y smartly done--a whole train
terrorised, the mail van broken open and a large "swag" captured. Billy
Symonds, the notorious train robber from Montana, was suspected, and
there was a hue and cry through the whole border after him and his
accomplices, amongst whom, so it was said, was a band from the Canadian
side--foreign miners mixed up in some of the acts of violence which had
marked the strike of the year before.

Bill Symonds!--McEwen threw himself excitedly from side to side, unable
to keep still. _He_ knew Symonds--a chap and a half! Why didn't he come
and try it on this side of the line? Heaps of money going backwards and
forwards over the railway! All these thousands of dollars paid out in
wages week by week to these construction camps--must come from somewhere
in cash--Winnipeg or Montreal. He began to play with the notion,
elaborating and refining it; till presently a whole epic of attack and
capture was rushing through his half-crazy brain.

He had dropped the paper, and was staring abstractedly through the foot
of open window close beside him, which the torn blind did not cover.
Outside, through the clearing with its stumps of jack-pine, ran a path,
a short cut, connecting the station at Laggan with a section-house
further up the line.

As McEwen's eyes followed it, he began to be aware of a group of men
emerging from the trees on the Laggan side, and walking in single file
along the path. Navvies apparently--carrying bundles and picks. The path
came within a few yards of the window, and of the little stream that
supplied the house with water.

Suddenly, McEwen sprang up in bed. The two foremost men paused beside
the water, mopped their hot faces, and taking drinking cups out of their
pockets stooped down to the stream. The old man in the cabin bed watched
them with fierce intentness; and as they straightened themselves and
were about to follow their companions who were already out of sight, he
gave a low call.

The two started and looked round them. Their hands went to their
pockets. McEwen swung himself round so as to reach the window better,
and repeated his call--this time with a different inflection. The men
exchanged a few hurried words. Carefully scrutinising the house, they
noticed a newspaper waving cautiously in an open window. One of them
came forward, the other remained by the stream bathing his feet and
ankles in the water.

No one else was in sight. Mrs. Ginnell was cooking on the other