The presence of Leslie without snow-shoes, the disappearance of the rope, and Weston’s voice caused Ross to "savvy" immediately in impotent anger and bitter disappointment. But not until the two boys had reached the cabin and Leslie was warming himself beside the hot stove, did he fully comprehend the trick that had been played on him.

"Weston!" he exclaimed stupidly in answer to Ross’s explanation. "Why, this isn’t the man you told about at Sagehen Roost–it’s the Miller that you went away with. I saw that Weston fellow, you know. They’re not the same!"

"It’s evident that when you’ve seen Weston you’ve seen any number of men that he cares to imitate. This Miller is Weston, the McKenzies’ cousin and the man you––" Here Ross checked himself, as Leslie had not yet connected the dark-haired Weston with the light-haired Oklahoma man of the same name.

Finally, after supper, Leslie recovered from his bewilderment sufficiently to tell connectedly the story of the days that had intervened between Ross’s departure from Meadow Creek and his own.

"Begin at the beginning," urged Ross finally, putting a pine chunk in the stove and snuffing the candle.

He had seated the newcomer in the armchair beside the fire, while he sat on an overturned box in front of the stove door and within reach of a heap of wood. On the table at his elbow lay the gun which Steele had insisted on adding to his equipment the day he arrived in Meadow Creek and which he had not since touched. Leslie had brought it strapped across his shoulders and with it all the ammunition which Steele had provided. This was another proof of Weston’s strangely curious good will that continued to puzzle Ross. How the unsuspecting Leslie was prevailed on to bring the limited arsenal was a part of the story which Ross was demanding. While the storm raged outside and the dim candle-light flickered and cast long uncanny shadows within, and the pine chunk flamed and cracked cheerily filling the room with a warmth grateful to the chilled narrator, Leslie complied with the request to "begin at the beginning."

"I’d no sooner seen your back, Ross, as you followed Miller out of the door, than I had an awfully uncomfortable feeling of responsibility. By the time the storm had swallowed you two up, the whole outfit there at Weimer’s was sitting hard on my shoulders. We watched you out of sight, Uncle Jake and I, and then we went back into the cabin and, Ross, if that cabin seems to Uncle Jake now as–well–as–when you left––"

Leslie paused and stared at the candle. Ross drew his seat nearer the stove and cleared his throat.

"Uncle Jake has stayed there a lot in the winter all alone, you must remember. He was telling me about it not long ago, how the––"

Above the cabin, through the roaring and soughing of the wind among the spruce, came the long drawn yelling, harassed, pitiful cry of a coyote. From the caÑon the cry was answered. Again and again the two human-like voices wailed despairingly at each other while the boys involuntarily drew nearer together and Ross laid a caressing hand on the gun and finished his speech:

"That’s exactly what Uncle Jake told me–how the coyotes and wolves prowled around, and he didn’t mind them nor the loneliness at all."

Leslie nodded. "I noticed that he didn’t seem to mind your being away in the same way I did. He just took to his pipe and his bunk and seemed settled for a rest until you got back again. That didn’t add any to my restfulness, I can tell you, for what could I do up in the tunnel without him? I rustled around a bit trying to decide what to do when the door opened and there was Miller again, or Weston rather. I was as surprised as they make ’em until he said:

"’Say, young feller, Doc he sent me back t’ round up a book on medicine that he may need. It’ll be layin’ round loose som’ers, maybe in that hair covered chist of hisn.’"

Leslie went on to say that when he had opened Ross’s emergency chest Weston professed to have forgotten the name of the book he had been directed to fetch, and, consequently, had taken all the books, stuffing them carelessly into his game pouch. Then the storm had again swallowed him up.

"After he went away," said Leslie, "I got to thinking pretty strongly about the dynamite. If it was so easy for one man to get into the valley from the land only knew where, why couldn’t the McKenzies make their way back and spirit the dynamite off for good and all? We’d gone and touched off that charge under Soapweed Ledge to make ’em understand that we had it again, you know."

"Yes, I know!" affirmed Ross grimly. "Geese that we were!"

"Well, those sticks got on my nerves, and I made up my mind to fasten them up if such a thing were possible. So I put on my snow-shoes and began to rattle around in the storm to see what I could do. I thought no one could come up into the tool house from under because of the mass of snow all around, and because the dynamite box was so heavy with all of your and our and the McKenzies’ sticks in it that it held the floor boards down with a vengeance. But I wasn’t taking any chances after seeing what our ’friends the enemy’ were capable of doing, so I got all the spike nails that Weimer had and nailed down the floor. Then I plowed through the storm up to Wilson’s shack, shoveled my way in, collected all the tools that could be used to pry or hammer with and brought ’em back to our tool house. And with them, Ross, I brought a great padlock and chain that I recollected seeing up there rusty and unused. I oiled it and put a bar across the tool-house door and padlocked it. And if I do say it, it would cost a man some time and strength and racket to get into that shack. It would also take some tools, and there’s none in the valley except what are behind that locked door, for before night came I had raided the McKenzie cabin and brought over all their tools. Then," continued Leslie, "I went to sleep feeling some better."

"I’ll bet you," cried Ross eagerly, "that it’s because you fastened up the dynamite that you’re here! I do believe that when Weston went back it would have been easier to cache that if he could have got it than to have brought you here."

"I don’t know, Ross." Leslie gave a short laugh. "It was easy enough to get me here, as easy as to get you. I–but you want the story as it comes."

"Every word of it. Go on. The next day––"

The next day, Leslie continued, so furious a blizzard was raging that he didn’t work in the tunnel but spent the time keeping open the trails to the dump, the wood-pile and the spring. But the second day, the sky having cleared, he tried his best to get Weimer to work.

"Ich vill vork mit Doc," was Uncle Jake’s declaration of independence, "mit you, nein!"

"You can imagine, Ross, how much work I did alone, not used to going ahead with the blasting. When I came down at noon the old fellow had dished up a capital dinner. He washed the dishes, but not one step would he budge to the tunnel. Said that you were likely to drop in any time that day and he’d stay in and watch for you. Said it would be work enough for him to do to fill you up after your long tramp through the snow! He simply boiled over with ready excuses. When I went up to the tunnel I left him with his goggles on, swinging open the door about once in two minutes for a look over on Soapweed Ledge. You know it was clear that day and––"Here Leslie suddenly paused and sat up with a jerk. He gripped the arms of the chair and gave a startled exclamation.

"See here, Ross, that clearness business has reminded me of something that I noticed in the morning, and, because I thought it couldn’t be true, I paid but little attention. But now I know–well, this is what it was: when I reached the dump I glanced across the valley at the McKenzie shack. It seemed completely buried in snow except the roof and the chimney stovepipe, and at first I imagined that I saw heat coming out of that stovepipe! You know how, after a hot fire, the heat will crinkle the air above a chimney and no smoke in sight?"

"That’s so!" exclaimed Ross. "And you think––"

"At the time I thought it was a mere notion of mine, but now I believe I saw correctly, and that Weston was there waiting to dispose of my case."

"That’s the idea," agreed Ross excitedly. "There all the time after he left me, probably. He had likely got him a hot breakfast before you were up and then let the fire die."

Leslie nodded. "Same as I did when I was hiding down in Miners’ Camp. But, anyway, I didn’t investigate and forgot all about that chimney until this minute."Here Leslie broke off to ask abruptly, "Another thing, Ross, right here before I forget. The day you left, you remember Uncle Jake was sick and you went down to get dinner and left me in the tunnel?"

"Yes."

"Well, only a few minutes after you left I looked out and you, as I supposed then, stood in the mouth of the tunnel––"

"Nope, ’twas Weston," interrupted Ross. "He said he went up there first. He came to the shack from that direction."

"Then he got a squint at the work and the dynamite and your assistant right then! I thought it was queer I didn’t get an answer when I yelled to know if you had dinner ready. But just as I spoke, the figure took a sneak, and I supposed you had just stopped a bit to look things over."

"Weston was attending to that, evidently," retorted Ross promptly. "But now let’s see–you’ve brought the happenings up to to-day, haven’t you?"

"Not quite," Leslie answered. "I’ll be there in a minute, though. Yesterday I got as uneasy as Weimer over your not getting back, and Miller, or Weston, I mean, not coming as he promised. I confess I was in a blue funk by afternoon, and I saw things were shaping for another storm. I went slipping and sliding out beside the dump a dozen times where I could look over to Soapweed Ledge while Uncle Jake tramped around outside the shack continually watching for you."

"Poor Uncle Jake!" muttered Ross stirring uneasily.

"Well, that brings me to to-day," Leslie began after a pause. "I was down beside the dump looking for you about eleven o’clock this morning when I saw him coming over the Ledge–Weston, I mean. Same goggles, same cap drawn down over his ears, same outfit except the game pouch. I noticed as soon as he came near that the pouch was gone. Tell you what, Ross, I made tracks down the trail, got my snow-shoes on and went to meet him. I would have hurried to meet a Hottentot! Uncle Jake stayed behind jabbering in German, and fairly dancing up and down in his excitement because you had not come with Weston."

Ross, his elbows on his knees and his chin in his palms, staring at Leslie, saw in a flash the latter as he had appeared at Sagehen Roost, overbearing and dictatorial. Then he saw him running across the lonely valley of Meadow Creek eager to meet any one on a fraternal footing.

"Weston must have left his shack and made a long trip behind it up the mountain and around over the summit to have come in on the Ledge; don’t you think so?" asked Ross. "He probably didn’t want to run any risk of being seen."

Leslie assented and went on with his story. He had gone to meet Weston with a demand as to Ross’s whereabouts and return.

"Don’t ye worry none about Doc," Weston declared heartily. "He’s fixin’ things fine over our way. Doc’s all right!"

"So he is," Leslie agreed, "and for that reason we want him right here, Uncle Jake and I!"

"Wall," Weston drawled good-naturedly, "he says the same about you even t’ wantin’ ye where he is now for a day."

"What do you mean?" Leslie asked.

The two had been walking back toward the shack and the frantic Weimer, and Weston did not explain until he had assured Uncle Jake of Ross’s safety and health, and was seated beside the stove.

"Not once while he was there," Leslie told Ross, "not even when he was eating dinner, did he take off his cap–merely pushed it back a little. Uncle Jake urged him to shed it, but he just grinned and said he had a bald spot on the top of his head, and had got into the habit of wearing his cap all the time to keep that spot warm. Said he guessed he wouldn’t ’bust into that habit now.’ I thought he was an odd Dick to get into such a habit, and with a fur cap, too, but it was all so plausible, Ross, everything he said was said with such an air of truth, that I didn’t once suspect."

"No more did I," confessed Ross.

"And then, of course, I was awfully interested in what he had to tell, and ask me to do. He told a clever lie, Ross. He said that you had brought down an elk with his gun and wanted me to come back with him and the sled you had made to help the McKenzies haul supplies, and help pack the venison over the mountains for our winter meat. It was all the more clever because I knew that meat was all we needed to make our winter’s supplies good. The story hit Uncle Jake in the right spot, too. He hurried up dinner for us to be gone before the big snow came. Weston thought we could reach his cabin that night and make it back again to-morrow morning with the elk meat. He said it would be a pretty good pull for the three of us, but as there was a good crust we could make it with that sled. Why, Doc, there wasn’t a suspicion of deceit in his manner. He said you had fixed his pard up all right and would leave some stuff for him, and so didn’t need to stay any longer. So I went up to the tool house and got the sled out and we started––"

"The gun," interrupted Ross. "Did you think of the gun?"

"Not much I didn’t! That was Weston. Just as we were starting off he turned back and said:"’See here, young feller. Doc said as how ye was t’ bring his gun along and mebby he could bring down a mountain sheep as we come back. They is a lot of them animals over with us.’"

So the two had turned back and Leslie strapped Ross’s gun across his shoulders. He carried the ammunition. Weston insisted on taking all of it along as he and his partner had run short, and Ross had promised them a share of his! Then they had started out, and, screened by the veil of gently falling snow, entered on the same tortuous, winding, upward trail that Ross and Weston had taken a few days previously.

"And all the way," Leslie continued, "whenever the trail let us walk together, he was telling me a long yarn about the day you and he had spent chasing that elk whose meat we were going after. I listened, Ross, with my mouth opened half the time, and wished a dozen times, if I did once, that I had been with you.

"Well, as the afternoon passed, the storm became heavier, and part of the way we couldn’t see a dozen feet before us, and finally I think Weston himself was uncertain of our way although he said he wasn’t. It must have been about four o’clock when we came to the head of the ledge. Weston searched and groped along until he came to a tree where a rope was already tied."’It’s the one I used fer Doc and me,’" he explained and slung it over the cliff.

"He had been hauling the sled along, while all I had to carry was the gun and ammunition. Now he said that I had better leave my snow-shoes on top of the cliff and tie the end of the rope around my waist and he would let me down to the ledge. That I was to kick clear of snow and then go up the caÑon and get you to come down and help heave the sled over and get it down to the caÑon. He said you would know better than I how to do that. He kept giving me directions about where to find the cabin, for the snow had thickened until we couldn’t see the ledge, to say nothing of the caÑon. You see, Ross, I’ll confess I was too nervous about going over into space attached to that rope to think that his proceeding was queer. I just didn’t question a thing, but shut my eyes and went over. It didn’t occur to me to wonder why my snow-shoes, instead of that gun, weren’t tied on my shoulders. Well, I struck the ledge and untied the rope and felt my way along that ticklish shelf until the squall lifted and then–you know the rest. If I live to be a hundred I’ll never forget how I felt when that rope was drawn up and he yelled down that I was to tell you I was in the same boat that you were!"

It was late and Leslie was too tired to talk longer. Ross gave him the bunk and, waiting only long enough to fill the stove with wood, close the draughts and blow out the candles, wrapped up in a blanket and lay down beside the stove, his coat for a pillow. He did not fall asleep at once, but lay staring up at the flicker of firelight dancing about on the mud-chinked logs overhead.

After all his planning and working, he thought, his mission in the mountains was doomed to failure. The claims would pass into the McKenzies’ hands, and, besides, he would have missed one year of the preparation for the work he had chosen. He rolled over and half groaned.

"Awake, Ross?" came from the bunk. "I’m so tired I haven’t dropped off yet and, besides–say, Ross, here I am and there’s dad waiting for me to turn up with that missing five hundred–and then your claims–we’re not exactly in luck, are we? I feel as though I’d like to get my hands on that Weston-Miller fellow’s throat."

"There’s one thing I can do, though–study," muttered Ross. "That I’ve got to hold myself to."

Conversation languished then, and both boys fell asleep, Ross’s last thought being of Weimer watching for their return in the lonely valley of Meadow Creek.

By daylight the following morning the two were up, full of plans for living and doing during the long months of their imprisonment.

"There are some nails, but no hammer," said Ross. "But we can drive ’em with a stick of wood and fix up another bunk out of these two boxes. They’re the longest, and I think they’ll fill the bill for my five feet ten. Then we’ll divide the straw and the blankets, and by keeping up the fire all night, I guess we won’t freeze to death."

On the floor in the corner back of the stove they built the bunk. There were not nails enough nor were the boxes strong enough to allow of making a substantial bunk such as the owner of the shack had built against the side logs.

Until the bunk was completed, Leslie, while working docilely enough under the older boy’s direction, regarded the more comfortable bunk as his permanent possession. He had never been taught to be unselfish. He had from his motherless childhood demanded what he wished and received it until the question arose of his continued attendance in school. There he had taken the course he wished and was now paying for it dearly. It was not until he was dividing the straw in his bunk and had come across Ross’s watch and pocketbook that the idea smote him hard that the other had vacated the easier bunk in a wordless generosity that he, Leslie, had never practiced, and that he had not even thanked the bunk’s former occupant.

"See here, Ross," he began brusquely, "you needn’t think that you’re going to rest your old bones in the new bunk all the time, for you ain’t! I shall try it myself half the time."

"Week and week about, then," Ross agreed. "And this brings us up against a calendar. I brought my watch, thank fortune! But what about a calendar? I want to be sure that I know when the 4th of July gets here, for Steele says you’d never know it except by the calendar, there’s so much snow."

"Snow!" groaned Leslie. "Snow! There’s never a time when there isn’t snow in these mountains, it seems. Well, I know what day to-morrow is, and–have you a pencil?"

Ross slapped the breast pocket of his slicker. "Yep, a long one. And there’s one in the pockets of the trousers you’ll find in that box," nodding toward the repository of the shack owner’s clothing. "Guess we will keep a record of the days up on the side logs. I know how many in each month when I say that old jingle, ’Thirty days hath September,’ etc."

But the need of a calendar was not so pressing as the need of wood. The few days that Ross had spent in the shack had caused an alarming shrinkage in the pile of chunks already cut; and Ross, commencing to shovel his way to the nearest pine tree, now ran across a number of logs which had been "snaked" down the mountainside before the snow came, and lay ready for the axe and saw.

"I guess if Aunt Anne were here, she’d not complain that I took no exercise," he muttered grimly, shouldering a short cross cut saw.

While he sawed Leslie got dinner. After dinner Leslie took his turn at the saw and axe while Ross considered the matter of the calendar. Looking about the shack, his glance fell on Weston’s game pouch. He had hung it on a peg driven between two side logs and had forgotten it.

"The very thing!" he exclaimed aloud. "We can mark the days on the margin of the old newspapers that are in the bottom of that pouch."

Taking the bag down he dumped the crushed papers out on the table, and sitting down, began to smooth them out, glancing over the contents idly. He found nothing which interested him until he reached the last wad. When he spread this out, he found, stuck to the newspaper by candle-drippings, a scrap of coarse note paper which at once riveted his attention. It contained only the latter part of one sentence and the first part of another.

"––come and help us out, and no fooling about it, either. If you back out I will turn you over to old man Quinn––"

Over and over Ross read these words. They were few and short, but to him now they were the intelligible index to a whole volume. The scrap was stuck to a "Gazette" bearing a date which was just previous to Weston’s appearance in Meadow Creek. There was no name to show that Sandy had written the letter, but Ross knew Weston had escaped from Oklahoma. No doubt Sandy possessed the knowledge that compelled his obedience.

Ross drew a long breath. "Strange what parts of two sentences may tell a fellow!"

"Tell a fellow what?" demanded Leslie’s curious voice at his elbow. A hand came over his shoulder and pinned the paper down to the table while Leslie read the contents aloud.

"’Old man Quinn,’" he finished excitedly. "Why, that is my father, but–Lon Weston–say, what does that mean, Ross?"