"I guess that's impossible," another replied, scraping the snow away with his boot. "See here, it's hardly two inches deep; nothing to soften the blow. Besides, anybody falling through the trestle would strike some of the cross-braces or stringers."
The man who had brought Foster touched his companion. "Nothing doing here. We'll stop at Green Rock and you can raise a posse of ranchers and look round to-morrow. I reckon you won't find anything."
They went back and when the train started the man sat down opposite
Foster in the smoking compartment.
"We'll probably want your evidence," he said. "What's your address?"
Foster noted that he did not ask his name. "Perhaps the Hulton Manufacturing Company, Gardner's Crossing, would be best. I'm going there now."
The man nodded meaningly. "That will satisfy me. On the whole, it's lucky the fellow shot at you and Hulton told us how you stood. He didn't miss by much; there's burnt powder sticking to your cheek."
XXXII
FEATHERSTONE APOLOGIZES
Three days afterwards, Foster entered the office of the Hulton Company, where the head and treasurer of the firm waited him. It was late in the evening when he arrived, but the private office was filled with the softened throb of machinery and rumble of heavy wheels. Otherwise it was very quiet and cut off by a long passage from the activity of the mill.
Hulton gave him his hand and indicated a chair. "You have got thinner since you took your holiday and look fined down. Well, I reckon we all feel older since that night last fall."