don't know; guess it doesn't apply. I could understand his wanting to
get rid of one that belonged to somebody else, after he'd cleaned it out.
Aren't you beginning to understand?"

"Sure," said Stanton eagerly. "The box was Jernyngham's--we'll find out
when he bought it at the hardware store. Then we'll get after Wandle."

"You hustle too much!" Curtis rebuked him, and then sat down with knitted
brows. "Now see here--in a general way, it's convictions we're out for;
you want to count on your verdict before you arrest a man. It comes to
this: he's tried first by us, and if he's to be let off, it saves trouble
if we decide the thing, instead of leaving it to the jury. They won't
tell you that at Regina, but, in practise, you'll find that a police
trooper is expected to use some judgment. Still, there are exceptions to
what I've said about holding back. In the interests of justice, one might
have to corral an innocent man."

"How's that going to serve the interests of justice?"

The corporal's eyes twinkled with dry amusement.

"For one thing, it might lead the fellow we were really after to think we
hadn't struck his trail. But that's not the point. How much ash would you
figure Wandle takes out of his stove each time he lights it?"

"About a bucketful, burning wood."

"Not quite, but there's a bucket yonder. See how many times you can fill
it with the stuff we shoveled off, while I take a smoke. Build up the
pile to look as if we hadn't disturbed it."

Stanton did as he was bidden, counting each bucketful he replaced, and
then Curtis sent him to clean out the stove and estimate the quantity of
ash before he put it back. Then he made a calculation.

"Allowing for some of the ash slipping down the pile and for our having
moved a little that was there before Wandle threw the cash-box in, it
fixes the time he did so pretty close to Jernyngham's disappearance," he
remarked. "Looks bad against the Austrian, doesn't it?"

"You have quite as much against Prescott."

"Yes," Curtis admitted regretfully; "that's the trouble. It isn't quite
so easy being a policeman as folks seem to think. Now we'll ride along
and call on the hardware man."

They mounted and soon afterward saw a buggy emerge from the short pines
on the crest of a distant rise, whereupon Curtis rode hard for a poplar
bluff, which he kept between himself and the vehicle.

"Looks like Wandle coming back," he said to Stanton, who had followed
him. "I can'