and so have saved the added distance and the hard climb, was a question
which Judson answered briefly: for some reason of his own, Hallock did
not wish to be seen going openly to the Wire-Silver head-quarters. Hence
the drop from the train at Silver Switch and the long tramp up the
gulch and over the ridge.

Forecasting it thus, Judson lost no time on the summit of mysterious
disappearances. Choosing the shortest path he could find which promised
to lead him down to the mining hamlet at the foot of the
westward-fronting slope, he set his feet in it and went stumbling down
the steep declivity, bringing up, finally, on a little bench just above
the mine workings. Here he stopped to get his breath and his bearings.
From his halting-place the mine head-quarters building lay just below
him, at the right of the tunnel entrance to the mine. It was a long log
building of one story, with warehouse doors in the nearer gable and
lighted windows to mark the location of the offices at the opposite end.

Making a detour to dodge the electric-lighted tunnel mouth, Judson
carefully reconnoitred the office end of the head-quarters building.
There was a door, with steps giving upon the down-hill side, and there
were two windows, both of which were blank to the eye by reason of the
drawn-down shades. Two persons, at least, were in the lighted room;
Judson could hear their voices, but the thick log walls muffled the
sounds to an indistinct murmur. On the mountain-facing side of the
building, which was in shadow, the ex-engineer searched painstakingly
for some open chink or cranny between the logs, but there was no avenue
of observation either for the eye or the ear. Just as he had made up his
mind to risk the moonlight on the other side of the head-quarters, a
sound like the moving of chairs on a bare floor made him dodge quickly
behind the bole of a great mountain pine which had been left standing at
the back of the building. The huge tree was directly opposite one of the
windows, and when Judson looked again the figure of a man sitting in a
chair was sharply silhouetted on the drawn window-shade.

Judson stared, rubbed his eyes, and stared again. It had never occurred
to him before that the face of a man, viewed in blank profile, could
differ so strikingly from the same face as seen eye to eye. That the man
whose shadow was projected upon the window-shade was Rankin Hallock, he
could not doubt. The bearded chin, the puffy lips, the pro