"Y" spur at Silver Switch, and upon
looking out he saw that Benson's bridge-builders were once more at work
on the wooden trestle spanning the Gloria. Benson himself was in
command, but he turned the placing of the string-timbers over to his
foreman and climbed to the platform of the superintendent's service-car.

"I won't hold you more than a few minutes," he began, but the
superintendent pointed to one of the camp-chairs and sat down, saying:
"There's no hurry. We have time orders against 73 at Timanyoni, and we
would have to wait there, anyhow. What do you know now?--more than you
knew the last time we talked?"

Benson shook his head. "Nothing that would do us any good in a jury
trial," he admitted reluctantly. "We are not going to find out anything
more until you send somebody up to Flemister's mine with a
search-warrant."

Lidgerwood was gazing absently out over the low hills intervening
between his point of view and the wooded summit of Little Butte.

"Whom am I to send, Jack?" he asked. "I have just come from Red Butte,
and I took occasion to make a few inquiries. Flemister is evidently
prepared at all points. From what I learned to-day, I am inclined to
believe that the sheriff of Timanyoni County would probably refuse to
serve a warrant against him, if we could find a magistrate who would
issue one. Nice state of affairs, isn't it?"

"Beautiful," Benson agreed, adding: "But you don't want Flemister half
as bad as you want the man who is working with him. Are you still trying
to believe that it isn't Hallock?"

"I am still trying to be fair and just. McCloskey says that the two used
to be friends--Hallock and Flemister. I don't believe they are now.
Hallock didn't want to go to Flemister about that building-and-loan
business, and I couldn't make out whether he was afraid, or whether it
was just a plain case of dislike."

"It would doubtless be Hallock's policy--and Flemister's, too, for that
matter--to make you believe they are not friends. You'll have to admit
they are together a great deal."

"I'll admit it if you say so, but I didn't know it before. How do you
know it?"

"Hallock is over here every day or two; I have seen him three or four
times since that day when he and Flemister were walking down the new
spur together and turned back at sight of me," said Benson. "Of course,
I don't know what other business Hallock may have over here, but one
thing I do know, he has been across the river, diggin