e had started out on the
mysterious hunting trip across the range. Pacheco, the half-breed
Mexican who freighted provisions by jack train to the mining-camps on
the head waters of the Pannikin, came in to report to the chief clerk.

"Well, 'Checo, what did you find out?" was the curt inquiry.

The half-breed spread his palms.

"W'at I see, I know. Dey'll not gone for hunt much. One day out, dey'll
make-a da camp and go for squint t'rough spy-glass, so"--making an
imaginary transit telescope of his hands. "Den dey'll measure h-on da
groun' and squint some more, so."

Penfield nodded and a gold piece changed hands silently.

"That's all, 'Checo; much obliged. Don't say anything about this over in
the camp. Mr. Ford said he was going hunting, and that's what we'll say,
if anybody asks us."

That night the chief clerk sent a brief cipher telegram to the general
manager at Denver.

Ford and his new track supervisor, who is really a high-priced
constructing engineer, gone over the range for a month's absence.
Gave it out here that they were going after big game, but they took
a transit and are picking up the line of the old S. L. & W.
extension in the upper Pannikin.

It was late in the month of June when Ford and Frisbie, tanned,
weathered and as gaunt as pioneers, returned to Saint's Rest; and for
those who were curious enough to be interested, there were a couple of
bear-skins and one of a mountain lion to make good the ostensible object
of the absence.

But the most important trophies of the excursion were two engineers'
note-books, well filled with memoranda; and these they did not exhibit.
On the contrary, they became a part of the collection of maps,
statistics, estimates and private correspondence which Chief Clerk
Penfield was so anxious to examine, and which Ford kept under lock and
key when he and Frisbie were not poring over some portion of it in the
seclusion of the private office.

None the less, Penfield kept his eyes and ears open, and before long he
had another detail to report by cipher telegram to the general manager.
Ford was evidently preparing for another absence, and from what the
chief clerk could overhear, he was led to believe that the pseudo
supervisor of track would be left in charge of Plug Mountain affairs.

It was on the day before Ford's departure for Denver that a letter came
from General Manager North. Ford read it with a scowl of disapproval and
tossed