OVER fried bacon, sour dough bread and varied "canned goods," Leslie told his story to an interested and excited audience of two. The day of Ross's arrest he had shouldered a pack of stuff selected from the trunk which still stood under the new third bunk, waited until twilight so that he could not be seen on the trail, and then, on snow-shoes, had made his way over Crosby and up Wood River canon to Wilson's cabin on the coal claims. "You see," he said, a flush sweeping over his face, "I supposed father was at Cody, and I wouldn't have faced him without that five hundred dollars for all the gold that may be in these mountains, and, besides, the way he had taken to get even with me--well, I don't need to say how it cuts!" Here Leslie bent over his plate in shame. "Although--I--well, of course, I deserve it, but I didn't think he'd go as far as that." "Hold on, Less!" Ross jumped up from the table so suddenly that the box on which he had been sitting was knocked over. "Here's a letter to you in my care. It has been here so long I had forgotten it." He pulled the emergency chest from under his bunk and produced both of Mr. Quinn's letters--the one to himself and the one yet unopened. "There you are!" he exclaimed, tossing both across the table. "I take it from what your father says in mine that he thought of the arrest not as a punishment, but as the way in which he could be sure of getting his hands on you quickly in Omaha." Eagerly Leslie read both letters, his troubled face lighting and softening. "You're right," he said finally in a low tone. "I guess dad is--is more all right than--than I used to think. I've been no end of an idiot, frankly." He folded his letter and slipped it into his slicker pocket while Weimer urged: "You was mit dot shack, und dey found you not, hein?" "But I want to hear about Ross's----" "No, no," interrupted Ross. "Finish out your story first. Mine will look like thirty cents at the end of yours. I'm not exactly proud of myself." "Vilson's shack," prompted Weimer, pushing his plate back and planting both elbows on the table. Leslie continued his story in a new exuberance of spirits, occasionally fingering the letter in his pocket. He had foreseen that Wilson's shack would be searched, and so, trusting to the drifting snow to conceal his trail, he had, during the night, packed provisions into one of the many deserted shacks in the upper camp. He had selected one overlooking the trail up Crosby. It had two rooms, one behind the other, the back room having an outside door and but one small window. Leaving the first room undisturbed, he had stowed his provisions in the back room, which also contained a bunk.