ilds and not come out again and people not know it. Somebody
sees him go in, and somebody doesn't see him come out; and there you
are! It's the same in the wilds as at the North Pole: you can't cook
up a fake. Man who goes into the wilds is a marked man till he comes
out. Every man, who meets him, takes a turn round to look at him; and
he's going to keep looking till the fellow comes out. Now, you take
this case. Wayland had on his Service Badge. If he had been one of
those two, the fact would have been flashed right down to Washington.
Now tell me facts, not rumors; exactly what did you find out?"

When his chief began in that dictatorial fashion, Bat let his facts go
in a running fire:

"Well, Flood saw him with his own eyes going up the Pass with that old
Canadian duffer the morning, the morning," Bat paused, manifestly
unable to specify which morning.

"Yes, the morning _after_," added the soft, even voice of Moyese. "And
the snow slide filled the Pass up to the neck, forty-eight hours later.
Yes, I know; but Wayland was too good a mountain man to be caught by a
slide."

"I told Flood to get out and examine that slide, anyway! He said
'twasn't any use, this hot weather would clean it up in a couple of
weeks. He was going up the Pass when I left for the Valley yesterday."

"What did you find out at the Ridge?"

"That's where the milk is in this cocoanut," answered Bat. "He hasn't
passed one night _at_ the Ridge since the night we were all up! You
remember _who_ was at the Cabin, night we went up? Well, keep that in
mind; when I went across to MacDonald's Ranch to express your regret
over this accident, found old man wasn't home. He's expected back from
the Upper Pass by train this week: seems he has been arranging new
grazing ground for another herd up there. You know how MacDonald house
is laid out? Big room as you enter; then a sort of back sitting room
for," Bat smiled queerly, a smile that said nothing, yet
subterraneously conveyed out to daylight one of those under currents of
thought that flows only in the dark, "for the lady. Well, sir, chill
blasts of North Pole were tropical zephyrs compared to what I got from
that MacDonald gurl."

"I thought her name was Miss MacDonald," suggested the Senator, softly.
He had lowered his chin and was looking over his eye glasses at Brydges.

"Hold on, Mr. Senator! I am coming to that! Her father has been away
a month. I found out from Calamity a