s and led them forward by a narrower and
more sheltered trail toward the next stations now scarce a mile away.
The led horses broke a path before them, the snow fell less heavily,
but it was nearly an hour before the straggling procession reached the
house, and the snow-coated and exhausted passengers huddled and steamed
round the red-hot stove in the bar-room. The driver had vanished with
his team into the shed; Masterton's fellow passenger on the box-seat,
after a few whispered words to the landlord, also disappeared.

"I see you've got Jake Poole with you," said one of the bar-room
loungers to Masterton, indicating the passenger who had just left. "I
reckon he's here on the same fool business."

Masterton looked his surprise and mystification.

"Jake Poole, the deputy sheriff," repeated the other. "I reckon he's
here pretendin' to hunt for Montagu Trixit like the San Francisco
detectives that kem up yesterday."

Masterton with difficulty repressed a start. He had heard of Poole, but
did not know him by sight. "I don't think I understand," he said coolly.

"I reckon you're a stranger in these parts," returned the lounger,
looking at Masterton curiously. "Ef you warn't, ye'd know that about the
last man San Francisco or Canada City WANTED to ketch is Monty Trixit!
He knows too much and THEY know it. But they've got to keep up a show
chase--a kind o' cirkis-ridin'--up here to satisfy the stockholders. You
bet that Jake Poole hez got his orders--they might kill him to shut his
mouth, ef they got an excuse--and he made a fight--but he ain't no such
fool. No, sir! Why, the sickest man you ever saw was that director that
kem up here with a detective when he found that Monty HADN'T left the
State."

"Then he IS hiding about here?" said Masterton, with assumed calmness.

The man paused, lowered his voice, and said: "I wouldn't swear he wasn't
a mile from whar we're talkin' now. Why, they do allow that he's taken a
drink at this very bar SINCE the news came!--and that thar's a hoss kept
handy in the stable already saddled just to tempt him ef he was inclined
to scoot."

"That's only a bluff to start him goin' so that they kin shoot him in
his tracks," said a bystander.

"That ain't no good ef he has, as they SAY he has, papers stowed away
with a friend that would frighten some mighty partickler men out o'
their boots," returned the first speaker. "But he's got his spies too,
and thar ain't a man that crosses the Divi