My father smiled. "You have a lawyer's nose," he said, "but fortunately you can keep a still tongue. I'm taking care of O'mie's case right now. By the way," he went on after a short pause. "I sent you out on an errand Saturday. That's another difficult case, a land claim I'm trying to prove for a party. There are two claimants. Tell Mapleson is the counsel for the other one. It's a really dangerous case in some ways. You were to go and spy out the land. What did you see? Anything except a pretty girl?" My face was burning. "Oh, I understand. You found a place out there to stand, and now you think you can move the world." "I found something I want to speak of besides. Oh, well--I'm not ashamed of caring for Marjie." "No, no, my boy. You are right. You found the best thing in the world. I found it myself once, by a moonlit sea, not on the summer prairie; but it is the same eternal blessing. Now go on." "Well, father, you said the place was uninhabited. But it isn't. Somebody is about there now." "Did you see any one, or is it just a wayside camp for movers going out on the trail?" "I am not sure that I saw any one, and yet--" "Tell me all you know, and all you suspect, and why you have conclusions," he said gravely. "I caught just a glimpse, a mere flirt of a red blanket with a white centre, the kind Jean Pahusca used to wear. It was between the corner of the house and the hazel-brush thicket, as if some one were making for the timber." "Did you follow it?" "N--no, I could hardly say I saw anything; but thinking about it afterwards, I am sure somebody was getting out of sight." "I see." My father looked straight at me. I knew his mind, and I blushed and pulled at the tassel of the window cord. "Be careful. The county has to pay for curtain fixtures. What else?" "Well, inside the cabin there were fresh ashes and a half-burned stick on the hearth. By a chair under the table I picked this up." I handed him the bow of purple ribbon with the flashing pin. "It must be movers, and as to that red flash of color, are you real sure it was not just a part of the rose-hued world out there?" He smiled as he spoke. "Father, that bow was on Lettie Conlow's head not an hour before it was lost out there. She found out where we were going, and she put out northwest on Tell Mapleson's pony. She may have taken the river path. It is the shortest way. Why should she go out there?" "Do some thinking for yourself. You are a man now, twenty-one, and one day over. You can unravel this part." He sat with impenetrable face, waiting for me to speak. "I do not know. Lettie Conlow has always been silly about--about the boys. All the young folks say she likes me, has always liked me." "How much cause have you given her? Be sure your memory is clear." My father spoke sternly.