not estimate where. It was their
purpose to leave no creek, or lake, or yard of the great river
unexplored, until the secret was yielded up.

"And when we find him, what then?" the doctor exclaimed in a desperate
fashion. "Maybe he's sick. Maybe--whatever it is we've got to heal him,
and break him at the same time. God!"

"Yes." Jack Belton turned his dark eyes on his companion. They were hot
with feeling. "Say, Doc, I'm crazy to find that boy, and find him
cursing the skitters with a wholesome vocabulary, same as you and me.
But I'd hand over my Commission in the force with pleasure to my biggest
enemy rather than pass him the dope you and me need to."

The Scotsman nodded, and the kindly face reflected the bitterness of his
feelings.

"And I handed him my promise, and Millie's," he aid. "He was crazy about
them both--God help him."

"Poor devil!"

The great valley was lit from end to end by the last flaming rays of the
setting summer sun. The green carpet was dotted by a thousand wooded
bluffs, and a wonderful tracery of watercourses caught and reflected
the dying light. Not a breath of air stirred. And the warm, cloudless
evening was alive with the hum of insects, and the incessant chorus of
the frogs at the water's edge. Now and again the far-off cry of coyote
or wolf came dolefully across the trackless grass. For the rest a
wonderful peace reigned--that peace which belongs to the wilderness
where human habitation has not yet been set up.

It had been a tremendous time for both these men, and for those under
the Inspector's command. The whole thing had been an exhibition of human
energy, rarely to be witnessed. It had all been the result of an episode
on a similar, calm summer afternoon, which would remain for all time a
landmark in the doctor's life.

He had been reading in his shanty surgery on the Allowa Reserve. The
stream of his medicine-loving patients had ceased to flow. The little
room was heavy with the reek of his pipe. So he had risen from his chair
and passed to the door for a breath of air. It was then that he was
confronted by a gaudy coloured apparition. An Indian, whose race was
foreign to him, was patiently sitting on the back of a mean-looking
skewbald pony, clad in a parti-coloured blanket of flaming hues. The
moment Ross appeared in the doorway the Indian produced a crumpled,
folded paper from the folds of his blanket and offered it to him without
a word.

He accepted it with a keen