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 noiseless under foot. Unwise as it was to go very far from his horse, perilous as it might turn out to be to go poking his nose into the mysteries of that place, he decided to risk an investigation up the little stream for a look at that big log stable, or whatever it was, behind the corral.

He darted across the road from fringe to fringe of hazel brush. The rain was making a somnolent soft little patter on the leaves, so comfortable to hear when one is under shelter, no neglected duty to disturb his conscience. Not so comfortable when a man goes bent among the bushes, the drippings from broad hickory and pawpaw leaves spilling down his neck.

Less than half way to the stable the brush ended. Here were walnut trees, slim and tall, and a few bur oaks, thick-boled, broad-spreading, the ground under them trampled by hogs and strewn with the acorn shells from their feasting.

Simpson stopped, hesitating in the edge of the bushes. From where he had advanced he could not see as much as from the road. The same sleepy quietude prevailed around the place. Up the stream a distance he heard the friendly chatter of the ducks. That was all. He determined to risk it. After all, he might be spying on a fairly innocent place, with no more mystery or danger about it than the ordinary homestead. Only the horses had gone in there. What he wanted to know was, had they come out?

He could not believe Wade Harrison had made this place headquarters for his stolen horses when alive, granted that he was dead, or that his successors in the