A NIGHT RIDE
It was six o’clock in the evening. Curtis had just finished his supper and sat drowsily content in his quarters at the police post after being out in the frost all day. The temperature had steadily fallen since morning and the cold was now intensified by a breeze that drove scattered clouds across the moon and flung fine snow against the board walls, but the stove, which glowed a dull red, kept the room comfortable. A nickeled lamp shed down a cheerful light, and the tired corporal looked forward to a long night’s rest. Private Stanton sat near him, cleaning a carbine.
“It’s curious you have heard nothing from Regina since you sent up those clothes,” he remarked. “It looked pretty bad for Prescott.”
“I don’t know,” said Curtis. “Have you ever seen him with that suit on?”
“No.”
“Nor has anybody else, so far as I can learn. There’s another point—the land agent talked of a tall, stoutish man. You wouldn’t call Prescott that.”
“Those clothes were ’most as good as new; he might have only had them on the once,” Stanton persisted.
“That’s what struck me; I don’t know how they looked so good, if they’d been lying where Jernyngham found them, since last summer.”
“It’s a thing I might have thought of.”
“You have a good deal to learn yet.” Curtis smiled tolerantly.