d been stung. He
turned to the boy, his eyes flashing.

"Boy!" he said, "did you see the stump of that dead tree!"

"I didn't notice," said Wilbur wonderingly.

The old woodsman picked up his ax, and led the way back to the dead
tree.

Wilbur looked at the base of the tree.

"It isn't a windfall," he said; "it's been cut."

"Where's the stump?" asked Rifle-Eye.

The boy looked within a radius of a few feet, then looked up at the
hunter.

"Where's the stump?" repeated the old man.

Wilbur turned back and searched for five minutes. Not a stump could he
find that fitted the tree. None had been cut for some time, and none at
all of so small a girth.

"I can't find any," he admitted shamefacedly, afraid that the Ranger
would prove him wrong in some way.

"Nor can I," said Rifle-Eye. "Well?"

"Then I guess there isn't one there," said the boy.

"How did the tree get there?"

Wilbur looked at him, reflecting the question that he saw in the other's
eyes.

"It couldn't get there of itself," he said, "and it was cut, too."

"An' wheel-tracks?"

"There were tracks," said the boy, "I'm sure of that."

"When a cut tree is found lyin' all by itself," said the Ranger, "with
wagon tracks leadin' up to it an' away from it, it don't need a city
detective to find out that some one dropped it there. An' when that dead
tree is full of bark-beetle, an' there ain't none in the forest, that
sure looks suspicious. An' when you find two of 'em jest the same way,
with beetle in both, an' wheel-tracks near both, ye don't have to have a
dog's nose to scent somethin's doin' that ain't over nice."

"But who," said Wilbur indignantly, "would do a trick like that?"

"The man that drove that wagon," said the old hunter. "I reckon, son,
you an' me'll do a little trailin' an' see where those wheels lead us."

They left the place where the tree was lying and followed the faint mark
of the wheels. In a few minutes they crossed the line of the
Supervisor's inspection and he called to them.

"Hi, Rifle-Eye," he said, "you're away off the line."

"I know," said the old Ranger, "but I've got a plan of my own."

Merritt shrugged his shoulders, but he knew that Rifle-Eye never wasted
his time, and he said no more. The old hunter and the boy walked on
nearly a quarter of a mile, and there they found the tracks running
beside a tiny gully, and a little distance down this, just as it had
been thrown, was another of these small trees, e