rd himsel'."

"Don't you worry now! I paid only a dollar and a half for the spurs,
and I have had that much wear out of them, so they don't owe me
anything."

At the same time, Phil himself worried considerably over the matter,
for closer inspection betrayed the fact that his little box of private
papers and letters had been burst open and examined; also that his
leather letter-case--in fact everything likely to contain documents of
any kind--had been scrutinised.

As he bathed and dressed himself, he still worried, until it occured
to him that this might be some of Brenchfield's doings. He wondered,
and then he laughed to himself at the chances the would-be thief had
taken to get--nothing.

Once more Phil lost patience with himself, as he thought of his
foolishness in getting rid of that confession of Brenchfield's; and
yet, in destroying it he had merely acted up to the feeling and good
intentions he had had at the time.

He took a turn outside. At the top of the hill, at the corner, little
Smiler, with a cleaner face than usual, ran out from the end of a
house and stood up in front of Phil.

"Hullo kiddie! What's the good word?"

Smiler just grinned.

"Smiler!" inquired Phil, "you see a little man to-day on a brown horse
with a white eye?"

Smiler looked as serious as was possible for his permanently crooked
face, then he nodded intelligently. He pointed to his leg and went a
few steps limping.

"Yes, yes!" exclaimed Phil, "horse got a lame leg!"

Smiler nodded.

"Where did you see him?"

Smiler pointed in the direction of the hill.

"Up near my place?"

The boy nodded again.

"Where did he go?"

Smiler shook his head this time.

"Too bad!" exclaimed Phil.

"If you see him again, anywhere, Smiler, run in and tell me, will you?
I'll be at the Kenora for a bit."

Smiler nodded, delighted that he was going to have a chance to be of
service to the big man he had taken such a fancy to.

"Here!" Phil handed him twenty-five cents, and the boy ran off in the
direction of the Chinese restaurant.

Phil continued down the street, knowing that if the little man on the
lame brown horse with the white eye was still in town, it would not be
long before Smiler would have him wise to it.

He strolled into the dining-room of the Kenora and ordered his
lunch. And, as he waited, in came an old acquaintance in all his
high-coloured and picturesque splendour--Percival DeRue Hannington.

Hannington spotte