Page:Top-Notch Magazine, May 1 1915 (IA tn 1915 05 01).pdf/24

 the package we sent. Say, look here once."

He grabbed the parcel, untied it, unwrapped it, removed the cover of the heavy pasteboard box, and held up the tan bluchers with the eighteen-inch tops. "Jest boots!" he shouted, waving the footgear. "Boots for Tom Barton, at Dry Wash! Hang it, they'll be worn out afore they ever git to Barton, at this rate."

Harrington took the boots, replaced them in the box, carefully rewrapped and retied the package, and handed it back to Billings.

"That's enough," grunted Durfee. "I guess we've assassinated the time-table sufficiently with this wild-goose chase. All out, you men for the extra, and we'll let Seventeen proceed."

Harrington followed Durfee out of the express car, and Ruthven and Long and Summerfield followed Harrington. "Let her go!" said the superintendent to the conductor, and the latter yelled "All ab-o-o-ard," got the passengers back in the coaches, and gave the signal to the engineer.

Durfee went into the little station to send a message to the dispatcher, and Harrington trailed along. Ruthven, Summerfield, and Long remained on the platform and watched Seventeen pull out. Just then a face at one of the car windows caught Ruthven's attention. He gave an exclamation, stood irresolute for a moment, and then ran to board the rear platform of the last car.

"Summerfield," he called, "telephone Hoover that I'll be back to the ranch to-morrow!" That was all he had time to say.

His companions on the platform were surprised at this unexpected move. "What's the matter with him?" asked Long.

"Give it up," answered Summerfield. "Guess he saw somebody he knew on Seventeen, and went along to have a visit."

"Must have wanted a visit pretty tarnation bad,"grunted the other.

In truth, Ruthven had seen a man whom he knew, but he had not boarded Seventeen in order to visit him. The last time Ruthven had seen that particular person had been in the Catskill Mountains, near the town of Cairo, and a little nearer to the village of Purling, in New York. The fellow was a crook, and had stolen ten thousand dollars from the country home of a broker where Ruthven had been staying for a few days. His name was Morrison, and he had been nicknamed the "Weasel." He was a most accomplished cracksman, and was even then being searched for by the New York authorities.

Ruthven was stunned with surprise at the fleeting glimpse he obtained of Weasel Morrison's face. Morrison was far from his thoughts, and the very last man in the world he would have dreamed of seeing. Destiny plays some queer pranks, however, and perhaps it was not so odd that Morrison should be in the West, since the East had become too hot to hold him. The strange part of it was that Morrison should have been on Seventeen, that Ruthven should have happened to be with the party that had overhauled the train, and that at the last moment he should have seen Morrison's face at the window of the moving coach.

Ruthven was impulsive, and he had acted solely upon impulse at Bluffton. As he walked into the coach and seated himself, his mind had already begun to debate the advisability of the sudden move he had made.

In the first place, the man might not be Weasel Morrison at all. Ruthven had a keen eye and a good memory for faces, but he had had only a quick look at one face in a car whose windows furnished a broadside of faces. It might easily prove that he was mistaken. Besides, what was he to do even