ook the envelope. But
no diamond solitaire dropped out.

CHAPTER XXX

They were waiting in the sheriff's office in the court house in
Bartolo. They were waiting for Mr. Menocal. Winship had sent a
messenger for him. At one place in the room, handcuffed and tied, sat
the evil-eyed Alvarez; at another sat Charlie Menocal, silent and
apprehensive and with a sickly pallor showing under his dusky skin;
and between them lounged Morgan. The sheriff and Bryant stood across
the room conversing of the storm.

"I thought your goose was cooked when that blizzard hit us," Winship
was saying.

"Froze, you mean," was Lee's smiling reply. "I thought so myself for a
while. We've hammered along, however. To-night the last dirt goes
out."

"That was an idea now--powder."

"It was Carrigan's, not mine. It saved us. The old man has forgotten
more than I ever knew. Here's the banker now."

The door swung open, admitting Menocal, blinking from the snow's
sheen. He bade the sheriff and the engineer good day, glanced sharply
at them and then at the others. When his look encountered his son, his
eyebrows went up.

"So you're home finally," he addressed him. "After two weeks' time!"
His regard moved about from one to another of the trio. "What does
this mean, Charlie? Who is that fellow wearing handcuffs?" He paused,
staring steadily at his son. "What have you been doing to bring you
into Winship's office?" As Charlie continued to sit silent, he turned
to the sheriff.

"I'll explain, Mr. Menocal, but what I have to say won't be pleasant
hearing for you," Lee stated, at a nod from Winship. "Take this chair,
if you please."

The banker sat down, heavily. He sighed, while his fat cheeks shook
with a slight tremble.

"What has he done?" he asked, with his eyes fixed on an ink-well on
the sheriff's desk.

Briefly and without temper Bryant related the circumstance of seeing
Alvarez in Kennard one day during the previous summer, when the man
appeared to be watching him. Charlie was also in town on that day.
Alvarez was the man who had attempted to make the workmen drunk in
camp on Christmas Eve, but he had escaped on that occasion. He had
stolen into camp again on the afternoon preceding the blizzard and two
hours after sundown had been captured seeking to fire the commissary
tent. When made a prisoner, he had been searched. On his person were
found several checks for sums ranging from fifty to one hundred
dollars. Bryant drew