low rise from which they could see the sweep of grass run on, changing to shades of blue and purple, toward the smoky red glare of sunset on its western rim.  To the south, it was all dim and steeped in dull neutral tones, conveying an idea of vast distance.

Flora shivered, drawing her thin linen jacket together while she buttoned it, and Edgar noticed something beneath it that broke the outline of her waist.