st unjustly, doubtless, at--er--his expense."

"Who put them in circulation, Major Burleigh?" asked Pappoose, her brown
eyes studying his face as unflinchingly as had her father's gaze a
moment before.

"That, my dear young lady I--er--cannot surmise. They are mostly
imaginative, I dare say."

But Miss Folsom looked unmollified, Miss Dean agitated, and Burleigh
himself had many a reason for feeling ill at ease. Just at the time of
all others when he most desired to stand on good terms with the
well-to-do old trader and his charming daughter he found himself the
object of distrust. He was thinking hard and far from hopefully as a
moment later he hastened down the street.

"Tell them to send up my buggy, quick," were his orders as he stepped
within his office doorway. Then lowering his voice, "Has Captain Newhall
returned?" he asked the chief clerk.

"The captain was here, sir. Left word he needed to take the first
train--freight or construction, it made no difference--to Cheyenne and
expected to find a letter or package from you, and there's two telegrams
in from Department Headquarters on your desk, sir."

The major turned thither with solemn face, and read them both, his back
to his subordinate, his face to the light, and growing grayer every
moment. One was a curt notification that ten thousand dollars would be
needed at once at Warrior Gap to pay contractors and workmen, and
directing him to send the amount from the funds in his keeping. The
other read as follows:

"Have all transportation put in readiness for immediate field service.
Every wheel may be needed."

This he tossed carelessly aside. Over the first he pondered deeply, his
yellow-white face growing dark and haggard.

Ten thousand dollars to be sent at once to Warrior Gap! Workmen's pay!
Who could have predicted that? Who could have given such an order? Who
would have imagined payment would have to be made before July, when some
reasonable amount of work had been done? What could laborers do with
their money up there, even if they had it? It was preposterous! It was
risky to attempt to send it. But what was infinitely worse--for him--it
was impossible. The money was practically already gone, but--not to
Warrior Gap.

Those were days when inspectors' visits were like those of other angels,
few and far between. The railway was only just finished across the great
divide of the Black Hills of Wyoming. Only as far as Cheyenne was there
a time schedu