qually filled with
beetle.

"I don't think we'll find any stump to this one, either," said Wilbur
gleefully, for he saw that they were on the right track.

"You will not," replied the other sternly. After they had girdled the
infected trees again the Ranger shouldered his ax and, abandoning the
tracks of the wheels, started straight for headquarters.

At supper all sorts of conjectures were expressed as to the cause of the
pest, its extent, and similar matters, but Rifle-Eye said nothing.
Wilbur was so full of the news that he was hardly able to eat anything
for the information he was just bursting to give. But he kept it in.
Finally, when the men had all finished and pipes were lighted, the old
Ranger spoke, in his slow, drawling way, and every one stopped to
listen.

"There's five of ye," he said, "that's found beetle, isn't there?"

"Yes," answered the Supervisor, "five."

"And I venture to bet," he continued, "that you found a dead tree lyin'
in the middle of the infected patch!"

"Yes," said several voices, "we did."

"An' you didn't find much beetle except just round that one tree?"

"Not a bit," said one or two. "What about it?"

"There's a kind o' disease called Cholera," began Rifle-Eye in a
conversational tone, "that drifts around a city in a queer sort o' way.
It never hits two places at the same time, but if it goes up a street,
it sort o' picks one side, an' stops at one place for a while then goes
travelin' on. It acts jest as if a man was walkin' around, an' he was
the cholera spirit himself."

"Well?" queried the Supervisor sharply.

The old Ranger smiled tolerantly at his impatience.

"Wa'al," he said, "I ain't believin' or disbelievin' the yarn. But I
ain't believin' any such perambulatin' spirit for a bark-beetle.
Especially when I finds wagon tracks leading to each place where the
trouble is."

"What do you mean, Rifle-Eye?" asked Merritt. "Give it to us straight."

"I mean," he said, "that I ain't never heard of spirits needin' wagons
to get around in. An' when I find dead trees containin' bark-beetles
planted promiscuous where they'll do most good, I'm aimin' to draw a
bead on the owner o' that wagon. An' I'll ask another thing. Did any o'
you find the stumps of them infected trees?"

There was a long pause, and then McGinnis, always the first to see,
laughed out loud ruefully.

"'Tis a black sorrow to me," he said, "that I didn't let Ben welt him
wid the ax the other day. Som