The members of the firm were men of high principle, anxious not only to stand well in the public gaze, but desirous that their motives should be beyond suspicion. They were nominally religious men, but making no very pronounced profession of their opinions and beliefs. Crooked and perverse as the treatment of their London employés had been, their conduct was so surrounded with sophisms for arguments, that shadows had assumed substantial form, and they seemed to have persuaded themselves, if not others, that in all that they had done they had been guided only by the highest principles of moral rectitude, leaving nothing of which they need feel ashamed. Burns has very aptly said— "Oh, wad some power the giftie gie us To see oursel’s as others see us! It wad frae monie a blunder free us And foolish notion." They had not lost sight of the mother of Sinclair,—or Fellows, as we must continue to call him,—since their first impulse was to acquaint her with what they had heard. Upon reflection, they felt it would be wiser to wait until, with the fresh light which they hoped to receive as the result of the inquiries set on foot, their mind was better made up as to the course they ought to pursue. *CHAPTER XX.* *ON THE TRAIL.* "Thou art a fellow of a good report, Thy life hath had some snatch of honour in it." _Julius Cæsar_, Act V. sc. v. Regina, which, prior to the advent of the Great Trunk Line of the Canadian Pacific Railway, was possessed of but a few straggling log-shanties—the rough dwellings of settlers and squatters, the early pioneers in the great North-West of those civilising forces which are marching with so much rapidity across the face of the American Continent—is not only the principal town, but has the honour of being the capital of the province and the seat of the legislature. Yet, rejoicing in a population of not more than some two thousand, it is making such rapid advances as bids fair to raise it, in a very little while, to a position of importance and pre-eminence. The mounted police have here their headquarters, and it was therefore in the order of things official, as well as natural, that the inquiry set on foot at Quebec should be forwarded to this little but important centre for further elucidation. To John Stone, or "Puffey," as the name by which he is best known, was entrusted the task of obtaining the required information. The work, although of an eminently peaceful character, was beset with no ordinary difficulties, from the secrecy with which the information had to be obtained.