As he did so, a paragraph drew his attention.

He gripped the paper, and, springing up in bed, read it twice, peering into it, his features quivering with eagerness.

The passage described the "hold up" of a Northern Pacific train, at a point between Seattle and the Canadian border.

By the help of masks, and a few sticks of dynamite, the thing had been very smartly done--a whole train terrorised, the mail van broken open and a large "swag" captured.

Billy Symonds, the notorious train robber from Montana, was suspected, and there was a hue and cry through the whole border after him and his accomplices, amongst whom, so it was said, was a band from the Canadian side--foreign miners mixed up in some of the acts of violence which had marked the strike of the year before.
Bill Symonds!--McEwen threw himself excitedly from side to side, unable to keep still.