When Lyndsay walked up the beach at the Island Camp, it was already dark. In the dinner-tent, on camp-stools, the two men were gaily discussing such events as in a fishing camp are always uppermost—how this or that salmon behaved, the weather, the water, or the eternal black-flies.

The cook had just set on the table a dish of broiled salmon, and said, as he did so:

“There’s a canoe at the beach—Mr. Lyndsay, I think.”

“Come to ask your intentions, Fred,” said Ellett, laughing.

“Hush, I hear him coming. I wonder what it is he wants.” As Carington spoke, he threw open the fly of the tent. “Come in, Mr. Lyndsay; you are just in time. Bring the soup back, Jim.”

“Thanks. How are you, Mr. Ellett? Yes, I will dine with you, and with pleasure. No soup, thank you,” and he sat down.

For a while there was the ordinary talk of the river, and when, finally, they were left with the tobacco and cigars, Lyndsay having declined the rye whisky, he said:

348“I came up to get a little help from you. We have had to-day a very singular and quite unpleasant incident. There is no one can overhear us?”

“No one. I need hardly say how heartily we are at your service. Pray go on. May I ask what has troubled you?”

“Of course. I came to tell you, and then to ask your help or advice. You know all these river men?”

“Almost all, even the lumber-gangs.”

“I thought so. I shall be brief. Last year we buried my youngest child here. I had set up at the head of the grave a simple white stone. To-day I went up with Mrs. Lyndsay to see that it was all in order. To our horror the stone was gone. Of course my wife was painfully disturbed. The grave was trampled; the wild rose-bushes we had set around in a little thicket were beaten down. That is the whole story. I am, as you may fancy, greatly annoyed. I felt that, with your knowledge of the men hereabouts, you might possibly give me some clue. I owe you every apology,” and he turned to Ellett, “for thrusting so personal a calamity into the hours of a holiday, but—”

“You could not have found two people more willing.”

“Thank you.”

“Let me ask you a few questions,” said Carington.

“Of course.”

The young man reflected a moment, and then in quick succession put his queries.

“Have you gone over the place?”

“Yes,” and he told the little he had seen.

349“Was it a dugout?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“I will look to-morrow, early. Were there several people?”

“The foot-marks seemed alike—the usual many-nailed boot. I did not measure them.”

“I will. The beach is clay up there. Has any one cause to injure you?”

“No one. My wife has been, as usual, all goodness to these poor people.”

“I see no possible motive,” said Ellett.

“Wait a bit, Oliver. The grave had not been opened?”

“Great Heaven! No.”

“Why should a man want a tombstone?” said Ellett. “An insane person might have done it.”

“No,” returned Carington, thoughtfully. “No, there are none here. No, some one wanted that stone. Why!—by George, I hate to suspect the poor devil!”

“Who?”

“It is a mere guess, a suspicion. I have an idea that Joe Colkett stole that stone.”

“It is a little odd. That, exactly, is my sister’s conclusion.”

“Indeed!”

“Yes. Being a woman, she had no reason to give, or none worth anything; and yet I myself am enough inclined to agree with her to want to make sure as to whether there is any evidence to be had. It is a thing to punish.”

“I think so. The man is in pretty sore straits about money. But it cannot be any motive involving 350money, and yet—however, it is useless to talk about it. The first thing is to go over the ground with care. Let me do that—early to-morrow. Ah, to-day is Wednesday; I must go to Mackenzie to-morrow. That I can’t let wait. A man is to meet me there about my cabin. Can this thing rest a day?”

“Yes, I shall stay over Sunday. We had meant to go out on Saturday.”

“Then I will call late to-morrow night for your boy—as we come back, I mean.”

“One moment: I have thought best not to tell the boys. It can do no good.”

“None. On our return toward camp, I will manage to send Jack off, and will myself slip down to Colkett’s, and will look about me. If necessary, I can talk it out frankly. I think I could know in five minutes all the man knows, if he is in the thing at all.”

“But you w............