ar
on his head."

There was signs of interest and amusement which suggested that Prescott
was on the right track.

"Did he call himself Kermode?" one of the men asked.

Prescott hesitated. It was possible that some of them had heard of the
Jernyngham affair, and he had no wish that they should connect him with
it. While he considered his answer, the man with the English accent broke
in:

"We needn't trouble about the point. One name's as good as another, as
our friend Kermode, who seems to have been a bit of philosopher, remarked
when they put him on the pay-roll."

"When I was back at Nelson a smart policeman rode into the camp," said
another of the group. "Wanted to know if we had seen the man you're
asking for; gave us quite a good description of him. Anyway, I hadn't
seen him then, and when I struck him afterward I didn't send word to the
police. I've no use for those fellows; they're best left alone."

"Then you know him?" Prescott exclaimed eagerly.

The man looked at his comrades and there was a laugh.

"Oh, yes," said one of them; "we know him all right. Glad to meet a man
who's a friend of his; but if you expect a job here, you don't want to
mention it. If another fellow of that kind comes along, the boss will get
after him with a gun."

"Kermode," the Englishman explained, "is a man of happy and original
thoughts. I believe I might say he is unique."

The conversation was interrupted by a steadily increasing rattle, and a
great light that moved swiftly blazed on the camp. It faded as a
ballast-train rolled out upon the bank which traversed the swamp, with a
swarm of indistinct figures clinging to the low cars. When it stopped,
the sides of the cars fell outward, a big plow moved forward from one to
another, and broken rock and gravel, pouring off, went crashing and
rattling down the slope. The noise it made rang harshly through the
stillness of the evening, and when it ceased a whistle screamed and the
clangor of the wheels began again. As the engine backed the train away,
the blaze of the head-lamp fell on an object lying half buried in the
muskeg about sixty feet below the line, and one of the men, pointing to
it, touched Prescott's arm.

"See what that is?" he said.

Prescott saw that it was what the railroad builders call a steel dump: a
metal wagon capable of carrying thirty or forty tons of ballast, with an
automatic arrangement for throwing out its load.

"How did it get there?" he aske