“Brydges,” interrupted Moyese sharply, “I’m going to tell you something; and you put it in your pipe and smoke it; and don’t waste time running off on false clues.  You leave that to women and sissies—­to the she-male man!  Now listen, a man can’t lose himself in the Desert:  He can’t lose himself in the Wilderness.  If he’s a damphool, he can get lost, but he can’t lose himself, he can’t hide in the wilderness, not ever!  He can lose himself in a city in one week.  He could drop out of sight right here in Smelter City; but he can’t go into the wilds and not come out again and people not know it.  Somebody sees him go in, and somebody doesn’t see him come out; and there you are!  It’s the same in the wilds as at the North Pole:  you can’t cook up a fake.  Man who goes into the wilds is a marked man till he comes out.  Every man, who meets him, takes a turn round to look at him; and he’s going to keep looking till the fellow comes out.  Now, you take this case.  Wayland had on his Service Badge.  If he had been one of those two, the fact would have been flashed right down to Washington.  Now tell me facts, not rumors; exactly what did you find out?”

When his chief began in that dictatorial fashion, Bat let his facts go in a running fire: 

“Well, Flood saw him with his own eyes going up the Pass with that old Canadian duffer the morning, the morning,” Bat paused, manifestly unable to specify which morning.

“Yes, the morning after,” added the soft, even voice of Moyese.  “And the snow slide filled the Pass up to the neck, forty-eight hours later.  Yes, I know; but Wayland was too good a mountain man to be caught by a slide.”

“I told Flood to get out and examine that slide, anyway!  He said ’twasn’t any use, this hot weather would clean it up in a couple of weeks.  He was going up the Pass when I left for the Valley yesterday.”

“What did you find out at the Ridge?”

“That’s where the milk is in this cocoanut,” answered Bat.  “He hasn’t passed one night at the Ridge since the night we were all up!  You remember who was at the Cabin, night we went up?  Well, keep that in mind; when I went across to MacDonald’s Ranch to express your regret over this accident, found old man wasn’t home.  He’s expected back from the Upper Pass by train this week:  seems he has been arranging new grazing ground for another herd up there.  You know how MacDonald house is laid out?  Big room as you enter; then a sort of back sitting room for,” Bat smiled queerly, a smile that said nothing, yet subterraneously conveyed out to daylight one of those under currents of thought that flows only in the dark, “for the lady.  Well, sir, chill blasts of North Pole were tropical zephyrs compared to what I got from that MacDonald gurl.”

“I thought her name was Miss MacDonald,” suggested the Senator, softly.  He had lowered his chin and was looking over his eye glasses at Brydges.