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my misfortune that it is Mr. North's
salt-cellar, and not mine, that he dips into. Besides, I'd have trouble in
replacing him. Saint's Rest isn't exactly the paradise its name
implies--for a clean-cut, well-mannered young fellow with social
leanings."
"Now, what in the mischief does all that mean?" mused the chief clerk,
when Ford and his new track man had gone out. "A month's hunting
trip over the range, with the surveying instruments taken along. And
last summer Mr. Ford spent a good part of his time over there--also
hunting, so he said. Confound it all! I wish I could get into that private
drawer of his in the safe. That would tell the story. I wonder if Pacheco
couldn't make himself an errand over the Pass in the morning? By
George!" slapping his thigh and apostrophizing the superintendent, "I'll
just go you once, Mr. Ford, if I lose!"

Now the fruit, of which this little soliloquy was the opening blossom,
matured on the second day after Ford and Frisbie 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 it across the double desk to Frisbie.
"A polite invitation for me to stay at home and to attend to my
business," he commented.
"Had you written him that you were going away?" inquired Frisbie.
"No; but evidently somebody else has."
Frisbie read the letter again.
"'So that all heads of departments may be on duty when the president
makes his annual inspection trip over the lines,'" he quoted. "Is Mr.
Colbrith coming out this early in the summer?"
"No, of course not. He never comes before August."
"Then this is only a trumped-up excuse to make you stay here?"
"That's all," Ford replied laconically.
Mr. Richard Frisbie got up and walked twice the length of the little
room before he said:
"This Denver gentleman is going to knock your little scheme into a

cocked hat, if he can, Stuart."
"I am very much afraid we'll have to reckon upon that. As a matter of
fact, I've been reckoning upon it, all along."
"How much of a pull has he with the New York money-people?"
"I don't know that: I wish I did. It would simplify matters somewhat."
Frisbie took another turn up and down the room, with his head down
and his hands in his pockets.