"That's it, Brydges." Moyese had lowered his voice. "What about Wayland? Have you found out anything? Where the devil is he? He isn't on his patrol! He hasn't been at the Ridge for three weeks. He hasn't been at the Ridge since I left for Washington. If we could prove how he's been using Government time," he paused to reflect. "_That_ might be shortest way out! Did you find out anything at the MacDonald Ranch?" Bat threw a precautionary glance over his shoulder towards the door opening on the street. Then he rose, walked across the office, shut the door, came back and drawing his chair close to the desk opposite the Senator, sat down astride with his feet tucked back one round each hind leg. "Yes, I did; and no again, I didn't! It's just as it may strike you! As a news man, I know _how_ this kind of yarn would be taken by the public." "Oh, come on with it, Brydges!" Moyese had pushed back and was holding the edge of the desk with his hands. Mr. Bat Brydges recognized that while the creases of good-nature crinkled at the chin, the jaws and the hands had locked. "Your newsman got this despatch from Mine City: you see it's pretty vague: 'bodies of two men found forty miles from branch of P. & O. Line, thought to be drovers overcome by heat and thirst.' I wired for more particulars; but the railway hands had shovelled the bodies under." "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.