uperintendent Finnan led the way beyond the cars into the open. A mile
distant, and hidden from the boarding-train by the cars on the sidings,
was a depression in the prairie bordered with low scrub. "We'll have a
look there," he said.

Some minutes later they stood in the bottom of the miniature valley,
beside the unmistakably fresh hoofprints of a hobbled pony.

The official was grimly silent as they retraced their steps toward the
construction-train. They had almost reached it when Alex, who had been
examining the fragments of burned shavings, broke the silence. "Mr.
Finnan, let me see the bit of shaving we found by the rear car, please."
There was a touch of excitement in Alex's voice, and the superintendent
halted.

"What is it?" he asked as he produced the whittling.

Alex glanced at it, and smiling, placed it beside two of the charred
fragments in his hand. "Look at these little ridges, sir! The same knife
whittled them all. The blade had two small nicks in it.

"All we have to do now, sir, is to find the owner of the knife!"

"A bright idea, Ward! Splendid!" exclaimed the superintendent heartily.

"But," he added as they moved on, "how are we going to find him? We can't
very well round up the whole Dog Rib country, and hold a jack-knife
inspection."

They came within sight of the bleached-out dining-cars. Basking in the
morning sun on the steps of one of the old coaches was the figure of a
young Indian, who had come from no one knew where the first day of their
arrival, and had attached himself to the kitchen department.

Alex laid his hand on the superintendent's arm. "Mr. Finnan, why not try
Little Hawk?"

"It occurred to me just as you spoke. I will. Right now.

"You go on in to breakfast, Ward," he directed. "And say nothing of our
suspicions or discoveries."

"Very well, sir."

The members of the telegraph-car party were leaving for the diner as Alex
appeared.

"Hello, Ward! Catch the early worm?" inquired one of the track-foremen
jocularly.

"You mean, 'did he shoot it?'" corrected a time-clerk.

At this there was a general laugh, and glancing about for an explanation,
Alex saw Elder, Superintendent Finnan's personal clerk and aide de camp,
hastily remove a cartridge-belt and revolver from his waist and toss them
into his bunk.

Elder was the one unpopular man in the telegraph-car. An undersized,
aggressively important individual, just out of college, and affecting a
stylish khaki hun