"It'll be a ticklish job," Sandy continued, "t' break through around the shoulder without bringin' down the hull side of old Crosby on us, includin' a few rocks; but every day now we put it off is so much the worse." He turned to go. "Then we'll pick ye up in the mornin'; will we?" "Why--I suppose so," returned Ross. "There doesn't seem to be anything else to do." "Better not load up much," warned Sandy; "and don't give Uncle Jake a load at all. All we're goin' to try to pack over is a little venison." Then Sandy disappeared, and Ross suddenly recovered from his mental numbness. It was the sting of anger which aroused him. So confused and disappointed had he been, and so well had Sandy played his part, that the true solution of the theft did not dawn on the boy until the other's departure. Then he stopped short on the downward trail and uttered an exclamation, his hands clinching inside his mittens, and his eyes narrowing and flashing. Of course, it was Sandy's own brain which had planned the matter and Sandy's own henchmen who had made off with the sticks. They had taken this way of stopping the progress of work in the tunnel. They had waited until no more dynamite could be brought over the trail, calculating that when the time came for the claims to be patented one half year's work would be undone, and then! Ross started blindly down the path. He would go over to the Camp with the McKenzies. He would go down to Meeteetse with them--no officer of the law could be found nearer, and there he would put them all under arrest. Here he stopped again. Arrest them on what evidence? Face to face with this question, he was obliged to acknowledge the neatness of the scheme which had for its first point the theft of their own sticks. Could he prove that no one had come over the trail after he reached the valley? And could he prove that the dynamite had not been taken by this mythical some one? Ross thought of what Steele had said concerning trusting Sandy with his pocketbook. Sandy would have the contents of the purse, Steele said, but he'd take care to get them in such a way that he could shake hands afterward with the owner, as well as face any jury. "And Steele," Ross muttered, drawing a long breath, "was right." The news of the loss seemed to jar Weimer back into a semblance of his former intelligence. Instead of ranting as Ross expected he would he sat down and talked over the situation reasonably with his young partner. It was Weimer, in fact, who restored something like hope to Ross.