do."

He turned abruptly away and began examining the safe. The silver still
stood sacked in one large compartment. The bank-notes had escaped the
hurried search of the robbers, but the gold was practically all gone.
One sack had been torn by the explosion and single pieces of gold could
be found all over the safe.

Macdonald glanced over the papers rapidly. The officer picked up one
of dozens scattered over the floor. It was a mortgage note made out to
the bank by a miner. He collected the others. Evidently the bandits had
torn off the rubber, glanced over one or two to see if they had any cash
value, and tossed the package into the air as a disgusted gambler does
a pack of cards.

The bank president stepped to the door and threw it open. He explained
the situation in three sentences.

"I can't let you in now, boys, until the coroner has been here," he went
on to tell the crowd. "But there is one way you can all help. Keep your
eyes open. If you have seen any suspicious characters around, let me
know. Or if any one has left town in a hurry--or been seen doing
anything during the night that you did not understand at the time. Men
can't do a thing like this without leaving some clue behind them even
though the snow has wiped away their trail."

A man named Fred Tague pushed to the front. He kept a feed corral near
the edge of town. "I can tell you one man who mushed out before five
o'clock this morning--and that's Gid Holt."

The eyes of Macdonald, cold and hard as jade, fastened to the man. "How
do you know?"

"That dog team he bought from Tim Ryan--Well, he's been keeping it in my
corral. When I got there this morning it was gone. The snow hadn't wiped
out the tracks of the runners yet, so he couldn't have left more than
fifteen minutes before."

"What time was it when you reached the corral?"

"Might have been six--maybe a little later."

"You don't know that Holt took the team himself?"

"Come to that, I don't. But he had a key to the barn where the sled was.
Holt has been putting up at the hotel. I reckon it is easy to find out
if he's still there."

Macdonald's keen brain followed the facts as the nose of a bloodhound
does a trail. Holt, an open enemy of his, had reached town only two days
before. He had bought one of the best and swiftest dog teams in the
North and had let slip before witnesses the remark that Macdonald would
soon find out what he wanted with the outfit. The bank had been robbed
a