The Nevada deputies have told you that he was acquainted with Symonds--a fact unknown to me--and I noticed on one or two occasions that he seemed to have acquaintances among the men tramping west to the Kootenay district.

I can only imagine that after his success in Montana last year, Symonds made up his mind to try the same game on the C.P.R., and that during the last fortnight he came somehow into communication with my father.

My father must have been aware of Symonds's plans--and may have been unable at the last to resist the temptation to join in the scheme.

As to all that I am entirely in the dark." He paused, and then, looking down, he added, under his breath, as though involuntarily--"I pray--that he may not have been concerned in the murder of poor Brown.

But there is--I think--no evidence to connect him with it.