ey stopped to rest a few minutes in the shade
of a poplar bluff. It was fiercely hot on the prairie, but the wood
was dim and cool, and George followed Edgar through it in search of
saskatoons. The red berries were plentiful, and they had gone farther
than they intended when George stopped waist-deep in the grass of a dry
sloo, where shallow water had lain in the spring. He nearly fell over
something large and hard. Stooping down, he saw with some surprise
that it was a wooden case.

"I wonder what's in it?" he said.

"Bottles," reported Edgar, pulling up a board of the lid. "One of the
cure-everything tonics, according to the labels. It strikes me as a
curious place to leave it in."

George carefully looked about. He could distinguish a faint track,
where the grasses had been disturbed, running straight across the sloo
past the spot he occupied; but he thought that the person who had made
the track had endeavored to leave as little mark as possible. Then he
glanced out between the poplar trunks across the sunlit prairie. There
was not a house on it; scarcely a clump of timber broke its even
surface. The bluff was very lonely; and George remembered that a trail
which ran near by led to an Indian reservation some distance to the
north. While he considered, Edgar broke in:

"As neither of us requires a pick-me-up, it might be better to leave
the thing where it is."

"That," replied George, "is my own idea."

Edgar looked thoughtful.

"The case didn't come here by accident; and one wouldn't imagine that
tonics are in great demand in this locality. I have, however, heard
the liquor laws denounced; and as a rule it's wise to leave matters
that don't concern you severely alone."

"Just so," said George. "We'll get on again, if you have had enough
berries."

On reaching the homestead, they found a note from Miss Grant inviting
them to come over in the evening; and both were glad to comply with it.
When they arrived, the girl led them into a room where a lady of
middle-age and a young man in clerical attire were sitting with her
father.

"Mrs. Nelson has come over from Sage Butte on a mission," she said,
when she presented them. "Mr. Hardie, who is the Methodist minister
there, is anxious to meet you."

The lady was short and slight in figure but was marked by a most
resolute expression.

"The mission is Mr. Hardie's," she said. "I'm merely his assistant. I
suppose you're a temperance reformer,