way last summer. You'd ought to make that by to-morrow, seeing you've
got a good horse and the trail's been mended this spring. Now you
spread yourself out, Billy, and when you get on to the Ridge make a
special look all around there."

Besides these directions and the telegram from Toler, Billy Brue took
with him a copy of the Skiplap _Weekly Ledge_, damp from the press and
containing the death notice of Daniel J. Bines, a notice sent out by
the News Association, which Billy Brue read with interest as he started
up the trail. The item concluded thus:

"The young and beautiful Mrs. Bines, who had been accompanying her
husband on his trip of inspection over the Sierra Northern, is
prostrated with grief at the shock of his sudden death."

Billy Brue mastered this piece of intelligence after six readings, but
he refrained from comment, beyond thanking God, in thought, that he
could mind his own business under excessive provocation to do
otherwise. He considered it no meddling, however, to remember that Mrs.
Daniel J. Bines, widow of his late employer, could appear neither young
nor beautiful to the most sanguine of newsgatherers; nor to remember
that he happened to know she had not accompanied her husband on his
last trip of inspection over the Kaslo Division of the Sierra Northern
Railway.




CHAPTER II.