Leland was wrapped to the eyes in an old fur coat, and his breath rose like steam into the dead still air. A cloud of thin vapour floated above the horses. It was exceptionally cold, and Gallwey, who sat half-frozen beneath the piled-up robes, wondered why his companion had pulled the team up there when they were within some twenty minutes' ride from shelter. Still he did not consider it advisable to inquire, for certain colts of a blooded sire had been missing, and Leland, who had shown signs of temper during the day, looked unusually grim. Flinging the reins to Gallwey, he stepped down stiffly from the sleigh. "Drive on slowly, Tom. You don't want to keep a warm team standing in this frost," he said. Gallwey contrived to clutch the reins, though his hands were numbed through the big mittens. "What are you going to do?" he asked. "Look at these tracks," said Leland drily. "They kind of interest me." Gallwey spoke to the team, and the sleigh, which consisted of a light waggon-box mounted on a runner frame, slid on. Sleighs such as are used about the Eastern cities are not common in the Northwest, where, indeed, the snow seldom lies so deep or long; and the prairie farmer either makes shift with his waggon or contents himself with the humble bob-sled. He now noticed what he had been too cold to notice before, that there was something peculiar about the print of hoofs breaking out here and there, a blur of scattered blue smudges in the trail he followed. Some seemed deeper than others, and there were long spaces where they disappeared altogether. This did not seriously concern him, so he drove on until he reached the first grove of stunted birches which clung beneath the shelter of a winding rise. Here he waited until Leland rejoined him. It was quite dark now, and he could not see his comrade's face at all, but, as he flung himself into the sleigh, he laughed in a fashion of his that Gallwey knew usually portended trouble. "Go on," Leland said. "I want my supper, and a little talk with Jeff Kimball, too. One would have figured that man had a little more sense in him. It's 'most two weeks, I think, since you had any snow?" "A week last Monday. Just enough to dust the trail. Is there anything particular to be deduced from that?" "Only that we had the rustlers round next day, and I've a kind of notion my colts went then." Gallwey sat silent while the sleigh glided on. He did not know, of course, that Leland had quarrelled with his wife, but he had noticed the man's grimness during the day, and now he was struck with the ring of his voice as he spoke of the rustlers.