He turned in his saddle and looked at the others.
Their faces were clear in the moonlight, and Alison felt that they at least had nothing to conceal; but the corporal did not look quite satisfied with the assurances they offered him. Addressing two or three, one after another, he interrogated them sharply.
"I'll have to trouble you to lead up your horses, boys," he said at length.
They did it with some grumbling, and when the corporal was convinced that not a beast was missing, he turned to Thorne.
"Oh, yes," replied Thorne carelessly, though he had dreaded this question.
The corporal swung round and looked at his companion, who had quietly slipped away for a few minutes when they first rode in.
"There's one beast hobbled by the creek," announced the trooper. "I can see no sign of the other."
"Do you feel like making any explanation?"
"No. If you have anything against me I'll leave you to prove it."
The corporal then turned to one of the guests.
"You rode in. Where did you put your saddle?"
"No," admitted the man; "I may as well allow that I can't, if the trooper has been round counting them."
"Well," he said, "what we have to do first of all is to pick up Winthrop's trail. It's quite likely we'll have a word for Thorne and you later."
He spoke to his companion and they rode out across the prairie. When they disappeared, Thorne called to the fiddler to strike up another tune, and the dance went on again.
Farquhar was sitting with his wife and Alison on the stoop in the cool of the evening a week or two after the house-raising, when Thorne rode up out of the prairie, leading a second horse. He tethered the two beasts to a fence before he approached the house, and Alison noticed that he looked very lean and jaded. He sat down wearily and flung off his hat when he had greeted the party.
"I've come to borrow your mower, Farquhar," he announced. "I suppose I may as well get some hay in."
"You don't seem very sure about it," remarked Farquhar.
"As a matter of fact, I'm not enthusiastic about cutting that hay. I've been putting in sixteen hours a day lately, and I expect I'm getting a little stale. Among other things, I'd got most of the shingles on the house when one of the boys came along and told me I'd fixed them wrong. Then the police have been round again worrying me."