George gave her one, and after walking up and down and standing for a few moments on a low mound, she chose a position and began the sketch.  It was soon finished, but it depicted the scene with distinctness, with the bull standing in the open a little to one side of the clump of scrub.  George started as he saw that she had roughly indicated the figure of a man lying upon the little mound with a rifle in his hand.  It struck him that she was right.

“It’s a picture,” said the constable; “but why did you put that fellow yonder?”

“Come and see.”

They followed her to the mound, and after an inspection of it, Flett nodded.

“You’d make a mighty smart tracker, Miss Grant.  I was against this mound being the firing place, because, to get to it, the fellow would have to come out into the open.”

“Would that count?  It was a bull he was after.”

“It was,” Flett agreed.  “This fixes the thing.”

George looked at him meaningly.

“Have you made up your mind about anything else?”

“Oh, yes,” said Flett.  “It was done with malicious mischief.  If a poor white or an Indian meant to kill a beast for meat, he wouldn’t pick a bull worth a pile of money, at least while there was common beef stock about.”

“Then what do you mean to do?”

Flett smiled.

“Sooner or later, I’m going to put handcuffs on the man who did this thing.  If you’ll give me the sketch, Miss Grant, I’ll take it along.”

Flora handed it to him, and he and Edgar went away shortly afterward, leaving George with the girl.  She sat still, looking down at him when he had helped her to the saddle.

“I’m afraid you have a good many difficulties to face,” she said.

“Yes,” assented George.  “A dry summer is bad for wheat on my light soil, and that is why I thought of going in for stock.”  He paused with a rueful smile.  “It doesn’t promise to be a great improvement, if I’m to have my best beasts shot.”

She pointed to the west.  The grass about them was still scorched with fierce sunshine, but leaden cloud-masses, darkly rolled together with a curious bluish gleam in them, covered part of the sky.

“This time it will rain,” she said.  “We will be fortunate if we get no more than that.  Try to remember, Mr. Lansing, that bad seasons are not the rule in western Canada, and one good one wipes out the results of several lean years.”

Then she rode away, and George joined Edgar.  He felt that he had been given a warning.  On reaching home, he harnessed a team and drove off to a sloo to haul in hay, but while he worked he cast anxious glances at the clouds.  They rolled on above him in an endless procession, opening out to emit a passing blaze of sunshine, and closing in again.  The horses were restless, he could hardly get them to stand; the grasses stirred and rustled in a curious manner; and even the little gophers that scurried away from the wagon wheels displayed an unusual and feverish activity.  Yet there was not a drop of rain, and the man toiled on in savage impatience, wondering whether he must once more resign himself to see the promised deluge pass away.