Page:Top-Notch Magazine, May 1 1915 (IA tn 1915 05 01).pdf/30

 Grandy. "Now I know he ain't square."

At the hotel Ruthven was given a pleasant welcome. He was shown to a comfortable room, and after a while was supplied with a good supper. That night he slept like a top, undisturbed by any apprehensions or surmises about either the Barton package or Weasel Morrison. When he came down to breakfast next morning, the landlord handed him a newspaper as he started into the dining room.

"It's a daily from Helena," the landlord explained, "and just got here."

Ruthven seated himself at the table, ordered ham and eggs, buckwheat cakes and coffee, and began reading while he waited for his breakfast. A moment later his eye caught a headline: "Big Scare at Burt City!" And below that line was this: "Division Superintendent Durfee Holds Up a Train to Look for Infernal Machine and Finds Pair of Boots."

Ruthven whistled in astonishment; then he began to read, forgetting all about his breakfast.

HE article was not a long one, but some enterprising press association had evidently got hold of the facts and telegraphed them all over the State. Very likely Durfee and Harrington, in view of the failure of their expedition to make good their fears, had released the information they had been keeping to themselves. If so, on reading that press report they must have regretted taking the public, into their confidence. The paper treated the affair as a huge joke.

Here followed a brief and more or less serious account of the wild pursuit of Seventeen by the party in the way car, and of the overpowering relief experienced by Durfee and Harrington when they found the tan bluchers in the package instead of an infernal machine. And then came this illuminating bit:

"Jupiter!" murmured Ruthven as he laid aside his paper and started in on his breakfast. "So that was the reason for Harrington's rush for the superintendent's office, and the chase after Seventeen! The explanation of the cause of that fiasco, however, doesn't shed a ray of light upon the true mystery of that Barton package. Its weight be-