"It's not your fault, Dick; it's mine. I saw what was in the wind last night, and stuck to Garvin till I got him to bed. I was dog-tired,--we'd been tramping all day,--and I thought he was safe to sleep the clock around. I hid his boots, dragged my bed across the door, and went to sleep." "You couldn't have done less--or more. What happened?" "This. Those two fellows had the room next to us, and there was a door between. They slipped him out this morning before I was awake." "Of course; all cut out and shaped up beforehand. But, thank the Lord, there's a ghost of a chance yet. Where is the claim?" "It is three days' march a little to the south of west, on the headwaters of a stream which flows into the Gunnison River." "And the nearest railroad point?" "Is Aspen. If I remember correctly, Garvin said it was about twenty miles across the range." "Good. That accounts for the beginning of the race; they'll go to Aspen and take horses from there. But I don't understand why they took the long line. There are two railroads to Aspen, and one of them is an hour and twenty minutes longer than the other. That's your chance, and the only one,--to beat 'em to the end of the railroad run. How are you fixed?" "For money, you mean? I have the wreck of a ten-dollar note and a hotel bill to pay." Bartrow spun around on his heel and shot a sudden question at the hotel clerk, the answer to which was inaudible to Jeffard. But Bartrow's rejoinder was explanatory. "Rooms over the bank, you say? That's lucky." This to the clerk; and then to Jeffard: "Come along with me; this is no time to stick at trifles. You've got to have money, suddenly, and plenty of it." But Jeffard hung back. "What are you going to do, Dick?" "Stake you and let you try for a special engine over the short line. Those fellows took the long way around, as I say,--why, I don't know, because both trains leave at the same time. The running time the way they have gone is five hours and forty-five minutes. By the other line it's only four hours and twenty-five minutes. Savez?" "Yes, but"-- "Weed out the 'buts' and come along. We're due to rout a man out of bed and make him open a bank vault. I can't put my hand into my pocket for you, as I'd like to; but I know a banker, and my credit's good." They found the cashier of the Carbonate City National in the midst of his toilet. He was an Eastern man of conservative habit, but he was sufficiently Occidentalized to grasp the main points in Bartrow's terse narrative, and to rise to the inexorable demands of the occasion. "You know the rule, Mr. Bartrow,--two good names; and I don't know your friend. But this seems to be an eighteen-carat emergency. Take that key and go down the back way into the bank. You'll find blank notes on the public desk. Make out your paper for what Mr. Jeffard will need, and I'll be with you in half a minute."