f it, and borrowing a fresh team, he drove away with the wagon. When
he reached Sage Butte it was getting dusk. He hitched the horses
outside of the better of the two hotels and entered in search of food,
as he had still a long ride before him. Supper had long been finished,
and Flett was kept waiting for some time, but he now and then glanced
at the wagon. It was dark when he drove away, after seeing that the
case lay where he had left it, and he had reached his post before he
made a startling discovery. When he carried the case into the
lamplight, it looked smaller, and on hastily opening it he found it was
filled with soil!

He sat down and thought; though on the surface the matter was clear--he
had been cleverly outwitted by somebody who had exchanged the case
while he got his meal. This, as he reflected, was not the kind of
thing for which a constable got promoted; but there were other points
that required attention. The substitution had not been effected by
anybody connected with the Queen's; it was, he suspected, the work of
some of the frequenters of the Sachem; and he and his superiors had to
contend with a well-organized gang. News of what had happened in the
bluff had obviously been transmitted to the settlement while he had
rested at Lansing's homestead. He had, however, made a long journey,
and as he would have to ride on and report the matter to his sergeant
in the morning, he went to sleep.

The next day George was setting out on a visit to Grant when a man rode
up and asked for the team.

"Flett can't get over, but he wants the horses at the post, so as to
have them handy if he finds anybody who can recognize them," he
explained.

That sounded plausible, but George hesitated. The animals would be of
service as a clue to their owner and a proof of his complicity in the
affair. As they had not been identified, it would embarrass the police
if they were missing.

"I can only hand them over to a constable, unless you have brought a
note from Flett," he replied.

"Then, as I haven't one, you'll beat me out of a day's pay, and make
Flett mighty mad. Do you think he'd get anybody who might know the
team to waste a day riding out to your place? Guess the folks round
here are too busy, and they'd be glad of the excuse that it was so far.
They won't want to mix themselves up in this thing."

George could find no fault with this reasoning, but he thought the
fellow was a little too eager to se