[Illustration: "I'll spend the last dollar of the fortune my fatherleft me, if needful, in finding that man and hanging him!"]

The Taming of Red Butte Western

by Francis Lynde

_Illustrated_

Charles Scribner's SonsNew York, 1916

1910, BYCharles Scribner's SonsPublished April, 1910

[ILLUSTRATION: Publishers Stamp]

To

Mr. CHARLES AUGUSTINE STICKLE

My brother--in deed, though not by blood--this tale of his birthland isaffectionately inscribed. 

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Collars-and-Cuffs 3II. The Red Desert 24III. A Little Brother of the Cows 38IV. At the Rio Gloria 59V. The Outlaws 80VI. Everyman's Share 102VII. The Killer 122VIII. Benson's Bridge-Timbers 141IX. Judson's Joke 157X. Flemister and Others 177XI. Nemesis 187XII. The Pleasurers 202XIII. Bitter-Sweet 224XIV. Blind Signals 248XV. Eleanor Intervenes 260XVI. The Shadowgraph 270XVII. The Dipsomaniac 289XVIII. At Silver Switch 305XIX. The Challenge 324XX. Storm Signals 346XXI. The Boss Machinist 369XXII. The Terror 380XXIII. The Crucible 398

ILLUSTRATIONS

"I'll spend the last dollar of the fortune myfather left me, if needful, in finding thatman and hanging him!" _Frontispiece_ FACING PAGE

His hand was on the latch of the door-yardgate when a man rose out of the gloom. 138

"Bart's afraid he can't duck without dying. " 176

"Well, gentlemen, I'm waiting. Why don't you shoot?" 400

 * * * * *

The Taming of Red Butte Western

I

COLLARS-AND-CUFFS

The windows of the division head-quarters of the Pacific Southwestern atCopah look northward over bald, brown mesas, and across the Pannikin tothe eroded cliffs of the Uintah Hills. The prospect, lacking vegetation, artistic atmosphere, and color, is crude and rather harshly aggressive;and to Lidgerwood, glooming thoughtfully out upon it through theweather-worn panes scratched and bedimmed by many desert sandstorms, itwas peculiarly depressing. 

"No, Ford; I hate to disappoint you, but I'm not the man you are lookingfor, " he said, turning back to things present and in suspense, andspeaking as one who would add a reason to unqualified refusal. "I'vebeen looking over the ground while you were coming on from New York. Itisn't in me to flog the Red Butte Western into a well-behaved divisionof the P. S-W. "

The grave-eyed man who had borrowed Superintendent Leckhard'spivot-chair nodded intelligence. 

"That is what you have been saying, with variations, for the lasthalf-hour. Why?"

"Because the job asks for gifts that I don't possess. At the presentmoment the Red Butte Western is the most hopelessly demoralized threehundred miles of railroad west of the Rockies. There is no system, nodiscipline, no respect for authority. The men run the road as if it werea huge joke. Add to these conditions the fact that the Red Desert is acountry where the large-calibred revolver is----"

"Yes, I know all that, " interrupted the man in the chair. "The road andthe region need civilizing--need it badly. That is one of the reasonswhy I am trying to persuade you to take hold. You are long oncivilization, Howard. "

"Not on the kind which has to be inculcated by main strength and acheerful disregard for consequences. I'm no scrapper. "

To the eye of appraisal, Lidgerwood's personal appearance bore out thepeaceable assertion to the final well-groomed detail. Compactly builtand neatly, brawn and bulk were conspicuously lacking; and the thin, intellectual face was made to appear still thinner by the pointed cut ofthe closely trimmed brown beard. The eyes were alert and not wanting insteadfastness; but they had a trick of seeming to look beyond, ratherthan directly at, the visual object. A physiognomist would haveclassified him as a man of studious habit with the leisure to indulgeit, and unconsciously he dressed the part. 

In his outspoken moments, which were rare, he was given to railingagainst the fate which had made him a round peg in a square hole; atechnical engineer and a man of action, when his earlier tastes andinclinations had drawn him in other directions. But the temperamentalqualities; the niceties, the exactness, the thoroughness, which, findingno outlet in an artistic calling, had made him a master in his unchosenprofession, were well known to Mr. Stuart Ford, first vice-president ofthe Pacific Southwestern System. And, it was largely for the sake ofthese qualities that Ford locked his hands over one knee and spoke as aman and a comrade. 

"Let me tell you, Howard--you've no idea what a savage fight we've hadin New York, absorbing these same demoralized three hundred miles. Youknow why we were obliged to have them. If the Transcontinental hadbeaten us, it meant that our competitor would build over here fromJack's Canyon, divide the Copah business with us, and have a line threehundred miles nearer to the Nevada gold-fields than ours. "

"I understand, " said Lidgerwood; and the vice-president went on. 

"Since the failure of the Red Butte 'pocket' mines, the road and thecountry it traverses have been practically given over to the cowmen, thegulch miners, the rustlers, and the drift from the big camps elsewhere. In New York and on the Street, Red Butte Western was regarded as anexploded cartridge--a kite without a tail. It was only a few weeks agothat it dawned upon our executive committee that this particular kitewithout a tail offered us a ready-made jump of three hundred milestoward Tonopah and Goldfield. We began buying quietly for the controlwith the stock at nineteen. Naturally the Transcontinental people caughton, and in twenty-four hours we were at it, hammer and tongs. "

Lidgerwood nodded. "I kept up with it in the newspapers, " he cut in. 

"The newspapers didn't print the whole story; not by many chapters, " wasthe qualifying rejoinder. "When the stock had gone to par and beyond, our own crowd went back on us; and after it had passed the two-hundredmark, Adair and I were fighting it practically alone. Even PresidentBrewster lost his nerve. He wanted to make a hedging compromise with theTranscontinental brokers just before we swung over the summit with thefinal five hundred shares we needed. "

Again Lidgerwood made the sign of assent. 

"Mr. Brewster is a level-headed Westerner. He doubtless knew, to thedotting of an 'i, ' the particular brand of trouble you two expansionistswere so eager to acquire. "

"He did. He has a copper property somewhere in the vicinity of Angels, and he knows the road. He contended that we were buying two streaks ofrust and a right-of-way in the Red Desert. More than that, he assertedthat the executive officer didn't live who could bring order out of thechaos into which bad management and a peculiarly tough environment hadplunged the Red Butte Western. That's where I had him bested, Howard. All through the hot fight I kept saying over and over to myself that Iknew the man. "

"But you don't know him, Stuart; that is the weak link in the chain. "

Lidgerwood turned away to the scratched window-panes and the crudeprospect, blurred now by the gathering shadows of the early evening. Inthe yards below, a long freight-train was pulling in from the west, witha switching-engine chasing it to begin the cutting out of the Copahlocals. Over in the Red Butte yard a road-locomotive, turning on thetable, swept a wide arc with the beam of its electric headlight in thegraying dusk. Through the half-opened door in the despatcher's room camethe diminished chattering of the telegraph instruments; this, with theouter clamor of trains and engines, made the silence in the privateoffice more insistent. 

When Lidgerwood faced about again after the interval of abstractionthere were fine lines of harassment between his eyes, and his words cameas if speech were costing him a conscious effort. 

"If it were merely a matter of technical fitness, I suppose I might goover to Angels and do what you want done with the three hundred miles ofdemoralization. But the Red Butte proposition asks for more; forsomething that I can't give it. Stuart, there is a yellow streak in methat you seem never to have discovered. I am a coward. "

The ghost of an incredulous smile wrinkled about the tired eyes of thebig man in the pivot-chair. 

"You put it with your usual exactitude, " he assented slowly; "I hadn'tdiscovered it. " Then: "You forget that I have known you pretty much allyour life, Howard. "

"You haven't known me at all, " was the sober reply. 

"Oh, yes, I have! Let me recall one of the boyhood pictures that hasnever faded. It was just after school, one hot day, in the IllinoisSeptember. Our crowd had gone down to the pond back of the school-house, and two of us were paddling around on a raft made of sawmill slabs. Oneof the two--who always had more dare-deviltry than sense under his skullthatch--was silly enough to 'rock the boat, ' and it went to pieces. Youcouldn't swim, Howard, but if you hadn't forgotten that triflinghandicap and wallowed in to pull poor Billy Mimms ashore, I should havebeen a murderer. "

Lidgerwood shook his head. 

"You think you have made your case, but you haven't. What you say istrue enough; I wasn't afraid of drowning--didn't think much about it, either way, I guess. But what I say is true, also. There are many kindsof courage, and quite as many kinds of cowardice. I am a coward of men. "

"Oh, no, you're not: you only think you are, " protested the one whothought he knew. But Lidgerwood would not let that stand. 

"I know I am. Hear me through, and then judge for yourself. What I amgoing to tell you I have never told to any living man; but it is yourright to hear it. .. . I have had the symptoms all my life, Stuart. Youhave spoken of the schoolboy days: you may remember how you used tofight my battles for me. You thought I took the bullying of the biggerboys because I wasn't strong enough physically to hold up my end. Thatwasn't it: it was fear, pure and simple. Are you listening?"

The man in the chair nodded and said, "Go on. " He was of those to whomfear, the fear of what other men might do to him, was as yet a thingunlearned, and he was trying to attain the point of view of one to whomit seemed very real. 

"It followed me up to manhood, and after a time I found myselfconstantly and consciously deferring to it. It was easy enough after thehabit was formed. Twentieth-century civilization is decently peaceable, and it isn't especially difficult to dodge the personal collisions. Ihave succeeded in dodging them, for the greater part, paying the pricein humiliation and self-abasement as I went along. God, Stuart, youdon't know what that means!--the degradation; the hot and cold chills ofself-loathing; the sickening misery of having your own soul turn uponyou to rend and tear you like a rabid dog!"

"No, I don't know what it means, " said the other man, moved more than hecared to admit by the abject confession. 

"Of course you don't. Nobody else can know. I am alone in my pit ofwretchedness, Ford . .. As one born out of time; apprehending, as well asyou or any one, what is required of a man and a gentleman, and yetunable to answer when my name is called. I said I had been paying theprice; I am paying it here and now. This is the fourth time I have hadto refuse a good offer that carried with it the fighting chance. "

The vice-president's heavy eyebrows slanted in questioning surprise. 

"You knew in advance that you were going to turn me down? Yet you came athousand miles to meet me here; and you admit that you have gone thelength of looking the ground over. "

Lidgerwood's smile was mirthless. 

"A regular recurring phase of the disease. It manifests itself in adetermination to break away and do or die in the effort to win a littleself-respect. I can't take the plunge. I know beforehand that I can't. .. Which brings us down to Copah, the present exigency, and the factthat you'll have to look farther along for your Red Butte Westernman-queller. The blood isn't in my veins, Stuart. It was left out in theassembling. "

The vice-president was still a young man and he was confronting aproblem that annoyed him. He had been calling himself, and not withoutreason, a fair judge of men. Yet here was a man whom he had knownintimately from boyhood, who was but just now revealing a totallyunsuspected quality. 

"You say you have been dodging the collisions. How do you know youwouldn't buck up when the real pinch comes?" he demanded. 

"Because the pinch came once--and I didn't buck up. It was over a yearago, and to this good day I can't think calmly about it. You willunderstand when I say that it cost me the love of the one woman in theworld. "

The vice-president did understand. Being a married lover himself, hecould measure the depth of the abyss into which Lidgerwood was looking. His voice was as sympathetic as a woman's when he said: "Go ahead andease your mind; tell me about it, if you can, Howard. It's barelypossible that you are not the best judge of your own act. "

There was something approaching the abandonment of the shameless inLidgerwood's manner when he went on. 

"It was in the Montana mountains. I was going in to do a bit of expertengineering for her father. Incidentally, I was escorting her and hermother from the railroad terminus to the summer camp in the hills, wherethey were to join a coaching party of their friends for the Yellowstonetour. We had to drive forty miles in a stage, and there were six ofus--the two women and four men. On the way the talk turned uponstage-robbings and hold-ups. With the chance of the real thing as remoteas a visit from Mars, I could be an ass and a braggart. One of the men, a salesman for a powder company, gave me the rope wherewith to hangmyself. He argued for non-resistance, and I remember that I grewsarcastic over the spectacle afforded by a grown man, armed and inpossession of his five senses, permitting himself to be robbed withoutattempting to resist. You can guess what followed?"

"I'd rather hear you tell it, " said the listener at SuperintendentLeckhard's desk. "Go on. "

Lidgerwood waited until the switching-engine, with its pop-valve openand screaming like a liberated devil of the noise pit, had passed. 

"Three miles beyond the supper station we had our hold-up; thecut-and-dried, melodramatic sort of thing you read about, or used toread about, in the early days, with a couple of Winchesters pokingthrough the scrub pines to represent the gang in hiding, and one lone, crippled desperado to come down to the footlights in the speaking part. You get the picture?"

"Yes; I've seen the original. "

"Of course, it struck every soul of us with the shock of theincredible--the totally unexpected. It was a rank anachronism, twenty-five years out of date in that particular locality. Beforeanybody realized what was happening, the cripple had us lined up in arow beside the stage, and I was reaching for the stars quite asanxiously as the little Jew hat salesman, who was swearing by all thepatriarchs that the twenty-dollar bill in his right-hand pocket was hisentire fortune. "

"Naturally, " Ford commented. "You needn't rawhide yourself for that. You've been West often enough and long enough at a time to know therules of the game--not to be frivolous when the other fellow has thedrop on you. "

"Wait, " said Lidgerwood. "One minute later the cripple had sized us upfor what we were. The other three men were not armed. I was, and MissEl--the young woman knew it. Also the cripple knew it. He tapped thegun bulging in my pocket and said, in good-natured contempt, 'Watch outthat thing don't go off and hurt you some time when you ain't lookin', stranger. ' Ford, I think I must have been hypnotized. I stood there likea frozen image, and let that crippled cow-rustler rob those twowomen--take the rings from their fingers!"

"Oh, hold on; there's another side to all that, and you know it, " thevice-president began; but Lidgerwood would not listen. 

"No, " he protested; "don't try to find excuses for me; there were none. The fellow gave me every chance; turned his back on me as an absolutelynegligible factor while he was going through the others. I'm quickenough when the crisis doesn't involve a fighting man's chance; and Ican handle a gun, too, when the thing to be shot at isn't a human being. But to save my soul from everlasting torments I couldn't go through thesimple motions of pulling the pistol from my pocket and dropping thatfellow in his tracks; couldn't and didn't. "

"Why, of course you couldn't, after it had got that far along, " assertedFord. "I doubt if any one could. That little remark about the gun inyour pocket did you up. When a man gets you pacified to the conditionin which he can safely josh you, he has got you going and he knowsit--and knows you know it. You may be twice as hot and bloodthirsty asyou were before, but you are just that much less able to strike back. It's not a theory; it is a psychological demonstration. "

"But the fact remained, " said Lidgerwood, sparing himself not at all. "Iwas weighed and found wanting; that is the only point worthconsidering. "

"Well?" queried Ford, when the self-condemned culprit turned again tothe dusk-darkened window, "what came of it?"

"That which was due to come. I was told many times and in many differentways what the one woman thought of me. For the few days during which sheand her mother waited at her father's mine for the coming of theYellowstone party, she used me for a door-mat, as I deserved. That was ayear ago last spring. I haven't seen her since; haven't tried to. "

The vice-president reached up and snapped the key of the electric bulbover the desk, and the lurking shadows in the corners of the room fledaway. 

"Sit down, " he said shortly; and when Lidgerwood had found a chair:"You treat it as an incident closed, Howard. Do you mean to go onleaving it up in the air like that?"

"It was left in the air a year ago last spring. I can't pull it downnow. "

"Yes, you can. You haven't exaggerated the conditions on the Red Butteline an atom. As you say, the operating force is as godless a lot ofoutlaws as ever ran trains or ditched them. They all know that the roadhas been bought and sold, and that pretty sweeping changes areimpending. They are looking for trouble, and are quite ready to helpmake it. If you could discharge them in a body, you couldn't replacethem--the Red Desert having nothing to offer as a dwelling-place forcivilized men; and this they know, too. Howard, I'm telling you rightnow that it will require a higher brand of courage to go over to Angelsand manhandle the Red Butte Western as a division of the P. S-W. Than itwould to face a dozen highwaymen, if every individual one of the dozenhad the drop on you!"

Lidgerwood left his chair and began to pace the narrow limits of theprivate office, five steps and a turn. The noisy switching-engine hadgone clattering and shrieking down the yard again before he said, "Youmean that you are still giving me the chance to make good over yonderin the Red Desert--after what I have told you?"

"I do; only I'll make it more binding. It was optional with you before;it's a sheer necessity now. You've _got_ to go. "

Again Lidgerwood took time to reflect, tramping the floor, with his headdown and his hands in the pockets of the correct coat. In the end heyielded, as the vice-president's subjects commonly did. 

"I'll go, if you still insist upon it, " was the slowly spoken decision. "There will doubtless be plenty of trouble, and I shall probably showthe yellow streak--for the last time, perhaps. It's the kind of anoutfit to kill a coward for the pure pleasure of it, if I'm notmistaken. "

"Well, " said the man in the swing-chair, calmly, "maybe you need alittle killing, Howard. Had you ever thought of that?"

A gray look came into Lidgerwood's face. 

"Maybe I do. "

A little silence supervened. Then Ford plunged into detail. 

"Now that you are fairly committed, sit down and let me give you an ideaof what you'll find at Angels in the way of a head-quarters outfit. Drawup here and we'll go over the lay-out together. "

A busy hour had elapsed, and the gong of the station dining-room belowwas adding its raucous clamor to the drumming thunder of the incomingtrain from Green Butte, when the vice-president concluded his outlinesketch of the Red Butte Western conditions. 

"Of course, you know that you will have a free hand. We have alreadycleared the decks for you. As an independent road, the Red Butte linehad the usual executive organization in miniature: Cumberley had thetitle of general superintendent, but his authority, when he cared toassert it, was really that of general manager. Under him, in thehead-quarters staff at Angels, there was an auditor--who also acted aspaymaster, a general freight and passenger agent, and a superintendentof motive power. Operating the line as a branch of the P. S-W System, wecan simplify the organization. We have consolidated the auditing andtraffic departments with our Colorado-lines head-quarters at Denver. Thiswill leave you with only the operating, telegraph, train-service, andengineering departments to handle from Angels. With one exception, yourauthority will be absolute; you will hire and discharge as you see fit, and there will be no appeal from your decision. "

"That applies to my own departments--the operating, telegraph, train-service, and engineering; but how about the motive power?" askedthe new incumbent. 

Ford threw down the desk-knife, with which he had been sharpening apencil, with a little gesture indicative of displeasure. 

"There lies the exception, and I wish it didn't. Gridley, themaster-mechanic, will be nominally under your orders, of course; but ifit should come to blows between you, you couldn't fire him. In theregular routine he will report to the Colorado-lines superintendent ofmotive power at Denver. But in a quarrel with you he could make a stilllonger arm and reach the P. S-W. Board of directors in New York. "

"How is that?" inquired Lidgerwood. 

"It's a family affair. He is a widower, and his wife was a sister of theVan Kensingtons. He got his job through the family influence, and he'llhold it in the same way. But you are not likely to have any trouble withhim. He is a brute in his own peculiar fashion; but when it comes tohandling shopmen and keeping the engines in service, he can't be beat. "

"That is all I shall ask of him, " said the new superintendent. "Anythingelse?" looking at his watch. 

"Yes, there is one other thing. I spoke of Hallock, the man you willfind holding down the head-quarters office at Angels. He was Cumberley'schief clerk, and long before Cumberley resigned he was the realsuperintendent of the Red Butte Western in everything but the title, andthe place on the pay-roll. Naturally he thought he ought to beconsidered when we climbed into the saddle, and he has already writtento President Brewster, asking for the promotion in fact. He happens tobe a New Yorker--like Gridley; and, again like Gridley, he has a friendat court. Magnus knows him, and he recommended him for thesuperintendency when Mr. Brewster referred the application to me. Icouldn't agree, and I had to turn him down. I am telling you this soyou'll be easy with him--as easy as you can. I don't know himpersonally, but if you can keep him on----"

"I shall be only too glad to keep him, if he knows his business and willstay, " was Lidgerwood's reply. Then, with another glance at his watch, "Shall we go up-town and get dinner? Afterward you can give me yournotion in the large about the future extension of the road across thesecond Timanyoni, and I'll order out the service-car and an engine andgo to my place. A man can die but once; and maybe I shall contrive tolive long enough to set a few stakes for some better fellow to drive. Let's go. "

 * * * * *

At ten o'clock that night Engine 266, Williams, engineer, and Blackmar, fireman, was chalked up on the Red Butte Western roundhousebulletin-board to go west at midnight with the new superintendent'sservice-car, running as a special train. 

Svenson, the caller, who brought the order from the Copahsub-despatcher's office, unloaded his news upon the circle of R. B. W. Engineers, firemen, and roundhouse roustabouts lounging on the benchesin the tool-room and speculating morosely upon the probable changeswhich the new management would bring to pass. 

"Ve bane got dem new boss, Ay vant to tal you fallers, " he drawled. 

"Who is he?" demanded Williams, who had been looking on sourly while theengine-despatcher chalked his name on the board for the night run withthe service-car. 

"Ay couldn't tal you his name. Bote he is dem young faller bane goin''round hare dees two, t'ree days, lukin' lak preacher out of a yob. Vouldn'd dat yar you?"

Williams rose up to his full height of six-feet-two, and flung hishands upward in a gesture that was more expressive than many oaths. 

"_Collars-and-Cuffs, by God!_" he said. 

II

THE RED DESERT

In the beginning the Red Desert, figuring unpronounceably under itsNavajo name of Tse-nastci--Circle-of-Red-Stones--was shunned alike byman and beast, and the bravest of the gold-hunters, seeking to penetrateto the placer ground in the hill gulches between the twin Timanyoniranges, made a hundred-mile détour to avoid it. 

Later, the discoveries of rich "pocket" deposits in the Red Buttedistrict lifted the intermontane hill country temporarily to the highplane of a bonanza field. In the rush that followed, a few prudent oneschose the longer détour; others, hardier and more temerarious, outfittedat Copah, and assaulting the hill barrier of the Little Piñons atCrosswater Gap, faced the jornada through the Land of Thirst. 

Of these earliest of the desert caravans, the railroad builders, following the same trail and pointing toward the same destination in thegold gulches, found dismal reminders. In the longest of the thirstystretches there were clean-picked skeletons, and they were not alwaysthe relics of the patient pack-animals. In which event Chandler, chiefof the Red Butte Western construction, proclaimed himself Eastern-bredand a tenderfoot by compelling the grade contractors to stop and burythem. 

Why the railroad builders, with Copah for a starting-point and Red Buttefor a terminus, had elected to pitch their head-quarters camp in thewestern edge of the desert, no later comer could ever determine. Lost, also, is the identity of the camp's sponsor who, visioning the thingsthat were to be, borrowed from the California pioneers and named thehalting-place on the desert's edge "Angels. " But for the more materialdetails Chandler was responsible. It was he who laid out the divisionyards on the bald plain at the foot of the first mesa, planting the"Crow's Nest" head-quarters building on the mesa side of the gridironingtracks, and scattering the shops and repair plant along the oppositeboundary of the wide right-of-way. 

The town had followed the shops, as a sheer necessity. First and alwaysthe railroad nucleus, Angels became in turn, and in addition, theforwarding station for a copper-mining district in the Timanyonifoot-hills, and a little later, when a few adventurous cattlemen haddiscovered that the sun-cured herbage of the desert borders wasnutritious and fattening, a stock-shipping point. But even in the day ofpromise, when the railroad building was at its height and a handful ofpromoters were plotting streets and town lots on the second mesa, andprinting glowing tributes--for strictly Eastern distribution--to the dryatmosphere and the unfailing sunshine, the desert leaven was silently atwork. A few of the railroad men transplanted their families; but apartfrom these, Angels was a man's town with elemental appetites, and withonly the coarse fare of the frontier fighting line to satisfy them. 

Farther along, the desert came more definitely to its own. The rich RedButte "pockets" began to show signs of exhaustion, and the gulch and oremining afforded but a precarious alternative to the thousands who hadgone in on the crest of the bonanza wave. Almost as tumultuously as ithad swept into the hill country, the tide of population swept out. Forthe gulch hamlets between the Timanyonis there was still an industrialreason for being; but the railroad languished, and Angels became theweir to catch and retain many of the leavings, the driftwood stranded inthe slack water of the outgoing tide. With the railroad, the CopperetteMine, and the "X-bar-Z" pay-days to bring regularly recurring moments offlushness, and with every alternate door in Mesa Avenue the entrance toa bar, a dance-hall, a gambling den, or the three in combination, theelemental appetites grew avid, and the hot breath of the desert fannedslow fires of brutality that ate the deeper when they penetrated to thepunk heart of the driftwood. 

It was during this period of deflagration and dry rot that the Easternowners of the railroad lost heart. Since the year of the Red Butteinrush there had been no dividends; and Chandler, summoned from anotherbattle with the canyons in the far Northwest, was sent in to make anexpert report on the property. "Sell it for what it will bring, " was thesubstance of Chandler's advice; but there were no bidders, and from thistime on a masterless railroad was added to the spoils of war--theinexpiable war of the Red Desert upon its invaders. 

At the moment of the moribund railroad's purchase by the PacificSouthwestern, the desert was encroaching more and more upon the townplanted in its western border. In the height of Angels's prosperitythere had been electric lights and a one-car street tramway, a bank, and a Building and Loan Association attesting its presence in rows ofornate cottages on the second mesa--alluring bait thrown out to catchthe potential savings of the railroad colonists. 

But now only the railroad plant was electric-lighted; the singleramshackle street-car had been turned into a _chile-con-carne_ stand;the bank, unable to compete with the faro games and the roulette wheels, had gone into liquidation; the Building and Loan directors had longsince looted the treasury and sought fresh fields, and the cottages werechiefly empty shells. 

Of the charter members of the Building and Loan Association, shrewdestof the many boom-time schemes for the separation of the pay-roll manfrom his money, only two remained as residents of Angels the decadent. One of these was Gridley, the master-mechanic, and the other wasHallock, chief clerk for a diminishing series of importedsuperintendents, and now for the third time the disappointed applicantfor the headship of the Red Butte Western. 

Associated for some brief time in the real-estate venture, and hailingfrom the same far-away Eastern State and city, these two had been atfirst yoke-fellows, and afterward, as if by tacit consent, inertenemies. As widely separated as the poles in characteristics, habits, and in their outlook upon life, they had little in common, and manyantipathies. 

Gridley was a large man, virile of face and figure, and he marched inthe ranks of the full-fed and the self-indulgent. Hallock was big-bonedand cadaverous of face, but otherwise a fair physical match for themaster-mechanic; a dark man with gloomy eyes and a permanent frown. Jovial good-nature went with the master-mechanic's gray eyes twinklingeasily to a genial smile, but it stopped rather abruptly at thestraight-lined, sensual mouth, and found a second negation in the brutaljaw which was only thinly masked by the neatly trimmed beard. Hallock'ssmile was bitter, and if he had a social side no one in Angels had everdiscovered it. In a region where fellowship in some sort, if it wereonly that of the bottle and the card-table, was any man's for thetaking, he was a hermit, an ascetic; and his attitude toward others, allothers, so far as Angels knew, was that of silent and morose ferocity. 

It was in an upper room of the "Crow's Nest" head-quarters building thatthese two, the master-mechanic and the acting superintendent, met latein the evening of the day when Vice-President Ford had kept hisappointment in Copah with Lidgerwood. 

Gridley, clad like a gentleman, and tilting comfortably in his chair ashe smoked a cigar that neither love nor money could have bought inAngels, was jocosely sarcastic. Hallock, shirt-sleeved, unkempt, andwith the permanent frown deepening the furrow between his eyes, neithertilted nor smoked. 

"They tell me you have missed the step up again, Hallock, " said thesmoker lazily, when the purely technical matter that had brought him toHallock's office had been settled. 

"Who tells you?" demanded the other; and a listener, knowing neither, would have remarked the curious similarity of the grating note in bothvoices as infallibly as a student of human nature would have contrastedthe two men in every other personal characteristic. 

"I don't remember, " said Gridley, good-naturedly refusing to commit hisinformant, "but it's on the wires. Vice-President Ford is in Copah, andthe new superintendent is with him. "

Hallock leaned forward in his chair. 

"Who is the new man?" he asked. 

"Nobody seems to know him by name. But he is a friend of Ford's allright. That is how he gets the job. "

Hallock took a plug of black tobacco from his pocket, and cut a smallsliver from it for a chew. It was his one concession to appetite, and hemade it grudgingly. 

"A college man, I suppose, " he commented. "Otherwise Ford wouldn't bebacking him. "

"Oh, yes, I guess it's safe to count on that. "

"And a man who will carry out the Ford policy?"

Gridley's eyes smiled, but lower down on his face the smile became acynical baring of the strong teeth. 

"A man who may try to carry out the Ford idea, " he qualified; adding, "The desert will get hold of him and eat him alive, as it has theothers. "

"Maybe, " said Hallock thoughtfully. Then, with sudden heat, "It's hell, Gridley! I've hung on and waited and done the work for theirfigure-heads, one after another. The job belongs to me!"

This time Gridley's smile was a thinly veiled sneer. 

"What makes you so keen for it, Hallock?" he asked. "You have no use forthe money, and still less for the title. "

"How do you know I don't want the salary?" snapped the other. "BecauseI don't have my clothes made in New York, or blow myself across thetables in Mesa Avenue, does it go without saying that I have no use formoney?"

"But you haven't, you know you haven't, " was the taunting rejoinder. "And the title, when you have, and have always had, the real authority, means still less to you. "

"Authority!" scoffed the chief clerk, his gloomy eyes lighting up withslow fire, "this maverick railroad don't know the meaning of the word. By God! Gridley, if I had the club in my hands for a few months I'd show'em!"

"Oh, I guess not, " said the cigar-smoker easily. "You're not built rightfor it, Hallock; the desert would give you the horse-laugh. "

"Would it? Not before I had squared off a few old debts, Gridley; don'tyou forget that. "

There was a menace in the harsh retort, and the chief clerk made noattempt to conceal it. 

"Threatening, are you?" jeered the full-fed one, still good-naturedlysarcastic. "What would you do, if you had the chance, Rankin?"

"I'd kill out some of the waste and recklessness, if it took the lastman off the pay-rolls; and I'd break even with at least one man over inthe Timanyoni, if I had to use the whole Red Butte Western to pry himloose!"

"Flemister again?" queried the master-mechanic. And then, in milddeprecation, "You are a bad loser, Hallock, a damned bad loser. But Isuppose that is one of your limitations. "

A silence settled down upon the upper room, but Gridley made no move togo. Out in the yards the night men were making up a westbound freight, and the crashing of box-cars carelessly "kicked" into place added itsnote to the discord of inefficiency and destructive breakage. 

Over in the town a dance-hall piano was jangling, and the raucous voiceof the dance-master calling the figures came across to the Crow's Nestcuriously like the barking of a distant dog. Suddenly the barking voicestopped, and the piano clamor ended futilely in an aimless tinkling. Forclimax a pistol-shot rang out, followed by a scattering volley. It was aprecise commentary on the time and the place that neither of the two menin the head-quarters upper room gave heed to the pistol-shots, or to theyelling uproar that accompanied them. 

It was after the shouting had died away in a confused clatter of hoofs, and the pistol cracklings were coming only at intervals and from anincreasing distance, that the corridor door opened and the nightdespatcher's off-trick man came in with a message for Hallock. 

It was a mere routine notification from the line-end operator at Copah, and the chief clerk read it sullenly to the master-mechanic. 

"Engine 266, Williams, engineer, and Blackmar, fireman, with service-carNaught-One, Bradford, conductor, will leave Copah at 12:01 A. M. , and runspecial to Angels. By order of Howard Lidgerwood, GeneralSuperintendent. "

Gridley's pivot-chair righted itself with a snap. But he waited untilthe off-trick man was gone before he said, "Lidgerwood! Well, by all thegods!" then, with a laugh that was more than half a snarl, "There is achance for you yet, Rankin. "

"Why, do you know him?"

"No, but I know something about him. I've got a line on New York, thesame as you have, and I get a hint now and then. I knew that Lidgerwoodhad been considered for the place, but I was given to understand that hewould refuse the job if it were offered to him. "

"Why should he refuse?" demanded Hallock. 

"That is where my wire-tapper fell down; he couldn't tell. "

"Then why do you say there is still a chance for me?"

"Oh, on general principles, I guess. If it was an even break that hewould refuse, it is still more likely that he won't stay after he hasseen what he is up against, don't you think?"

Hallock did not say what he thought. He rarely did. 

"Of course, you made inquiries about him when you found out he was apossible; I'd trust you to do that, Gridley. What do you know?"

"Not much that you can use. He is out of the Middle West; a young manand a graduate of Purdue. He took the Civil degree, but stayed two yearslonger and romped through the Mechanical. He ought to be pretty well upon theory, you'd say. "

"Theory be damned!" snapped the chief clerk. "What he'll need in the RedDesert will be nerve and a good gun. If he has the nerve, he can buy thegun. "

"But having the gun he couldn't always be sure of buying the nerve, eh?I guess you are right, Rankin; you usually are when you can forget to bevindictive. And that brings us around to the jumping-off place again. Ofcourse, you will stay on with the new man--if he wants you to?"

"I don't know. That is my business, and none of yours. "

It was a bid for a renewal of the quarrel which was never more than halfveiled between these two. But Gridley did not lift the challenge. 

"Let it go at that, " he said placably. "But if you should decide tostay, I want you to let up on Flemister. "

The morose antagonism died out of Hallock's eyes, and in its place camecraft. 

"I'd kill Flemister on sight, if I had the sand; you know that, Gridley. Some day it may come to that. But in the meantime----"

"In the meantime you have been snapping at his heels like a fice-dog, Hallock; holding out ore-cars on him, delaying his coal supplies, stirring up trouble with his miners. That was all right, up toyesterday. But now it has got to stop. "

"Not for any orders that you can give, " retorted the chief clerk, oncemore opening the door for the quarrel. 

The master-mechanic got up and flicked the cigar ash from hiscoat-sleeve with a handkerchief that was fine enough to be a woman's. 

"I am not going to come to blows with you. Rankin--not if I can helpit, " he said, with his hand on the door-knob. "But what I have saidwill have to go as it lies. Shoot Flemister out of hand, if you feellike it, but quit hampering his business. "

Hallock stood up, and when he was on his feet his big frame made himlook still more a fair match physically for the handsomemaster-mechanic. 

"Why?" The single word shot out of the loose-lipped mouth like anexplosive bullet. 

Gridley opened the door and turned upon the threshold. 

"I might borrow the word from you and say that Flemister's business andmine are none of yours. But I won't do that. I'll merely say thatFlemister may need a little Red Butte Western nursing in the Ute Valleyirrigation scheme he is promoting, and I want you to see that he getsit. You may take that as a word to the wise, or as a kicked-in hint to ablind mule; whichever you please. You can't afford to fight me, Hallock, and you know it. Sleep on it a few hours, and you'll see it in that way, I'm sure. Good-night. "

III

A LITTLE BROTHER OF THE COWS

Crosswater Gap, so named because the high pass over which the railroadfinds its way is anything but a gap, and, save when the winter snows aremelting, there is no water within a day's march, was in sight from theloopings of the eastern approach. Lidgerwood, scanning the grades as theservice-car swung from tangent to curve and curve to tangent up thesteep inclines, was beginning to think of breakfast. The morning air wascrisp and bracing, and he had been getting the full benefit of it for anhour or more, sitting under the umbrella roof at the observation end ofthe car. 

With the breakfast thought came the thing itself, or the invitation toit. As a parting kindness the night before, Ford had transferred one ofthe cooks from his own private car to Lidgerwood's service, and thelittle man, Tadasu Matsuwari by name, and a subject of the Mikado byrace and birth, came to the car door to call his new employer to thetable. 

It was an attractive table, well appointed and well served; butLidgerwood, temperamentally single-eyed in all things, was diverted fromhis reorganization problem for the moment only. Since early dawn he hadbeen up and out on the observation platform, noting, this time with theeye of mastership, the physical condition of the road; the bridges, theembankments, the cross-ties, the miles of steel unreeling under thedrumming trucks, and the object-lesson was still fresh in his mind. 

To a disheartening extent, the Red Butte demoralization had involved thepermanent way. Originally a good track, with heavy steel, easy gradescompensated for the curves, and a mathematical alignment, the roadbedand equipment had been allowed to fall into disrepair under indifferentsupervision and the short-handing of the section gangs--always animpractical directory's first retrenchment when the dividends begin tofail. Lidgerwood had seen how the ballast had been suffered to sink atthe rail-joints, and he had read the record of careless supervision ateach fresh swing of the train, since it is the section foreman'sweakness to spoil the geometrical curve by working it back, little bylittle, into the adjoining tangent. 

Reflecting upon these things, Lidgerwood's comment fell into speech overhis cup of coffee and crisp breakfast bacon. 

"About the first man we need is an engineer who won't be too exalted toget down and squint curves with the section bosses, " he mused, and fromthat on he was searching patiently through the memory card-index for theright man. 

At the summit station, where the line leaves the Pannikin basin toplunge into the western desert, there was a delay. Lidgerwood was stillat the breakfast-table when Bradford, the conductor, black-shirted andlooking, in his slouch hat and riding-leggings, more like ahorse-wrangler than a captain of railroad trains, lounged in to explainthat there was a hot box under the 266's tender. Bradford was not of anyfaction of discontent, but the spirit of morose insubordination, born ofthe late change in management, was in the air, and he spoke gruffly. Hence, with the flint and steel thus provided, the spark was promptlyevoked. 

"Were the boxes properly overhauled before you left Copah?" demanded thenew boss. 

Bradford did not know, and the manner of his answer implied that he didnot care. And for good measure he threw in an intimation thatroundhouse dope kettles were not in his line. 

Lidgerwood passed over the large impudence and held to the matter inhand. 

"How much time have we on 201?" he asked, Train 201 being the westboundpassenger overtaken and left behind in the small hours of the morning bythe lighter and faster special. 

"Thirty minutes, here, " growled the little brother of the cows; afterwhich he took himself off as if he considered the incident sufficientlyclosed. 

Fifteen minutes later Lidgerwood finished his breakfast and went back tohis camp-chair on the observation platform of the service-car. A glanceover the side rail showed him his train crew still working on the heatedaxle-bearing. Another to the rear picked up the passenger-train stormingaround the climbing curves of the eastern approach to the summit. Therewas a small problem impending for the division despatcher at Angels, andthe new superintendent held aloof to see how it would be handled. 

It was handled rather indifferently. The passenger-train was pulling inover the summit switches when Bradford, sauntering into the telegraphoffice as if haste were the last thing in the world to be considered, asked for his clearance card, got it, and gave Williams the signal togo. 

Lidgerwood got up and went into the car to consult the time-tablehanging in the office compartment. Train 201 had no dead time atCrosswater; hence, if the ten-minute interval between trains of the sameclass moving in the same direction was to be preserved, the passengerwould have to be held. 

The assumption that the passenger-train would be held aroused all therailroad martinet's fury in the new superintendent. In Lidgerwood'scalendar, time-killing on regular trains stood next to an infringementof the rules providing for the safety of life and property. His hand wason the signal-cord when, chancing to look back, he saw that thepassenger-train had made only the momentary time-card stop at the summitstation, and was coming on. 

This turned the high crime into a mere breach of discipline, commonenough even on well-managed railroads when the leading train can betrusted to increase the distance interval. But again the martinet inLidgerwood protested. It was his theory that rules were made to beobserved, and his experience had proved that little infractions pavedthe way for great ones. In the present instance, however, it was toolate to interfere; so he drew a chair out in line with one of the rearobservation windows and sat down to mark the event. 

Pitching over the hilltop summit, within a minute of each other, the twotrains raced down the first few curving inclines almost as one. Mileafter mile was covered, and still the perilous situation remainedunchanged. Down the short tangents and around the constantly recurringcurves the special seemed to be towing the passenger at the end of aninvisible but dangerously short drag-rope. 

Lidgerwood began to grow uneasy. On the straight-line stretches thefollowing train appeared to be rushing onward to an inevitable rear-endcollision with the one-car special; and where the track swerved to rightor left around the hills, the pursuing smoke trail rose above theintervening hill-shoulders near and threatening. With the parts of agreat machine whirling in unison and nicely timed to escape destruction, a small accident to a single cog may spell disaster. 

Lidgerwood left his chair and went again to consult the time-table. Abrief comparison of miles with minutes explained the effect withoutexcusing the cause. Train 201's schedule from the summit station to thedesert level was very fast; and Williams, nursing his hot box, eithercould not, or would not, increase his lead. 

At first, Lidgerwood, anticipating rebellion, was inclined to charge thehazardous situation to intention on the part of his own train crew. Having a good chance to lie out of it if they were accused, Williams andBradford might be deliberately trying the nerve of the new boss. Thepresumption did not breed fear; it bred wrath, hot and vindictive. Twosharp tugs at the signal-cord brought Bradford from the engine. Thememory of the conductor's gruff replies and easy impudence was freshenough to make Lidgerwood's reprimand harsh. 

"Do you call this railroading?" he rasped, pointing backward to themenace. "Don't you know that we are on 201's time?"

Bradford scowled in surly antagonism. 

"That blamed hot box--" he began, but Lidgerwood cut him off short. 

"The hot box has nothing to do with the case. You are not hired to takechances, or to hold out regular trains. Go forward and tell yourengineer to speed up and get out of the way. "

"I got my clearance at the summit, and I ain't despatchin' trains onthis jerk-water railroad, " observed the conductor coolly. Then headded, with a shade less of the belligerent disinterest: "Williams can'tspeed up. That housin' under the tender is about ready to blaze up andset the woods afire again, right now. "

Once more Lidgerwood turned to the time-card. It was twenty milesfarther along to the next telegraph station, and he heaped up wrathagainst the day of wrath in store for a despatcher who would recklesslyturn two trains loose and out of his reach under such criticalconditions, for thirty hazardous mountain miles. 

Bradford, looking on sullenly, mistook the new boss's frown for more tofollow, with himself for the target, and was moving away. Lidgerwoodpointed to a chair with a curt, "Sit down!" and the conductor obeyedreluctantly. 

"You say you have your clearance card, and that you are not despatchingtrains, " he went on evenly, "but neither fact relieves you of yourresponsibility. It was your duty to make sure that the despatcher fullyunderstood the situation at Crosswater, and to refuse to pull out aheadof the passenger without something more definite than a formal permit. Weren't you taught that? Where did you learn to run trains?"

It was an opening for hard words, but the conductor let it pass. Something in the steady, business-like tone, or in the shrewdlyappraisive eyes, turned Bradford the potential mutineer into Bradfordthe possible partisan. 

"I reckon we are needing a _rodeo_ over here on this jerk-water mightybad, Mr. Lidgerwood, " he said, half humorously. "Take us coming andgoing, about half of us never had the sure-enough railroad brand putonto us, nohow. But, Lord love you! this little _pasear_ we're makingdown this hill ain't anything! That's the old 210 chasin' us with thepassenger, and she couldn't catch Bat Williams and the '66 in a month o'Sundays if we didn't have that doggoned spavined leg under the tender. She sure couldn't. "

Lidgerwood smiled in spite of his annoyance, and wondered at what pagein the railroad primer he would have to begin in teaching these men ofthe camps and the round-ups. 

"But it isn't railroading, " he insisted, meeting his first pupilhalf-way, and as man to man. "You might do this thing ninety-nine timeswithout paying for it, and the hundredth time something would turn up toslow or to stop the leading train, and there you are. "

"Sure!" said the ex-cowboy, quite heartily. 

"Now, if there should happen to be----"

The sentence was never finished. The special, lagging a little now indeference to the smoking hot box, was rounding one of the long hillcurves to the left. Suddenly the air-brakes ground sharply upon thewheels, shrill whistlings from the 266 sounded the stop signal, and pastthe end of the slowing service-car a trackman ran frantically up theline toward the following passenger, yelling and swinging his strippedcoat like a madman. 

Lidgerwood caught a fleeting glimpse of a section gang's green "slow"flag lying toppled over between the rails a hundred feet to the rear. Measuring the distance of the onrushing passenger-train against thelife-saving seconds remaining, he called to Bradford to jump, and thenran forward to drag the Japanese cook out of his galley. 

It was all over in a moment. There was time enough for Lidgerwood torush the little Tadasu to the forward vestibule, to fling him intospace, and to make his own flying leap for safety before the crisiscame. Happily there was no wreck, though the margin of escape was thenarrowest. Williams stuck to his post in the cab of the 266, applyingand releasing the brakes, and running as far ahead as he dared upon theloosened timbers of the culvert, for which the section gang's slowflagwas out. Carter, the engineer on the passenger-train, jumped; but hisfireman was of better mettle and stayed with the machine, sliding thewheels with the driver-jams, and pumping sand on the rails up to themoment when the shuddering mass of iron and steel thrust its pilot underthe trucks of Lidgerwood's car, lifted them, dropped them, and drew backsullenly in obedience to the pull of the reverse and the recoil of thebrake mechanism. 

It was an excellent opportunity for eloquence of the explosive sort, andwhen the dust had settled the track and trainmen were evidentlyexpecting the well-deserved tongue-lashing. But in crises like this thenew superintendent was at his self-contained best. Instead of swearingat the men, he gave his orders quietly and with the brisk certainty ofone who knows his trade. The passenger-train was to keep ten minutesbehind its own time until the next siding was passed, making up beyondthat point if its running orders permitted. The special was to proceedon 201's time to the siding in question, at which point it wouldside-track and let the passenger precede it. 

Bradford was in the cab of 266 when Williams eased his engine and theservice-car over the unsafe culvert, and inched the throttle open forthe speeding race down the hill curves toward the wide valley plain ofthe Red Desert. 

"Turn it loose, Andy, " said the big engineman, when the requisite numberof miles of silence had been ticked off by the space-devouring wheels. "What-all do you think of Mister Collars-and-Cuffs by this time?"

Bradford took a leisurely minute to whittle a chewing cube from hispocket plug of hard-times tobacco. 

"Well, first dash out o' the box, I allowed he was some locoed; hejumped me like a jack-rabbit for takin' a clearance right under JimCarter's nose that-a-way. Then we got down to business, and I was justbeginning to get onto his gait a little when the green flag butted in. "

"Gait fits the laundry part of him?" suggested Williams. 

"It does and it don't. I ain't much on systems and sure things, Bat, butI can make out to guess a guess, once in a while, when I have to. Ifthat little tailor-made man don't get his finger mashed, or something, and have to go home and get somebody to poultice it, things are goin' tohave a spell of happenings on this little old cow-trail of a railroad. That's my ante. "

"What sort of things?" demanded Williams. 

"When it comes to that, your guess is as good as mine, but they'llspell trouble for the amatoors and the trouble-makers, I reckon. I ain'tplacin' any bets yet, but that's about the way it stacks up to me. "

Williams let the 266 out another notch, hung out of his window to lookback at the smoking hot box, and, in the complete fulness of time, said, "Think he's got the sand, Andy?"

"This time you've got me goin', " was the slow reply. "Sizing him up oneside and down the other when he called me back to pull my ear, I said, 'No, my young bronco-buster; you're a bluffer--the kind that'll put upboth hands right quick when the bluff is called. ' Afterward, I wasn't soblamed sure. One kind o' sand he's got, to a dead moral certainty. Whenhe saw what was due to happen back yonder at the culvert, he told me'23, ' all right, but he took time to hike up ahead and yank that Japcook out o' the car-kitchen before he turned his own little handspringinto the ditch. "

The big engineer nodded, but he was still unconvinced when he made thestop for the siding at Last Chance. After the fireman had dropped off toset the switch for the following train, Williams put the unconvincementinto words. 

"That kind of sand is all right in God's country, Andy, but out here inthe nearer edges of hell you got to know how to fight with pitchforksand such other tools as come handy. The new boss may be that kind of ascrapper, but he sure don't look it. You know as well as I do that menlike Rufford and 'Cat' Biggs and Red-Light Sammy'll eat him alive, justfor the fun of it, if he can't make out to throw lead quicker'n theycan. And that ain't saying anything about the hobo outfit he'll have togo up against on this make-b'lieve railroad. "

"No, " agreed Bradford, ruminating thoughtfully. And then, by way ofrounding out the subject: "Here's hopin' his nerve is as good as hisclothes. I don't love a Mongolian any better'n you do, Bat, but the wayhe hustled to save that little brown man's skin sort o' got next to me;it sure did. Says I, 'A man that'll do that won't go round hunting achance to kick a fice-dog just because the fice don't happen to be ablooded bull-terrier. '"

Williams, brawny and broad-chested, leaned against his box, his barearms folded and his short pipe at the disputatious angle. 

"He'd better have nerve, or get some, " he commented. "T'otherways it'shim for an early wooden overcoat and a trip back home in theexpress-car. After which, let me tell you, Andy, that man Ford'll siftthis cussed country through a flour-shaker but what he'll cinch theoutfit that does it. You write that out in your car-report. "

Back in the service-car Lidgerwood was sitting quietly in the doorway, smoking his delayed after-breakfast cigar, and timing the up-comingpassenger-train, watch in hand. Carter was ten minutes, to the exactsecond, behind his schedule time when the train thundered past on themain track, and Lidgerwood pocketed his watch with a smile ofsatisfaction. It was the first small victory in the campaign for reform. 

Later, however, when the special was once more in motion westward, thedesert laid hold upon him with the grip which first benumbs, then breedsdull rage, and finally makes men mad. Mile after mile the glisteningrails sped backward into a shimmering haze of red dust. The glow of thebreathless forenoon was like the blinding brightness of a forge-fire. Toright and left the great treeless plain rose to bare buttes, backed bystill barer mountains. Let the train speed as it would, there was alwaysthe same wearying prospect, devoid of interest, empty of humanlandmarks. Only the blazing sun swung from side to side with the slowveerings of the track: what answered for a horizon seemed never tochange, never to move. 

At long intervals a siding, sometimes with its waiting train, butoftener empty and deserted, slid into view and out again. Still lessfrequently a telegraph station, with its red, iron-roofed office, itswater-tank cars and pumping machinery, and its high-fenced corral andloading chute, moved up out of the distorting heat haze ahead, and waslost in the dusty mirages to the rear. But apart from the crews of thewaiting trains, and now and then the desert-sobered face of sometelegraph operator staring from his window at the passing special, therewere no signs of life: no cattle upon the distant hills, no loungers onthe station platforms. 

Lidgerwood had crossed this arid, lifeless plain twice within the weekon his preliminary tour of inspection, but both times he had been in thePullman, with fellow-passengers to fill the nearer field of vision andto temper the awful loneliness of the waste. Now, however, the desertwith its heat, its stillness, its vacancy, its pitiless barrenness, claimed him as its own. He wondered that he had been impatient with themen it bred. The wonder now was that human virtue of any temper couldlong withstand the blasting touch of so great and awful a desolation. 

It was past noon when the bowl-like basin, in which the train seemed tocircle helplessly without gaining upon the terrifying horizons, began tolose its harshest features. Little by little, the tumbled hills drewnearer, and the red-sand dust of the road-bed gave place to broken lava. Patches of gray, sun-dried mountain grass appeared on the passing hillslopes, and in the arroyos trickling threads of water glistened, or, ifthe water were hidden, there were at least paths of damp sand to hint atthe blessed moisture underneath. 

Lidgerwood began to breathe again; and when the shrill whistle of thelocomotive signalled the approach to the division head-quarters, he wasthankful that the builders of Angels had pitched their tents and driventheir stakes in the desert's edge, rather than in its heart. 

Truly, Angels was not much to be thankful for, as the exile from theEast regretfully admitted when he looked out upon it from the windows ofhis office in the second story of the Crow's Nest. A many-trackedrailroad yard, flanked on one side by the repair shops, roundhouse, andcoal-chutes; and on the other by a straggling town of bare andcommonplace exteriors, unpainted, unfenced, treeless, and wind-swept:Angels stood baldly for what it was--a mere stopping-place in transitfor the Red Butte Western. 

The new superintendent turned his back upon the depressing outlook andlaid his hand upon the latch of the door opening into the adjoiningroom. There was a thing to be said about the reckless bunching of trainsout of reach of the wires, and it might as well be said now as later, hedetermined. But at the moment of door-opening he was made to realizethat a tall, box-like contrivance in one corner of the office was adesk, and that it was inhabited. 

The man who rose up to greet him was bearded, heavy-shouldered, andhollow-eyed, and he was past middle age. Green cardboard conesprotecting his shirt-sleeves, and a shade of the same material visoringthe sunken eyes, were the only clerkly suggestions about him. Since hemerely stood up and ran his fingers through his thick black hair, withno more than an abstracted "Good-afternoon" for speech, Lidgerwood wasleft to guess at his identity. 

"You are Mr. Hallock?" Lidgerwood made the guess without offering toshake hands, the high, box-like desk forbidding the attempt. 

"Yes. " The answer was neither antagonistic nor placatory; it was merelycolorless. 

"My name is Lidgerwood. You have heard of my appointment?"

Again the colorless "Yes. "

Lidgerwood saw no good end to be subserved by postponing the inevitable. 

"Mr. Ford spoke to me about you last night. He told me that you had beenMr. Cumberley's chief clerk, and that since Cumberley's resignation youhave been acting superintendent of the Red Butte Western. Do you want tostay on as my lieutenant?"

For the long minute that Hallock took before replying, the loose-lippedmouth under the shaggy mustache seemed to have lost the power of speech. But when the words finally came, they were shorn of all euphemism. 

"I suppose I ought to tell you to go straight to hell, Mr. Lidgerwood, put on my coat and walk out, " said this most singular of all railwaysubordinates. "By all the rules of the game, this job belongs to me. What I've gone through to earn it, you nor any other man will ever know. If I stay, I'll wish I hadn't; and so will you. You'd better give me atime-check and let me go. "

Lidgerwood walked to the window and once more stared out upon the drearyprospect, bounded by the bluffs of the second mesa. A horseman wasambling down the single street of the town, weaving in his saddle, andgiving vent to a series of Indian war-whoops. Lidgerwood saw the drunkencowboy only with the outward eye. And when he turned back to the man inthe rifle-pit desk, he could not have told why the words of regret anddismissal which he had made up his mind to say, refused to come. Butthey did refuse, and what he said was not at all what he had intended tosay. 

"If I can't quite match your frankness, Mr. Hallock, it is because myearly education was neglected. But I'll say this: I appreciate yourdisappointment; I know what it means to a man situated as you are. Notwithstanding, I want you to stay with me. I'll say more; I shall takeit as a personal favor if you will stay. "

"You'll be sorry for it if I do, " was the ungracious rejoinder. 

"Not because you will do anything to make me sorry, I am sure, " said thenew superintendent, in his evenest tone. And then, as if the matter weredefinitely settled: "I'd like to have a word with the trainmaster, Mr. McCloskey. May I trouble you to tell me which is his office?"

Hallock waved a hand toward the door which Lidgerwood had been about toopen a few minutes earlier. 

"You'll find him in there, " he said briefly, adding, with hisaltogether remarkable disregard for the official proprieties: "If hegives you the same chance that I did, don't take him up. He is the oneman in this outfit worth more than the powder it would take to blow himto the devil. "

IV

AT THE RIO GLORIA

The matter to be taken up with McCloskey, master of trains and chief ofthe telegraph department, was not altogether disciplinary. In thesummarizing conference at Copah, Vice-President Ford had spokenfavorably of the trainmaster, recommending him to mercy in the event ofa general beheading in the Angels head-quarters. "A lame duck, like mostof the desert exiles, and the homeliest man west of the Missouri River, "was Ford's characterization. "He is as stubborn as a mule, but he ishonest and outspoken. If you can win him over to your side, you willhave at least one lieutenant whom you can trust--and who will, I think, be duly grateful for small favors. Mac couldn't get a job east of theCrosswater Hills, I'm afraid. "

Lidgerwood had not inquired the reason for the eastern disability. Hehad lived in the West long enough to know that it is an ill thing to prytoo curiously into any man's past. So there should be presentefficiency, no man in the service should be called upon to recite inancient history, much less one for whom Ford had spoken a good word. 

Like all the other offices in the Crow's Nest, that of the trainmasterwas bare and uninviting. Lidgerwood, passing beyond the door ofcommunication, found himself in a dingy room, with cobwebs festooningthe ceiling and a pair of unwashed windows looking out upon the opensquare called, in the past and gone day of the Angelic promoters, the"railroad plaza. " Two chairs, a cheap desk, and a pine table backed bythe "string-board" working model of the current time-table, did duty asthe furnishings, serving rather to emphasize than to relieve thedreariness of the place. 

McCloskey was at his desk at the moment of door-opening, and Lidgerwoodinstantly paid tribute to Vice-President Ford's powers ofcharacterization. The trainmaster was undeniably homely--and more; hishard-featured face was a study in grotesques. There was fearless honestyin the shrewd gray eyes, and a good promise of capability in the strongScotch jaw and long upper lip, but the grotesque note was the one whichpersisted, and the trainmaster seemed wilfully to accentuate it. Hiscoat, in a region where shirt-sleeves predominated, was aclose-buttoned gambler's frock, and his hat, in the country of thesombrero and the soft Stetson, was a derby. 

Lidgerwood was striving to estimate the man beneath these outwardeccentricities when McCloskey rose and thrust out a hand, great-jointedand knobbed like a laborer's. 

"You're Mr. Lidgerwood, I take it?" said he, tilting the derby to theback of his head. "Come to tell me to pack my kit and get out?"

"Not yet, Mr. McCloskey, " laughed Lidgerwood, getting his first realmeasure of the man in the hearty hand-grip. "On the contrary, I've cometo thank you for not dropping things and running away before the newmanagement could get on the ground. "

The trainmaster's rejoinder was outspokenly blunt. "I've nowhere to runto, Mr. Lidgerwood, and that's no joke. Some of the backcappers will betelling you presently that I was a train despatcher over in God'scountry, and that I put two trains together. It's your right to knowthat it's true. "

"Thank you, Mr. McCloskey, " said Lidgerwood simply; "that sounds good tome. And take this for yourself: the man who has done that once won't doit again. That is one thing, and another is this: we start with a cleanslate on the Red Butte Western. No man in the service who will turn inand help us make a real railroad out of the R. B. W. Need worry about hispast record: it won't be dug up against him. "

"That's fair--more than fair, " said the trainmaster, mouthing the wordsas if the mere effort of speech were painful, "and I wish I couldpromise you that the rank and file will meet you half-way. But I can't. You'll find a plucked pigeon, Mr. Lidgerwood--with plenty of hawks leftto pick the bones. The road has been running itself for the past twoyears and more. "

"I understand, " said Lidgerwood; and then he spoke of the carelessdespatching. 

"That will be Callahan, the day man, " McCloskey broke in wrathfully. "But that's the way of it. When we get through the twenty-four hourswithout killing somebody or smashing something, I thank God, and put ared mark on that calendar over my desk. "

"Well, we won't go back of the returns, " declared Lidgerwood, meaning tobe as just as he could to his predecessors in office. "But from nowon----"

The door leading into the room beyond the trainmaster's office openedsqueakily on dry hinges, and a chattering of telegraph instrumentsheralded the incoming of a disreputable-looking office-man, with a greenpatch over one eye and a blackened cob-pipe between his teeth. SeeingLidgerwood, he ducked and turned to McCloskey. Bradley, reporting in, had given his own paraphrase of the new superintendent's strictures onRed Butte Western despatching and the criticism had lost nothing in therecasting. 

"Seventy-one's in the ditch at Gloria Siding, " he said, speakingpointedly to the trainmaster. "Goodloe reports it from Little Butte;says both enginemen are in the mix-up, but he doesn't know whether theyare killed or not. "

"There you are!" snarled McCloskey, wheeling upon Lidgerwood. "Theycouldn't let you get your chair warmed the first day!"

With the long run from Copah to Angels to his credit, and with all thehead-quarters loose ends still to be gathered up, Lidgerwood mightblamelessly have turned over the trouble call to his trainmaster. But awreck was as good a starting-point as any, and he took command at once. 

"Go and clear for the wrecking-train, and have some one in your officenotify the shops and the yard, " he said briskly, compelling theattention of the one-eyed despatcher; and when Callahan was gone: "Now, Mac, get out your map and post me. I'm a little lame on geography yet. Where is Gloria Siding?"

McCloskey found a blue-print map of the line and traced the course ofthe western division among the foot-hills to the base of the GreatTimanyonis, and through the Timanyoni Canyon to a park-like valley, shutin by the great range on the east and north, and by the LittleTimanyonis and the Hophras on the west and south. At a point midway ofthe valley his stubby forefinger rested. 

"That's Gloria, " he said, "and here's Little Butte, twelve milesbeyond. "

"Good ground?" queried Lidgerwood. 

"As pretty a stretch as there is anywhere west of the desert; remindsyou of a Missouri bottom, with the river on one side and the hills amile away on the other. I don't know what excuse those hoboes could findfor piling a train in the ditch there. "

"We'll hear the excuse later, " said Lidgerwood. "Now, tell me what sortof a wrecking-plant we have?"

"The best in the bunch, " asserted the trainmaster. "Gridley's is the onedepartment that has been kept up to date and in good fighting trim. Wehave one wrecking-crane that will pick up any of the bigfreight-pullers, and a lighter one that isn't half bad. "

"Who is your wrecking-boss?"

"Gridley--when he feels like going out. He can clear a main line quickerthan any man we've ever had. "

"He will go with us to-day?"

"I suppose so. He is in town and he's--sober. "

The new superintendent caught at the hesitant word. 

"Drinks, does he?"

"Not much while he is on the job. But he disappears periodically andcomes back looking something the worse for wear. They tell tough storiesabout him over in Copah. "

Lidgerwood dropped the master-mechanic as he had dropped the offendingtrainmen who had put Train 71 in the ditch at Gloria where, according toMcCloskey, there should be no ditch. 

"I'll go and run through my desk mail and fill Hallock up while you aremaking ready, " he said. "Call me when the train is made up. "

Passing through the corridor on the way to his private office back ofHallock's room, Lidgerwood saw that the wreck call had already reachedthe shops. A big, bearded man with a soft hat pulled over his eyes wasdirecting the make-up of a train on the repair track, and the yardengine was pulling an enormous crane down from its spur beyond thecoal-chutes. Around the man in the soft hat the wrecking-crew wasgathering: shopmen for the greater part, as a crew of a mastermechanic's choosing would be. 

As the event proved, there was little time for the doing of thepreliminary work which Lidgerwood had meant to do. In the midst of theletter-sorting, McCloskey put his head in at the door of the privateoffice. 

"We're ready when you are, Mr. Lidgerwood, " he interrupted; and with afew hurried directions to Hallock, Lidgerwood joined the trainmaster onthe Crow's Nest platform. The train was backing up to get itsclear-track orders, and on the tool-car platform stood the big man whomLidgerwood had already identified presumptively as Gridley. 

McCloskey would have introduced the new superintendent when the trainpaused for the signal from the despatcher's window, but Gridley did notwait for the formalities. 

"Come aboard, Mr. Lidgerwood, " he called, genially. "It's too bad wehave to give you a sweat-box welcome. If there are any of Seventy-one'screw left alive, you ought to give them thirty days for calling you outbefore you could shake hands with yourself. "

Being by nature deliberate in forming friendships, and proportionallytenacious of them when they were formed, Lidgerwood's impulse was tohold all men at arm's length until he was reasonably assured ofsincerity and a common ground. But the genial master-mechanic refused tobe put on probation. Lidgerwood made the effort while the rescue trainwas whipping around the hill shoulders and plunging deeper into theafternoon shadows of the great mountain range. The tool-car wascomfortably filled with men and working tackle, and for seats there wereonly the blocking timbers, the tool-boxes, and the coils of rope andchain cables. Sharing a tool-box with Gridley and smoking a cigar out ofGridley's pocket-case, Lidgerwood found it difficult to be less thanfriendly. 

It was to little purpose that he recalled Ford's qualifiedrecommendation of the man who had New York backing and who, in Ford'sphrase, was a "brute after his own peculiar fashion. " Brute or human, the big master-mechanic had the manners of a gentleman, and his easygood-nature broke down all the barriers of reserve that his somewhatreticent companion could interpose. 

"You smoke good cigars, Mr. Gridley, " said Lidgerwood, trying, as hehad tried before, to wrench the talk aside from the personal channelinto which it seemed naturally to drift. 

"Good tobacco is one of the few luxuries the desert leaves a man capableof enjoying. You haven't come to that yet, but you will. It is a savagelife, Mr. Lidgerwood, and if a man hasn't a good bit of the blood of hisstone-age ancestors in him, the desert will either kill him or make abeast of him. There doesn't seem to be any medium. "

The talk was back again in the personal channel, and this timeLidgerwood met the issue fairly. 

"You have been saying that, in one form or another, ever since we leftAngels: are you trying to scare me off, Mr. Gridley, or are you onlygiving me a friendly warning?" he asked. 

The master-mechanic laughed easily. 

"I hope I wouldn't be impudent enough to do either, on such shortacquaintance, " he protested. "But now that you have opened the door, perhaps a little man-to-man frankness won't be amiss. You have tackled apretty hard proposition, Mr. Lidgerwood. "

"Technically, you mean?"

"No, I didn't mean that, because, if your friends tell the truth aboutyou, you can come as near to making bricks without straw as the nextman. But the Red Butte Western reorganization asks for something morethan a good railroad officer. "

"I'm listening, " said Lidgerwood. 

Gridley laughed again. 

"What will you do when a conductor or an engineer whom you have calledon the carpet curses you out and invites you to go to hell?"

"I shall fire him, " was the prompt rejoinder. 

"Naturally and properly, but afterward? Four out of five men in thishuman scrap-heap you've inherited will lay for you with a gun to playeven for the discharge. What then?"

It was just here that Lidgerwood, staring absently at the passingpanorama of shifting hill shoulders framing itself in the open side-doorof the tool-car, missed a point. If he had been less absorbed in thepersonal problem he could scarcely have failed to mark the searchingscrutiny in the shrewd eyes shaded by Gridley's soft hat. 

"I don't know, " he said, half hesitantly. "Civilization meanssomething--or it should mean something--even in the Red Desert, Mr. Gridley. I suppose there is some semblance of legal protection inAngels, as elsewhere, isn't there?"

The master-mechanic's smile was tolerant. 

"Surely. We have a town marshal, and a justice of the peace; one is ablacksmith and the other the keeper of the general store. "

The good-natured irony in Gridley's reply was not thrown away upon hislistener, but Lidgerwood held tenaciously to his own contention. 

"The inadequacy of the law, or of its machinery, hardly excuses a lapseinto barbarism, " he protested. "The discharged employee, in the case youare supposing, might hold himself justified in shooting at me; but if Ishould shoot back and happen to kill him, it would be murder. We've gotto stand for something, Mr. Gridley, you and I who know the differencebetween civilization and savagery. "

Gridley's strong teeth came together with a little snap. 

"Certainly, " he agreed, without a shade of hesitation; adding, "I'venever carried a gun and have never had to. " Then he changed the subjectabruptly, and when the train had swung around the last of the hills andwas threading its tortuous way through the great canyon, he proposed achange of base to the rear platform from which Chandler's marvel ofengineering skill could be better seen and appreciated. 

The wreck at Gloria Siding proved to be a very mild one, as railwaywrecks go. A broken flange under a box-car had derailed the engine and adozen cars, and there were no casualties--the report about theinvolvement of the two enginemen being due to the imagination of theexcited flagman who had propelled himself on a hand-car back to LittleButte to send in the call for help. 

Since Gridley was on the ground, Lidgerwood and McCloskey stood asideand let the master-mechanic organize the attack. Though the problem oftrack-clearing, on level ground and with a convenient siding at hand forthe sorting and shifting, was a simple one, there was still a chance foran exhibition of time-saving and speed, and Gridley gave it. There wasnever a false move made or a tentative one, and when the hugelifting-crane went into action, Lidgerwood grew warmly enthusiastic. 

"Gridley certainly knows his business, " he said to McCloskey. "The RedButte Western doesn't need any better wrecking-boss than it has rightnow. "

"He can do the job, when he feels like it, " admitted the trainmastersourly. 

"But he doesn't often feel like it? You can't blame him for that. Picking up wrecks isn't fairly a part of a master-mechanic's duty. "

"That is what he says, and he doesn't trouble himself to go when itisn't convenient. I have a notion he wouldn't be here to-day if youweren't. "

It was plainly evident that McCloskey meant more than he said, but onceagain Lidgerwood refused to go behind the returns. He felt that he hadbeen prejudiced against Gridley at the outset, unduly so, he wasbeginning to think, and even-handed fairness to all must be thewatchword in the campaign of reorganization. 

"Since we seem to be more ornamental than useful on this job, you mightgive me another lesson in Red Butte geography, Mac, " he said, purposelychanging the subject. "Where are the gulch mines?"

The trainmaster explained painstakingly, squatting to trace a rude mapin the sand at the track-side. Hereaway, twelve miles to the westward, lay Little Butte, where the line swept a great curve to the north and socontinued on to Red Butte. Along the northward stretch, and in thefoot-hills of the Little Timanyonis, were the placers, most of themproductive, but none of them rich enough to stimulate a rush. 

Here, where the river made a quick turn, was the butte from which thestation of Little Butte took its name--the superintendent might see itswooded summit rising above the lower hills intervening. It was a long, narrow ridge, more like a hogback than a true mountain, and it held asilver mine, Flemister's, which was a moderately heavy shipper. The veinhad been followed completely through the ridge, and the spur track inthe eastern gulch, which had originally served it, had been abandonedand a new spur built up along the western foot of the butte, with a mainline connection at Little Butte. Up here, ten miles above Little Butte, was a bauxite mine, with a spur; and here. .. . 

McCloskey went on, industriously drawing lines in the sand, andLidgerwood sat on a cross-tie end and conned his lesson. Below thesiding the big crane was heaving the derailed cars into line withmethodical precision, but now it was Gridley's shop foreman who wasgiving the orders. The master-mechanic had gone aside to hold conversewith a man who had driven up in a buckboard, coming from the directionin which Little Butte lay. 

"Goodloe told me the wreck-wagons were here, and I thought you wouldprobably be along, " the buckboard driver was saying. "How are thingsshaping up? I haven't cared to risk the wires since Bigsby leaked onus. "

Gridley put a foot on the hub of the buckboard wheel and began towhittle a match with a penknife that was as keen as a razor. 

"The new chum is in the saddle; look over your shoulder to the left andyou'll see him sitting on a cross-tie beside McCloskey, " he said. 

"I've seen him before. He was over the road last week, and I happened tobe in Goodloe's office at Little Butte when he got off to look around, "was the curt rejoinder. "But that doesn't help any. What do you know?"

"He is a gentleman, " said Gridley slowly. 

"Oh, the devil! what do I care about----"

"And a scholar, " the master-mechanic went on imperturbably. 

The buckboard driver's black eyes snapped. "Can you add the rest ofit--'and he isn't very bright'?"

"No, " was the sober reply. 

"Well, what are we up against?"

Gridley snapped the penknife shut and began to chew the sharpened end ofthe match. 

"Your pop-valve is set too light; you blow off too easily, Flemister, "he commented. "So far we--or rather you--are up against nothing worsethan the old proposition. Lidgerwood is going to try to make a silkpurse out of a sow's ear, beginning with the pay-roll contingent. If Ihave sized him up right, he'll be kept busy; too busy to remember yourname--or mine. "

"What do you mean? in just so many words. "

"Nothing more than I have said. Mr. Lidgerwood is a gentleman and ascholar. "

"Ha!" said the man in the buckboard seat. "I believe I'm catching on, after so long a time. You mean he hasn't the sand. "

Gridley neither denied nor affirmed. He had taken out his penknife againand was resharpening the match. 

"Hallock is the man to look to, " he said. "If we could get himinterested . .. "

"That's up to you, damn it; I've told you a hundred times that I can'ttouch him!"

"I know; he doesn't seem to love you very much. The last time I talkedto him he mentioned something about shooting you off-hand, but I guesshe didn't mean, it. You've got to interest him in some way, Flemister. "

"Perhaps you can tell me how, " was the sarcastic retort. 

"I think perhaps I can, now. Do you remember anything about thesky-rocketing finish of the Mesa Building and Loan Association, or isthat too much of a back number for a busy man like you?"

"I remember it, " said Flemister. 

"Hallock was the treasurer, " put in Gridley smoothly. 

"Yes, but----"

"Wait a minute. A treasurer is supposed to treasure something, isn't he?There are possibly twenty-five or thirty men still left in the Red ButteWestern service who have never wholly quit trying to find out whyHallock, the treasurer, failed so signally to treasure anything. "

"Yah! that's an old sore. "

"I know, but old sores may become suddenly troublesome--or useful--asthe case may be. For some reason best known to himself, Hallock hasdecided to stay and continue playing second fiddle. "

"How do you know?"

The genial smile was wrinkling at the corners of Gridley's eyes. 

"There isn't very much going on under the sheet-iron roof of the Crow'sNest that I don't know, Flemister, and usually pretty soon after ithappens. Hallock will stay on as chief clerk, and, naturally, he isanxious to stand well with his new boss. Are you beginning to seedaylight?"

"Not yet. "

"Well, we'll open the shutters a little wider. One of the first thingsLidgerwood will have to wrestle with will be this Loan Associationbusiness. The kickers will put it up to him, as they have put it up toevery new man who has come out here. Ferguson refused to dig intoanybody's old graveyard, and so did Cumberley. But Lidgerwood won'trefuse. He is going to be the just judge, if not the very terrible. "

"Still, I don't see, " persisted Flemister. 

"Don't you? Hallock will be obliged to justify himself to Lidgerwood, and he can't. In fact, there is only one man living to-day who couldfully justify him. "

"And that man is----"

"--Pennington Flemister, ex-president of the defunct Building and Loan. You know where the money went, Flemister. "

"Maybe I do. What of that?"

"I can only offer a suggestion, of course. You are a pretty smooth liar, Pennington; it wouldn't be much trouble for you to fix up a story thatwould satisfy Lidgerwood. You might even show up a few documents, if itcame to the worst. "

"Well?"

"That's all. If you get a good, firm grip on that club, you'll haveHallock, coming and going. It's a dead open and shut. If he falls inline, you'll agree to pacify Lidgerwood; otherwise the law will have totake its course. "

The man in the buckboard was silent for a long minute before he said:"It won't work, Gridley. Hallock's grudge against me is too bitter. Youknow part of it, and part of it you don't know. He'd hang himself in aminute if he could get my neck in the same noose. "

The master-mechanic threw the whittled match away, as if the argumentwere closed. 

"That is where you are lame, Flemister: you don't know your man. Put itup to Hallock barehanded: if he comes in, all right; if not, you'll puthim where he'll wear stripes. That will fetch him. "

The men of the derrick gang were righting the last of the derailedbox-cars, and the crew of the wrecking-train was shifting the cripplesinto line for the return run to Angels. 

"We'll be going in a few minutes, " said the master-mechanic, taking hisfoot from the wheel-hub. "Do you want to meet Lidgerwood?"

"Not here--or with you, " said the owner of the Wire-Silver; and he hadturned his team and was driving away when Gridley's shop foreman came upto say that the wrecking-train was ready to leave. 

Lidgerwood found a seat for himself in the tool-car on the way back toAngels, and put in the time smoking a short pipe and reviewing theevents of his first day in the new field. 

The outlook was not wholly discouraging, and but for the talk withGridley he might have smoked and dozed quite peacefully on his coiledhawser, in the corner of the car. But, try as he would, the importunatedemon of distrust, distrust of himself, awakened by themaster-mechanic's warning, refused to be quieted; and when, after thethree hours of the slow return journey were out-worn, McCloskey came totell him that the train was pulling into the Angels yard, the explosionof a track torpedo under the wheels made him start like a nervous woman. 

V

THE OUTLAWS

For the first few weeks after the change in ownership and the arrival ofthe new superintendent, the Red Butte Western and its nerve-centre, Angels, seemed disposed to take Mr. Howard Lidgerwood as a ratherill-timed joke, perpetrated upon a primitive West and its people by someone of the Pacific Southwestern magnates who owned a broad sense ofhumor. 

During this period the sardonic laugh was heard in the land, and thechuckling appreciation of the joke by the Red Butte rank and file, andby the Angelic soldiers of fortune who, though not upon the company'spay-rolls, still throve indirectly upon the company's bounty, lackednothing of completeness. The Red Desert grinned like the famed Cheshirecat when an incoming train from the East brought sundry boxes andtrunks, said to contain the new boss's wardrobe. Its guffaws were longand uproarious when it began to be noised about that the companycarpenters and fitters were installing a bath and other civilizing andsoftening appliances in the alcove opening out of the superintendent'ssleeping-room in the head-quarters building. 

Lidgerwood slept in the Crow's Nest, not so much from choice as for thereason that there seemed to be no alternative save a room in the towntavern, appropriately named "The Hotel Celestial. " Between hissleeping-apartment and his private office there was only a thin boardpartition; but even this gave him more privacy than the Celestial couldoffer, where many of the partitions were of building-paper, muslincovered. 

It is a railroad proverb that the properly inoculated railroad man eatsand sleeps with his business; Lidgerwood exemplified the saying byhaving a wire cut into the despatcher's office, with the terminals on alittle table at his bed's head, and with a tiny telegraph relayinstrument mounted on the stand. Through the relay, tapping softly inthe darkness, came the news of the line, and often, after the strenuousday was ended, Lidgerwood would lie awake listening. 

Sometimes the wire gossiped, and echoes of Homeric laughter trickledthrough the relay in the small hours; as when Ruby Creek asked the nightdespatcher if it were true that the new boss slept in what translateditself in the laborious Morse of the Ruby Creek operator as"pijjimmies"; or when Navajo, tapping the same source of information, wished to be informed if the "Chink"--doubtless referring to TadasuMatsuwari--ran a laundry on the side and thus kept His Royal Highness incollars and cuffs. 

At the tar-paper-covered, iron-roofed Celestial, where he took hismeals, Lidgerwood had a table to himself, which he shared at times withMcCloskey, and at other times with breezy Jack Benson, the youngengineer whom Vice-President Ford had sent, upon Lidgerwood's requestand recommendation, to put new life into the track force, and to makethe preliminary surveys for a possible western extension of the road. 

When the superintendent had guests, the long table on the opposite sideof the dining-room restrained itself. When he ate alone, Maggie Donovan, the fiery-eyed, heavy-handed table-girl who ringed his plate with thesemicircle of ironstone portion dishes, stood between him and the menwho were still regarding him as a joke. And since Maggie's displeasuremanifested itself in cold coffee and tough cuts of the beef, the longtable made its most excruciating jests elaborately impersonal. 

On the line, and in the roundhouse and repair-shops, the joke was fartoo good to be muzzled. The nickname, "Collars-and-Cuffs, " becameclassical; and once, when Brannagan and the 117 were ordered out on theservice-car, the Irishman wore the highest celluloid collar he couldfind in Angels, rounding out the clownery with a pair of huge wickerwarecuffs, which had once seen service as the coverings of a pair ofMaraschino bottles. 

No official notice having been taken of Brannagan's fooling, Buck Tryon, ordered out on the same duty, went the little Irishman one better, decorating his engine headlight and handrails with festoonings ofcolored calico, the decoration figuring as a caricature of Lidgerwood'scollege colors, and calico being the nearest approach to buntingobtainable at Jake Schleisinger's emporium, two doors north of Red-LightSammy's house of call. 

All of which was harmless enough, one would say, however subversive ofdignified discipline it might be. Lidgerwood knew. The jests were toobroad to be missed. But he ignored them good-naturedly, rather thankfulfor the playful interlude which gave him a breathing-space and time tostudy the field before the real battle should begin. 

That a battle would have to be fought was evident enough. As yet, thedemoralization had been scarcely checked, and sooner or later thenecessary radical reforms would have to begin. Gridley, whose attitudetoward the new superintendent continued to be that of a disinterestedadviser, assured Lidgerwood that he was losing ground by not opening thecampaign of severity at once. 

"You'll have to take a club to these hoboes before you can ever hope tomake railroad men out of them, " was Gridley's oft-repeated assertion;and the fact that the master-mechanic was continually urging the warfaremade Lidgerwood delay it. 

Just why Gridley's counsel should have produced such a contrary effect, Lidgerwood could not have explained. The advice was sound, and the manwho gave it was friendly and apparently ingenuous. But prejudices, likeprepossessions, are sometimes as strong as they are inexplicable, andwhile Lidgerwood freely accused himself of injustice toward themaster-mechanic, a certain feeling of distrust and repulsion, datingback to his first impressions of the man, died hard. 

Oddly enough, on the other hand, there was a prepossession, quite asunreasoning, for Hallock. There was absolutely nothing in the chiefclerk to inspire liking, or even common business confidence; on thecontrary, while Hallock attended to his duties and carried out hissuperior's instructions with the exactness of an automaton, his attitudewas distinctly antagonistic. As the chief subaltern on Lidgerwood'ssmall staff he was efficient and well-nigh invaluable. But as a man, Lidgerwood felt that he might easily be regarded as an enemy whosedesigns could never be fathomed or prefigured. 

In spite of Hallock's singular manner, which was an abrupt challenge toall comers, Lidgerwood acknowledged a growing liking for the chiefclerk. Under the crabbed and gloomy crust of the man the superintendentfancied he could discover a certain savage loyalty. But under theloyalty there was a deeper depth--of misery, or tragedy, or both; and tothis abysmal part of him there was no key that Lidgerwood could find. 

McCloskey, who had served under Hallock for a number of months beforethe change in management, confessed that he knew the gloomy chief clerkonly as a man in authority, and exceedingly hard to please. Questionedmore particularly by Lidgerwood, McCloskey added that Hallock wasmarried; that after the first few months in Angels his wife, astrikingly beautiful young woman, had disappeared, and that since herdeparture Hallock had lived alone in two rooms over the freight station, rooms which no one, save himself, ever entered. 

These, and similar bits of local history, were mere gatherings by theway for the superintendent, picked up while the Red Desert was havingits laugh at the new bath-room, the pajamas, and the clean linen. Theyweighed lightly, because the principal problem was, as yet, untouched. For while the laugh endured, Lidgerwood had not found it possible tobreach many of the strongholds of lawlessness. 

Orders, regarded by disciplined railroad men as having the immutabilityof the laws of the Medes and Persians, were still interpreted as looselyas if they were but the casual suggestions of a bystander. Rules wereformulated and given black-letter emphasis in their postings on thebulletin boards, only to be coolly ignored when they chanced to conflictwith some train crew's desire to make up time or to kill it. Directed toaccount for fuel and oil consumed, the enginemen good-naturedly forgedreports and the storekeepers blandly O. K. 'd them. Instructed to keep anaccurate record of all material used, the trackmen jocosely scatteredmore spikes than they drove, made fire-wood of the stock cross-ties, andwere not above underpinning the section-houses with new dimensiontimbers. 

In countless other ways the waste was prodigious and often mysteriouslyunexplainable. The company supplies had a curious fashion ofdisappearing in transit. Two car-loads of building lumber sent to repairthe station at Red Butte vanished somewhere between the Angelsshipping-yards and their billing destination. Lime, cement, and paintwere exceedingly volatile. House hardware, purchased in quantities forcompany repairs, figured in the monthly requisition sheet as regularlyas coal and oil; and the lost-tool account roughly balanced the pay-rollof the company carpenters and bridge-builders. 

In such a chaotic state of affairs, track and train troubles were therule rather than the exception, and it was a Red Butte Western boastthat the fire was never drawn under the wrecking-train engine. For thefirst few weeks Lidgerwood let McCloskey answer the "hurry calls" to thevarious scenes of disaster, but when three sections of an eastboundcattle special, ignoring the ten-minute-interval rule, were piled up inthe Piñon Hills, he went out and took personal command of thetrack-clearers. 

This happened when the joke was at flood-tide, and the men of thewrecking-crew took a ten-gallon keg of whiskey along wherewith tocelebrate the first appearance of the new superintendent in character asa practical wrecking-boss. The outcome was rather astonishing. For onething, Lidgerwood's first executive act was to knock in the head of theten-gallon celebration with a striking-hammer, before it was evenspiggoted; and for another he quickly proved that he was Gridley'sequal, if not his master, in the gentle art of track-clearing; lastly, and this was the most astonishing thing of all, he demonstrated thatclean linen and correct garmentings do not necessarily make for softnessand effeminacy in the wearer. Through the long day and the still longernight of toil and stress the new boss was able to endure hardship withthe best man on the ground. 

This was excellent, as far as it went. But later, with the offendingcattle-train crews before him for trial and punishment, Lidgerwood lostall he had gained by being too easy. 

"We've got him chasin' his feet, " said Tryon, one of the rule-breakingengineers, making his report to the roundhouse contingent at the closeof the "sweat-box" interview. "It's just as I've been tellin' you mugsall along, he hain't got sand enough to fire anybody. "

Likewise Jack Benson, though from a friendlier point of view. The"sweat-box" was Lidgerwood's private office in the Crow's Nest, andBenson happened to be present when the reckless trainmen were told to goand sin no more. 

"I'm not running your job, Lidgerwood, and you may fire the inkstand atme if the spirit moves you to, but I've got to butt in. You can't handlethe Red Desert with kid gloves on. Those fellows needed an artisticcussing-out and a thirty-day hang-up at the very lightest. You can'thold 'em down with Sunday-school talk. "

Lidgerwood was frowning at his blotting-pad and pencilling idle littlesquares on it--a habit which was insensibly growing upon him. 

"Where would I get the two extra train-crews to fill in the thirty-daylay-off, Jack? Had you thought of that?"

"I had only the one think, and I gave you that one, " rejoined Bensoncarelessly. "I suppose it is different in your department. When I go upagainst a thing like that on the sections, I fire the whole bunch andimport a few more Italians. Which reminds me, as old Dunkenfeld used tosay when there wasn't either a link or a coupling-pin anywhere withinthe four horizons: what do you know about Fred Dawson, Gridley's shopdraftsman?"

"Next to nothing, personally, " replied Lidgerwood, taking Benson'sabrupt change of topic as a matter of course. "He seems a fine fellow;much too fine a fellow to be wasting himself out here in the desert. Why?"

"Oh, I just wanted to know. Ever met his mother and sister?"

"No. "

"Well, you ought to. The mother is one of the only two angels in Angels, and the sister is the other. Dawson, himself, is a ghastly monomaniac. "

Lidgerwood's brows lifted, though his query was unspoken. 

"Haven't you heard his story?" asked Benson; "but of course you haven't. He is a lame duck, you know--like every other man this side ofCrosswater Summit, present company excepted. "

"A lame duck?" repeated Lidgerwood. 

"Yes, a man with a past. Don't tell me you haven't caught onto thehall-mark of the Red Desert. It's notorious. The blacklegs and tin-hornsand sure-shots go without saying, of course, but they haven't amonopoly on the broken records. Over in the ranch country beyond theTimanyonis they lump us all together and call us the outlaws. "

"Not without reason, " said Lidgerwood. 

"Not any, " asserted Benson with cheerful pessimism. "The entire RedButte Western outfit is tarred with the same stick. You haven't a dozenoperators, all told, who haven't been discharged for incompetence, orworse, somewhere else; or a dozen conductors or engineers who weren'tgood and comfortably blacklisted before they climbed Crosswater. TakeMcCloskey: you swear by him, don't you? He was a chief despatcher backEast, and he put two passenger-trains together in a head-on collisionthe day he resigned and came West to grow up with the Red Desert. "

"I know, " said Lidgerwood, "and I did not have to learn it atsecond-hand. Mac was man enough to tell me himself, before I had knownhim five minutes. " Then he suggested mildly, "But you were speaking ofDawson, weren't you?"

"Yes, and that's what makes me say what I'm saying; he is one of them, though he needn't be if he weren't such a hopelessly sensitive ass. He'sa B. S. In M. E. , or he would have been if he had stayed out his senioryear in Carnegie, but also he happened to be a foot-ball fiend, and inthe last intercollegiate game of his last season he had the horribleluck to kill a man--and the man was the brother of the girl Dawson wasgoing to marry. "

"Heavens and earth!" exclaimed Lidgerwood. "Is he _that_ Dawson?"

"The same, " said the young engineer laconically. "It was the sheerestaccident, and everybody knew it was, and nobody blamed Dawson. I happento know, because I was a junior in Carnegie at the time. But Fred tookit hard; let it spoil his life. He threw up everything, left collegebetween two days, and came to bury himself out here. For two years henever let his mother and sister know where he was; made remittances tothem through a bank in Omaha, so they shouldn't be able to trace him. Care to hear any more?"

"Yes, go on, " said the superintendent. 

"_I_ found him, " chuckled Benson, "and I took the liberty of piping hislittle game off to the harrowed women. Next thing he knew they droppedin on him; and he is just crazy enough to stay here, and to keep themhere. That wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for Gridley, Fred's boss andyour peach of a master-mechanic. "

"Why 'peach'? Gridley is a pretty decent sort of a man-driver, isn'the?" said Lidgerwood, doing premeditated and intentional violence towhat he had come to call his unjust prejudice against the handsomemaster-mechanic. 

"You won't believe it, " said Benson hotly, "but he has actually got thenerve to make love to Dawson's sister! and he a widow-man, old enough tobe her father!"

Lidgerwood smiled. It is the privilege of youth to be intolerant of agein its rival. Gridley was, possibly, forty-two or three, but Benson wasstill on the sunny slope of twenty-five. "You are prejudiced, Jack, " hecriticized. "Gridley is still young enough to marry again, if he wantsto--and to live long enough to spoil his grandchildren. "

"But he doesn't begin to be good enough for Faith Dawson, " countered theyoung engineer, stubbornly. 

"Isn't he? or is that another bit of your personal grudge? What do youknow against him?"

Pressed thus sharply against the unyielding fact, Benson was obliged toconfess that he knew nothing at all against the master-mechanic, nothingthat could be pinned down to day and date. If Gridley had the weaknessescommon to Red-Desert mankind, he did not parade them in Angels. As thehead of his department he was well known to be a hard hitter; and nowand then, when the blows fell rather mercilessly, the railroad colonycalled him a tyrant, and hinted that he, too, had a past that would notbear inspection. But even Benson admitted that this was mere gossip. 

Lidgerwood laughed at the engineer's failure to make his case, and askedquizzically, "Where do I come in on all this, Jack? You have an axe togrind, I take it. "

"I have. Mrs. Dawson wants me to take my meals at the house. I'minclined to believe that she is a bit shy of Gridley, and maybe shethinks I could do the buffer act. But as a get-between I'd be chieflyconspicuous by my absence. "

"Sorry I can't give you an office job, " said the superintendent in mocksympathy. 

"So am I, but you can do the next best thing. Get Fred to take you homewith him some of these fine evenings, and you'll never go back to MaggieDonovan and the Celestial's individual hash-holders; not if you canpersuade Mrs. Dawson to feed you. The alternative is to fire Gridley outof his job. "

"This time you are trying to make the tail wag the dog, " saidLidgerwood. "Gridley has twice my backing in the P. S-W. Board ofdirectors. Besides, he is a good fellow; and if I go up on the mesa andtry to stand him off for you, it will be only because I hope you are abetter fellow. "

"Prop it up on any leg you like, only go, " said Benson simply. "I'lltake it as a personal favor, and do as much for you, some time. Isuppose I don't have to warn you not to fall in love with Faith Dawsonyourself--or, on second thought, perhaps I _had_ better. "

This time Lidgerwood's laugh was mirthless. 

"No, you don't have to, Jack. Like Gridley, I am older than I look, andI have had my little turn at that wheel; or rather, perhaps I should saythat the wheel has had its little turn at me. You can safely deputizeme, I guess. "

"All right, and many thanks. Here's 202 coming in, and I'm going over toNavajo on it. Don't wait too long before you make up to Dawson. You'llfind him well worth while, after you've broken through his shell. "

The merry jest on the Red Butte Western ran its course for another weekafter the three-train wreck in the Piñons--for a week and a day. ThenLidgerwood began the drawing of the net. A new time-card was strung withMcCloskey's cooperation, and when it went into effect a notice on allbulletin boards announced the adoption of the standard "Book of Rules, "and promised penalties in a rising scale for unauthorized departuretherefrom. 

Promptly the horse-laugh died away and the trouble storm was evoked. Grievance committees haunted the Crow's Nest, and the insurrectionaryfaction, starting with the trainmen and spreading to the track force, threatened to involve the telegraph operators--threatened to become aprotest unanimous and in the mass. Worse than this, the service, haphazard enough before, now became a maddening chaos. Orders weremisunderstood, whether wilfully or not no court of inquiry coulddetermine; wrecks were of almost daily occurrence, and the shop trackwas speedily filled to the switches with crippled engines and cars. 

In such a storm of disaster and disorder the captain in command soonfinds and learns to distinguish his loyal supporters, if any such therebe. In the pandemonium of untoward events, McCloskey was Lidgerwood'sright hand, toiling, smiting, striving, and otherwise approving himselfa good soldier. But close behind him came Gridley; always suave andgood-natured, making no complaints, not even when the repair work madenecessary by the innumerable wrecks grew mountain-high, and alwayscounselling firmness and more discipline. 

"This is just what we have been needing for years, Mr. Lidgerwood, " hetook frequent occasion to say. "Of course, we have now to pay thepenalty for the sins of our predecessors; but if you will persevere, we'll pull through and be a railroad in fact when the clouds roll by. Don't give in an inch. Show these muckers that you mean business, andmean it all the time, and you'll win out all right. "

Thus the master-mechanic; and McCloskey, with more at stake and a lessinsulated point of view, took it out in good, hard blows, backing hissuperior like a man. Indeed, in the small head-quarters staff, Hallockwas the only non-combatant. From the beginning of hostilities he seemedto have made a pact with himself not to let it be known by any act orword of his that he was aware of the suddenly precipitated conflict. Theroutine duties of a chief clerk's desk are never light; Hallock's becameso exacting that he rarely left his office, or the pen-like contrivancein which he entrenched himself and did his work. 

When the fight began, Lidgerwood observed Hallock closely, trying todiscover if there were any secret signs of the satisfaction which therevolt of the rank and file might be supposed to awaken in anunsuccessful candidate for the official headship of the Red ButteWestern. There were none. Hallock's gaunt face, with the loose lips andthe straggling, unkempt beard, was a blank; and the worst wreck of thethree which promptly followed the introduction of the new rules, wasnoted in his reports with the calm indifference with which he might havejotted down the breakage of a section foreman's spike-maul. 

McCloskey, being of Scottish blood and desert-seasoned, was a coolin-fighter who could take punishment without wincing overmuch. But atthe end of the first fortnight of the new time-card, he cornered hischief in the private office and freed his mind. 

"It's no use, Mr. Lidgerwood; we can't make these reforms stick with theoutfit we've got, " he asserted, in sharp discouragement. "The next thingon the docket will be a strike, and you know what that will mean, in acountry where the whiskey is bad and nine men out of every ten go fixedfor trouble. "

"I know; nevertheless the reforms have got to stick, " returnedLidgerwood definitively. "We are going to run this railroad as it shouldbe run, or hang it up in the air. Did you discharge that operator atCrow Canyon? the fellow who let Train 76 get by him without orders nightbefore last?"

"Dick Rufford? Oh yes, I fired him, and he came in on 202 to-day lugginga piece of artillery and shooting off his mouth about what he was goingto do to me . .. And to you. I suppose you know that his brother Bart, they call him 'the killer', is the lookout at Red-Light Sammy Faro'sgame, and the meanest devil this side of the Timanyonis?"

"I didn't know it, but that cuts no figure. " Lidgerwood forced himselfto say it, though his lips were curiously dry. "We are going to havediscipline on this railroad while we stay here, Mac; there are no twoways about that. "

McCloskey tilted his hat to the bridge of his nose, his characteristicgesture of displeasure. 

"I promised myself that I wouldn't join the gun-toters when I came outhere, " he said, half musingly, "but I've weakened on that. Yesterday, when I was calling Jeff Cummings down for dropping that newshifting-engine out of an open switch in broad daylight, he pulled on meout of his cab window. What I had to take while he had me 'hands up' ismore than I'll take from any living man again. "

As in other moments of stress and perplexity, Lidgerwood was absentlymarking little pencil squares on his desk blotter. 

"I wouldn't get down to the desert level, if I were you, Mac, " he saidthoughtfully. 

"I'm down there right now, in self-defence, " was the sober rejoinder. "And if you'll take a hint from me you'll heel yourself, too, Mr. Lidgerwood. I know this country better than you do, and the men in it. Idon't say they'll come after you deliberately, but as things are now youcan't open your face to one of them without taking the chance of aquarrel, and a quarrel in a gun-country----"

"I know, " said Lidgerwood patiently, and the trainmaster gave it up. 

It was an hour or two later in the same day when McCloskey came into theprivate office again, hat tilted to nose, and the gargoyle faceportraying fresh soul agonies. 

"They've taken to pillaging now!" he burst out. "The 316, that newsaddle-tank shifting-engine, has disappeared. I saw Broderick using the'95, and when I asked him why, he said he couldn't find the '16. "

"Couldn't find it?" echoed Lidgerwood. 

"No; nor I can't, either. It's nowhere in the yards, the roundhouse, orback shop, and none of Gridley's foremen know anything about it. I'vehad Callahan wire east and west, and if they're all telling the truth, nobody has seen it or heard of it. "

"Where was it, at last accounts?"

"Standing on the coal track under chute number three, where the nightcrew left it at midnight, or thereabouts. "

"But certainly somebody must know where it has gone, " said Lidgerwood. 

"Yes; and by grapples! I think I know who the somebody is. "

"Who is it?"

"If I should tell you, you wouldn't believe it, and besides I haven'tgot the proof. But I'm going to get the proof, " shaking a menacingforefinger, "and when I do----"

The interruption was the entrance of Hallock, coming in with thepay-rolls for the superintendent's approval. McCloskey broke off shortand turned to the door, but Lidgerwood gave him a parting command. 

"Come in again, Mac, in about half an hour. There is another matter thatI want to take up with you, and to-day is as good a time as any. "

The trainmaster nodded and went out, muttering curses to the tilted hatbrim. 

VI

EVERYMAN'S SHARE

"This switching-engine mystery opens up a field that I've been trying toget into for some little time, Mac, " the superintendent began, after thehalf-hour had elapsed and the trainmaster had returned to the privateoffice. "Sit down and we'll thresh it out. Here are some figures showingloss and expense in the general maintenance account. Look them over andtell me what you think. "

"Wastage, you mean?" queried the trainmaster, glancing at the totals inthe auditor's statement. 

"That is what I have been calling it; a reckless disregard for the valueof anything and everything that can be included in a requisition. Thereis a good deal of that, I know; the right-of-way is littered from end toend with good material thrown aside. But I'm afraid that isn't the worstof it. "

The trainmaster was nursing a knee and screwing his face into thereflective scheme of distortion. 

"Those things are always hard to prove. Short of a military guard, forinstance, you couldn't prevent Angels from raiding the company'scoal-yard for its cook-stoves. That's one leak, and the others arepretty much like it. If a company employee wants to steal, and thereisn't enough common honesty among his fellow-employees to hold him down, he can steal fast enough and get away with it. "

"By littles, yes, but not in quantity, " pursued Lidgerwood. 

"'Mony a little makes a mickle, ' as my old grandfather used to say, "McCloskey went on. "If everybody gets his fingers into thesugar-bowl----"

Lidgerwood swung his chair to face McCloskey. 

"We'll pass up the petty thieveries, for the present, and look a littlehigher, " he said gravely. "Have you found any trace of those twocar-loads of company lumber lost in transit between here and Red Buttetwo weeks ago?"

"No, nor of the cars themselves. They were reported as twoTranscontinental flats, initials and numbers plainly given in thecar-record. They seem to have disappeared with the lumber. "

"Which means?" queried the superintendent. 

"That the numbers, or the initials, or both, were wrongly reported. Itmeans that it was a put-up job to steal the lumber. "

"Exactly. And there was a mixed car-load of lime and cement lost atabout the same time, wasn't there?"

"Yes. "

Lidgerwood's swing-chair "righted itself to the perpendicular with asnap. "

"Mac, the Red Butte mines are looking up a little, and there is a goodbit of house-building going on in the camp just now: tell me, what manor men in the company's service would be likely to be taking a flyer inRed Butte real estate?"

"I don't know of anybody. Gridley used to be interested in the camp. Hewent in pretty heavily on the boom, and lost out--so they all say. Sodid your man out there in the pig-pen desk, " with a jerk of his thumb toindicate the outer office. 

"They are both out of it, " said Lidgerwood shortly. Then: "How aboutSullivan, the west-end supervisor of track? He has property in RedButte, I am told. "

"Sullivan is a thief, all right, but he does it openly and brags aboutit; carries off a set of bridge-timbers, now and then, for house-sills, and makes a joke of it with anybody who will listen. "

Lidgerwood dismissed Sullivan abruptly. 

"It is an organized gang, and it must have its members pretty wellscattered through the departments--and have a good many members, too, "he said conclusively. "That brings us to the disappearance of theswitching-engine again. No one man made off with that, single-handed, Mac. "

"Hardly. "

"It was this gang we are presupposing--the gang that has been stealinglumber and lime and other material by the car-load. "

"Well?"

"I believe we'll get to the bottom of all the looting on thisswitching-engine business. They have overdone it this time. You can'tput a locomotive in your pocket and walk off with it. You say you'vewired Copah?"

"Yes. "

"Who was at the Copah key--Mr. Leckhard?"

"No. I didn't want to advertise our troubles to a main-line official. Igot the day-despatcher, Crandall, and told him to keep his mouth shutuntil he heard of it some other way. "

"Good. And what did Crandall say?"

"He said that the '16 had never gone out through the Copah yards; thatit couldn't get anywhere if it had without everybody knowing about it. "

Lidgerwood's abstracted gaze out of the office window became a frown ofconcentration. 

"But the object, McCloskey--what possible profit could there be in thetheft of a locomotive that can neither be carried away nor convertedinto salable junk?"

The trainmaster shook his head. "I've stewed over that till I'mthreatened with softening of the brain, " he confessed. 

"Never mind, you have a comparatively easy job, " Lidgerwood went on. "That engine is somewhere this side of the Crosswater Hills. It is toobig to be hidden under a bushel basket. Find it, and you'll be hot onthe trail of the car-load robbers. "

McCloskey got upon his feet as if he were going at once to begin thesearch, but Lidgerwood detained him. 

"Hold on; I'm not quite through yet. Sit down again and have a smoke. "

The trainmaster squinted sourly at the extended cigar-case. "I guessnot, " he demurred. "I cut it out, along with the toddies, the day I puton my coat and hat and walked out of the old F. & P. M. Offices withoutmy time-check. "

"If it had to be both or neither, you were wise; whiskey and railroadingdon't go together very well. But about this other matter. Some yearsago there was a building and loan association started here in Angels, the ostensible object being to help the railroad men to own their homes. Ever hear of it?"

"Yes, but it was dead and buried before my time. "

"Dead, but not buried, " corrected Lidgerwood. "As I understand it, therailroad company fathered it, or at all events, some of the officialstook stock in it. When it died there was a considerable deficit, together with a failure on the part of the executive committee toaccount for a pretty liberal cash balance. "

"I've heard that much, " said the trainmaster. 

"Then we'll bring it down to date, " Lidgerwood resumed. "It appears thatthere are twenty-five or thirty of the losers still in the employ ofthis company, and they have sent a committee to me to ask for aninvestigation, basing the demand on the assertion that they were coercedinto giving up their money to the building and loan people. "

"I've heard that, too, " McCloskey admitted. "The story goes that thehouse-building scheme was promoted by the old Red Butte Western bosses, and if a man didn't take stock he got himself disliked. If he did takeit, the premiums were held out on the pay-rolls. It smells like a good, old-fashioned graft, with the lid nailed on. "

"There wouldn't seem to be any reasonable doubt about the graft, " saidthe superintendent. "But my duty is clear. Of course, the PacificSouthwestern Company isn't responsible for the side-issue schemes of theold Red Butte Western officials. But I want to do strict justice. Thesemen charge the officials of the building and loan company with opendishonesty. There was a balance of several thousand dollars in thetreasury when the explosion came, and it disappeared. "

"Well?" said the trainmaster. 

"The losers contend that somebody ought to make good to them. They alsocall attention to the fact that the building and loan treasurer, who wasnever able satisfactorily to explain the disappearance of the cashbalance, is still on the railroad company's pay-rolls. "

McCloskey sat up and tilted the derby to the back of his head. "Gridley?" he asked. 

"No; for some reasons I wish it were Gridley. He is able to fight hisown battles. It comes nearer home, Mac. The treasurer was Hallock. "

McCloskey rose noiselessly, tiptoed to the door of communication withthe outer office, and opened it with a quick jerk. There was no onethere. 

"I thought I heard something, " he said. "Didn't you think you did?"

Lidgerwood shook his head. 

"Hallock has gone over to the storekeeper's office to check up thetime-rolls. He won't be back to-day. "

McCloskey closed the door and returned to his chair. 

"If I say what I think, you'll be asking me for proofs, Mr. Lidgerwood, and I have none. Besides, I'm a prejudiced witness. I don't likeHallock. "

Quite unconsciously Lidgerwood picked up a pencil and began adding moresquares to the miniature checker-board on his desk blotter. It wasaltogether subversive of his own idea of fitness to be discussing hischief clerk with his trainmaster, but McCloskey had proved himself anhonest partisan and a fearless one, and Lidgerwood was at a pass wherethe good counsel of even a subordinate was not to be despised. 

"I don't want to do Hallock an injustice, " he went on, after a hesitantpause, "neither do I wish to dig up the past, for him or for anybody. Iwas hoping that you might know some of the inside details, and so makeit easier for me to get at the truth. I can't believe that Hallock wasculpably responsible for the disappearance of the money. "

By this time McCloskey had his hat tilted to the belligerent angle. 

"I'm not a fair witness, " he reiterated. "There's been gossip, and I'velistened to it. "

"About this building and loan mess?"

"No; about the wife. "

"To Hallock's discredit, you mean?"

"You'd think so: there was a scandal of some sort; I don't know what itwas--never wanted to know. But there are men here in Angels who hintthat Hallock killed the woman and sunk her body in the Timanyoni. "

"Heavens!" exclaimed Lidgerwood, under his breath. "I can't believethat, Mac. "

"I don't know as I do, but I can tell you a thing that I do know, Mr. Lidgerwood: Hallock is a devil out of hell when it comes to paying agrudge. There was a freight-conductor named Jackson that he had a shindywith in Mr. Ferguson's time, and it came to blows. Hallock got the worstof the fist-fight, but Ferguson made a joke of it and wouldn't fireJackson. Hallock bided his time like an Indian, and worked it around sothat Jackson got promoted to a passenger run. After that it was easy. "

"How so?"

"It was the devil's own game. Jackson was a handsome young fellow, andHallock set a woman on him--a woman out of Cat Biggs's dance-hall. Fromthat to holding out fares to get more money to squander was only a stepfor the young fool, and he took it. Having baited the trap and set it, Hallock sprung it. One fine day Jackson was caught red-handed and turnedover to the company lawyers. There had been a good bit of talk and theymade an example of him. He's got a couple of years to serve yet, Ibelieve. "

Lidgerwood was listening thoughtfully. The story which had ended sodisastrously for the young conductor threw a rather lurid sidelight uponJackson's accuser. Fairness was the superintendent's fetish, and therevenge which would sleep on its wrongs and go about deliberately andpainstakingly to strike a deadly blow in the dark was revolting to him. Yet he was just enough to distinguish between gross vindictiveness andan evil which bore no relation to the vengeful one. 

"A financially honest man might still have a weakness for playing evenin a personal quarrel, " he commented. "Your story proves nothing morethan that. "

"I know it. "

"But I am going to run the other thing down, too, " Lidgerwood insisted. "Hallock shall have a chance to clear himself, but if he can't do it, hecan't stay with me. "

At this the trainmaster changed front so suddenly that Lidgerwood beganto wonder if his estimate of the man's courage was at fault. 

"Don't do that, Mr. Lidgerwood, for God's sake don't stir up the devilin that long-haired knife-fighter at such a time as this!" he begged. "The Lord knows you've got trouble enough on hand as it is, withoutdigging up something that belongs to the has-beens. "

"I know, but justice is justice, " was the decisive rejoinder. "Thequestion is still a live one, as the complaint of the grievancecommittee proves. If I dodge, my refusal to investigate will be usedagainst us in the labor trouble which you say is brewing. I'm not goingto dodge, McCloskey. "

The contortions of the trainmaster's homely features indicated an inwardstruggle of the last-resort nature. When he had reached a conclusion hespat it out. 

"You haven't asked my advice, Mr. Lidgerwood, but here it is anyway. Flemister, the owner of the Wire-Silver mine over in Timanyoni Park, wasthe president of that building and loan outfit. He and Hallock are atdaggers drawn, for some reason that I've never understood. If you couldget them together, perhaps they could make some sort of a statement thatwould quiet the kickers for the time being, at any rate. "

Lidgerwood looked up quickly. "That's odd, " he said. "No longer ago thanyesterday, Gridley suggested precisely the same thing. "

McCloskey was on his feet again and fumbling behind him for thedoor-knob. 

"I'm all in, " he grimaced. "When it comes to figuring with Gridley andFlemister and Hallock all in the same breath, I'm done. "

Lidgerwood made a memorandum on his desk calendar to take the buildingand loan matter up with Hallock the following day. But another wreckintervened, and after the wreck a conference with the Red Buttemine-owners postponed all office business for an additional twenty-fourhours. It was late in the evening of the third day when thesuperintendent's special steamed home from the west, and Lidgerwood, whohad dined in his car, went directly to his office in the Crow's Nest. 

He had scarcely settled himself at his desk for an attack upon theaccumulation of mail when Benson came in. It was a trouble call, and theyoung engineer's face advertised it. 

"It's no use talking, Lidgerwood, " he began, "I can't do business onthis railroad until you have killed off some of the thugs andhighbinders. "

Lidgerwood flung the paper-knife aside and whirled his chair to face thenew complaint. 

"What is the matter now, Jack?" he snapped. 

"Oh, nothing much--when you're used to it; only about a thousanddollars' worth of dimension timber gone glimmering. That's all. "

"Tell it out, " rasped the superintendent. The mine-owners' conference, from which he had just returned, had been called to protest against thepoor service given by the railroad, and knowing his present inability togive better service, he had temporized until it needed but this one moretouch of the lash to make him lose his temper hopelessly. 

"It's the Gloria bridge, " said Benson. "We had the timbers all ready topull out the old and put in the new, and the shift was to be made to-daybetween trains. Last night every stick of the new stock disappeared. "

Lidgerwood was not a profane man, but what he said to Benson in thecoruscating minute or two which followed resolved itself into a veryfair imitation of profanity, inclusive and world-embracing. 

"And you didn't have wit enough to leave a watchman on the job!" hechafed--this by way of putting an apex to the pyramid of objurgation. "By heavens! this thing has got to stop, Benson. And it's going to stop, if we have to call out the State militia and picket every cursed mile ofthis rotten railroad!"

"Do it, " said Benson gruffly, "and when it's done you notify me and I'llcome back to work. " And with that he tramped out, and was too angry toremember to close the door. 

Lidgerwood turned back to his desk, savagely out of humor with Bensonand with himself, and raging inwardly at the mysterious thieves who werelooting the company as boldly as an invading army might. At this, themost inauspicious moment possible, his eye fell upon the calendarmemorandum, "See Hallock about B/L. , " and his finger was on the chiefclerk's bell-push before he remembered that it was late, and that therehad been no light in Hallock's room when he had come down the corridorto his own door. 

The touch of the push-button was only a touch, and there was noanswering skirl of the bell in the adjoining room. But, as if theintention had evoked it, a shadow crossed behind the superintendent'schair and came to rest at the end of the roll-top desk. Lidgerwoodlooked up with his eyes aflame. It was Hallock who was standing at thedesk's end, and he was pointing to the memorandum on the calendar pad. 

"You made that note three days ago, " he said abruptly. "I saw your traincome in and your light go on. What bill of lading was it you wanted tosee me about?"

For an instant Lidgerwood failed to understand. Then he saw that inabbreviating he had unconsciously used the familiar sign, "B/L, " thecommon abbreviation of "bill of lading. " At another time he would haveturned Hallock's very natural mistake into an easy introduction to arather delicate subject. But now he was angry. 

"Sit down, " he rapped out. "That isn't 'bill of lading'; it's 'buildingand loan. '"

Hallock dragged the one vacant chair into the circle illuminated by theshaded desk-electric, and sat on the edge of it, with his hands on hisknees. "Well?" he said, in the grating voice that was so curiously likethe master-mechanic's. 

"We can cut out the details, " this from the man who, under otherconditions, would have gone diplomatically into the smallest details. "Some years ago you were the treasurer of the Mesa Building and LoanAssociation. When the association went out of business, its booksshowed a cash balance in the treasury. What became of the money?"

Hallock sat as rigid as a carved figure flanking an Egyptian propylon, which his attitude suggested. He was silent for a time, so long a timethat Lidgerwood burst out impatiently, "Why don't you answer me?"

"I was just wondering if it is worth while for you to throw meoverboard, " said the chief clerk, speaking slowly and quite withoutheat. "You are needing friends pretty badly just now, if you only knewit, Mr. Lidgerwood. "

The cool retort, as from an equal in rank, added fresh fuel to the fire. 

"I'm not buying friends with concessions to injustice and crookeddealing, " Lidgerwood exploded. "You were in the railroad service whenthe money was paid over to you, and you are in the railroad service now. I want to know where the money went. "

"It is none of your business, Mr. Lidgerwood, " said the carved figurewith the gloomy eyes that never blinked. 

"By heavens! I'm making it my business, Hallock! These men who wererobbed say that you are an embezzler, a thief. If you are not, you'vegot to clear yourself. If you are, you can't stay in the Red Butteservice another day: that's all. "

Again there was a silence surcharged with electric possibilities. Lidgerwood bit the end from a cigar and lost three matches before hesucceeded in lighting it. Hallock sat perfectly still, but the sallowtinge in his gaunt face had given place to a stony pallor. When hespoke, it was still without anger. 

"I don't care a damn for your chief clerkship, " he said calmly, "but forreasons of my own I am not ready to quit on such short notice. When I amready, you won't have to discharge me. Upon what terms can I stay?"

"I've stated them, " said the one who was angry. "Discharge your trust;make good in dollars and cents, or show cause why you were caught withan empty cash-box. "

For the first time in the interview the chief clerk switched the stareof the gloomy eyes from the memorandum desk calendar, and fixed it uponhis accuser. 

"You seem to take it for granted that I was the only grafter in thebuilding and loan business, " he objected. "I wasn't; on the contrary, Iwas only a necessary cog in the wheel. Somebody had to make thedeductions from the pay-rolls, and----"

"I'm not asking you to make excuses, " stormed Lidgerwood. "I'm tellingyou that you've got to make good! If the money was used legitimately, you, or some of your fellow-officers in the company, should be able toshow it. If the others left you to hold the bag, it is due to yourself, to the men who were held up, and to me, that you set yourself straight. Go to Flemister--he was your president, wasn't he?--and get him to makea statement that I can show to the grievance committee. That will letyou out, and me, too. "

Hallock stood up and leaned over the desk end. His saturnine face was amask of cold rage, but his eyes were burning. 

"If I thought you knew what you're saying, " he began in the gratingvoice, "but you don't--you _can't_ know!" Then, with a sudden break inthe fierce tone: "Don't send me to Flemister for my clearance--don't doit, Mr. Lidgerwood. It's playing with fire. I didn't steal the money;I'll swear it on a stack of Bibles a mile high. Flemister will tell youso if he is paid his price. But you don't want me to pay the price. If Ido----"

"Go on, " said Lidgerwood, frowning, "if you do, what then?"

Hallock leaned still farther over the desk end. 

"If I do, you'll get what you are after--and a good deal more. Again Iam going to ask you if it is worth while to throw me overboard. "

Lidgerwood was still angry enough to resent this advance into the fieldof the personalities. 

"You've had my last word, Hallock, and all this talk about consequencesthat you don't explain is beside the mark. Get me that statement fromFlemister, and do it soon. I am not going to have it said that we arefighting graft in one place and covering it up in another. "

Hallock straightened up and buttoned his coat. 

"I'll get you the statement, " he said, quietly; "and the consequenceswon't need any explaining. " His hand was on the door-knob when hefinished saying it, and Lidgerwood had risen from his chair. There was apause, while one might count five. 

"Well?" said the superintendent. 

"I was thinking again, " said the man at the door. "By all the rules ofthe game--the game as it is played here in the desert--I ought to begiving you twenty-four hours to get out of gunshot, Mr. Lidgerwood. Instead of that I am going to do you a service. You remember thatoperator, Rufford, that you discharged a few days ago?"

"Yes. "

"Bart Rufford, his brother, the 'lookout' at Red Light's place, hasinvited a few of his friends to take notice that he intends to kill you. You can take it straight. He means it. And that was what brought me uphere to-night--not that memorandum on your desk calendar. "

For a long time after the door had jarred to its shutting behindHallock, Lidgerwood sat at his desk, idle and abstractedly thoughtful. Twice within the interval he pulled out a small drawer under theroll-top and made as if he would take up the weapon it contained, andeach time he closed the drawer to break with the temptation to put thepistol into his pocket. 

Later, after he had forced himself to go to work, a door slammedsomewhere in the despatcher's end of the building, and automatically hishand shot out to the closed drawer. Then he made his decision andcarried it out. Taking the nickel-plated thing from its hiding-place, and breaking it to eject the cartridges, he went to the end door of thecorridor, which opened into the unused space under the rafters, andflung the weapon to the farthest corner of the dark loft. 

VII

THE KILLER

Lidgerwood had found little difficulty in getting on the companionableside of Dawson, so far as the heavy-muscled, silent young draftsman hada companionable side; and an invitation to the family dinner-table atthe Dawson cottage on the low mesa above the town had followed, as amatter of course. 

Once within the home circle, with Benson to plead his cause with themeek little woman whose brown eyes held the shadow of a deep trouble, Lidgerwood had still less difficulty in arranging to share Benson'spermanent table welcome. Though Martha Dawson never admitted it, even toher daughter, she stood in constant terror of the Red Desert and itsrepresentative town of Angels, and the presence of the superintendent asthe member of the household promised to be an added guaranty ofprotection. 

Lidgerwood's acceptance as a table boarder in the cottage on the mesabeing hospitably prompt, he was coming and going as regularly as hisoversight of the three hundred miles of demoralization permitted beforethe buffoonery of the Red Butte Western suddenly laughed itself out, andwar was declared. In the interval he had come to concur very heartily inBenson's estimate of the family, and to share--without Benson's excuse, and without any reason that could be set in words--the young engineer'sopposition to Gridley as Miss Faith's possible choice. 

There was little to be done in this field, however. Gridley came andwent, not too often, figuring always as a friend of the family, andusurping no more of Miss Dawson's time and attention than she seemedwilling to bestow upon him. Lidgerwood saw no chance to obstruct and nogood reason for obstructing. At all events, Gridley did not furnish thereason. And the first time Lidgerwood found himself sitting out thesunset hour after dinner on the tiny porch of the mesa cottage, withFaith Dawson as his companion--this while the joke was still running itscourse--his talk was not of Gridley, nor yet of Benson; it was ofhimself. 

"How long is it going to be before you are able to forget that I amconstructively your brother's boss, Miss Faith?" he asked, when she hadbrought him a cushion for the back of the hard veranda chair in whichhe was trying to be luxuriously lazy. 

"Oh, do I remember it?--disagreeably?" she laughed. And then, withcharming naïveté: "I am sure I try not to. "

"I am beginning to wish you would try a little harder, " he ventured, endeavoring to put her securely upon the plane of companionship. "It ispretty lonesome sometimes, up here on the top round of theRed-Butte-Western ladder of authority. "

"You mean that you would like to leave your official dignity behind youwhen you come to us here on the mesa?" she asked. 

"That's the idea precisely. You have no conception how strenuous it is, wearing the halo all the time, or perhaps I should say, the cap andbells. "

She smiled. Frederic Dawson, the reticent, had never spoken of theattitude of the Red Butte Western toward its new boss, but Gridley hadreferred to it quite frequently and had made a joke of it. Withoutknowing just why, she had resented Gridley's attitude; thisnotwithstanding the master-mechanic's genial affability wheneverLidgerwood and his difficulties were the object of discussion. 

"They are still refusing to take you seriously?" she said. "I hope youdon't mind it too much. "

"Personally, I don't mind it at all, " he assured her--which wassufficiently true at the moment. "The men are acting like a lot offoolish schoolboys bent on discouraging the new teacher. I am hopingthey will settle down to a sensible basis after a bit, and take me andthe new order of things for granted. "

Miss Dawson had something on her mind; a thing not gathered from Gridleyor from any one else in particular, but which seemed to take shape ofitself. The effect of setting it in speech asked for a completeeffacement of Lidgerwood the superintendent, and that was ratherdifficult. But she compassed it. 

"I don't think you ought to take them so much for granted--the men, Imean, " she cautioned. "I can't help feeling afraid that some of thejoking is not quite good-natured. "

"I fancy very little of it is what you would call good-natured, " herejoined evenly. "Very much of it is thinly disguised contempt. "

"For your authority?"

"For me, personally, first; and for my authority as a close second. "

"Then you are anticipating trouble when the laugh is over?"

He shook his head. "I'm hoping No, as I said a moment ago, but I'mexpecting Yes. "

"And you are not afraid?"

It would have been worth a great deal to him if he could have lookedfearlessly into the clear gray eyes of questioning, giving her a braveman's denial. But instead, his gaze went beyond her and he said: "Yousurely wouldn't expect me to confess it if I were afraid, would you?Don't you despise a coward, Miss Dawson?"

The sun was sinking behind the Timanyonis, and the soft glow of thewestern sky suffused her face, illuminating it with rare radiance. Itwas not, in the last analysis, a beautiful face, he told himself, comparing it with another whose outlines were bitten deeply and beyondall hope of erasure into the memory page. Yet the face warming softly inthe sunset glow was sweet and winsome, attractive in the best sense ofthe overworked word. At the moment Lidgerwood rather envied Benson--orGridley, whichever one of the two it was for whom Miss Dawson cared themost. 

"There are so many different kinds of cowards, " she said, after thereflective interval. 

"But they are all equally despicable?" he suggested. 

"The real ones are, perhaps. But our definitions are often careless. Mygrandfather, who was a captain of volunteers in the Civil War, used tosay that real cowardice is either a psychological condition or a souldisease, and that what we call the physical symptoms of it are oftenmisleading. "

"For example?" said Lidgerwood. 

"Grandfather used to be fond of contrasting the camp-fire bully andbraggart, as one extreme, with the soldier who was frankly afraid ofgetting killed, as the other. It was his theory that the man who dodgedthe first few bullets in a battle was quite likely to turn out to be thereal hero. "

Lidgerwood could not resist the temptation to probe the old wound. 

"Suppose, under some sudden stress, some totally unexpected trial, a manwho was very much afraid of being afraid found himself morally andphysically unable to do the courageous thing. Wouldn't he be, to allintents and purposes, a real coward?"

She took time to think. 

"No, " she said finally, "I wouldn't say that. I should wait until I hadseen the same man tried under conditions that would give him time, tothink first and to act afterward. "

"Would you really do that?" he asked doubtfully. 

"Yes, I should. A trial of the kind you describe isn't quite fair. Acutepresence of mind in an emergency is not a supreme test of anythingexcept of itself; least of all, perhaps, is it a test of courage--I meancourage of that quality which endures to-day and faces without flinchingthe threatening to-morrow. "

"And you think the man who might be surprised into doing something verydisgraceful on the spur of the moment might still have that other kindof courage, Miss Faith?"

"Certainly. " She was far enough from making any personal application ofthe test case suggested by the superintendent. But in a world which tookits keynote from the harsh discords of the Red Desert, these littlethoughtful talks with a man who was most emphatically not of the RedDesert were refreshing. And she could scarcely have been Martha Dawson'sdaughter or Frederic Dawson's sister without having a thoughtful cast ofmind. 

Lidgerwood rose and felt in his pockets for his after-dinner cigar. 

"You are much more charitable than most women, Miss Dawson, " he saidgravely; after which he left abruptly, and went back to his desk in theCrow's Nest. 

As we have seen, this bit of confidential talk between thesuperintendent and Faith Dawson fell in the period of the jestinghorse-laugh; fell, as it chanced, on a day when the horse-laugh was atits height. Later, after the storm broke, there were no more quietevenings on the cottage porch for a harassed superintendent. Lidgerwoodcame and went as before, when the rapidly recurring wrecks did not keephim out on the line, but he scrupulously left his troubles behind himwhen he climbed to the cottage on the mesa. 

Quite naturally, his silence on the one topic which was stirring the RedDesert from the Crosswater Hills to Timanyoni Canyon was a poor mask. The increasing gravity of the situation wrote itself plainly enough inhis face, and Faith Dawson was sorry for him, giving him silentsympathy, unasked, if not wholly unexpected. The town talk of Angels, what little of it reached the cottage, was harshly condemnatory of thenew superintendent; and public opinion, standing for what it was worth, feared no denial when it asserted that Lidgerwood was doing what hecould to earn his newer reputation. 

After the mysterious disappearance of the switching-engine, mysterystill unsolved and apparently unsolvable, he struck fast and hard, searching painstakingly for the leaders in the rebellion, reprimanding, suspending, and discharging until McCloskey warned him that, in additionto the evil of short-handing the road, he was filling Angels with agrowing army of ex-employees, desperate and ripe for anything. 

"I can't help it, Mac, " was his invariable reply. "Unless they put meout of the fight I shall go on as I have begun, staying with it until wehave a railroad in fact, or a forfeited charter. Do the best you can, but let it be plainly and distinctly understood that the man who isn'twith us is against us, and the man who is against us is going to get achance to hunt for a new job every time. "

Whereupon the trainmaster's homely face would take on added furrowingsof distress. 

"That's all right, Mr. Lidgerwood; that is stout, two-fisted talk allright; and I'm not doubting that you mean every word of it. But, they'llmurder you. "

"That is neither here nor there, what they will do to me. I handled themwith gloves at first, but they wanted the bare fist. They've got it now, and as I have said before, we are going to fight this thing through toa complete and artistic finish. Who goes east on 202 to-day?"

"It is Judson's run, but he is laying off. "

"What is the matter with him, sick?"

"No; just plain drunk. "

"Fire him. I won't have a single solitary man in the train service whogets drunk. Tell him so. "

"All right; one more stick of dynamite, with a cap and fuse in it, turned loose under foot, " prophesied McCloskey gloomily. "Judson goes. "

"Never mind the dynamite. Now, what has been done with Johnston, thatconductor who turned in three dollars as the total cash collections fora hundred-and-fifty-mile run?"

"I've had him up. He grinned and said that that was all the money therewas, everybody had tickets. "

"You don't believe it?"

"No; Grantby, the superintendent of the Ruby Mine, came in on Johnston'strain that morning and he registered a kick because the Ruby Gulchstation agent wasn't out of bed in time to sell him a ticket. He paidJohnston on the train, and that one fare alone was five dollars andsixty cents. "

Lidgerwood was adding another minute square to the pencilledchecker-board on his desk blotter. 

"Discharge Johnston and hold back his time-check. Then have himarrested for stealing, and wire the legal department at Denver that Iwant him prosecuted. "

Again McCloskey's rough-cast face became the outward presentment of asoul in anxious trouble. 

"Call it done--and another stick of dynamite turned loose, " heacquiesced. "Is there anything else?"

"Yes. What have you found out about that missing switch-engine?" Thishad come to be the stereotyped query, vocalizing itself every time thetrainmaster showed his face in the superintendent's room. 

"Nothing, yet. I'm hunting for proof. "

"Against the men you suspect? Who are they, and what did they do withthe engine?"

McCloskey became dumb. 

"I don't dare to say part of it till I can say it all, Mr. Lidgerwood. You hit too quick and too hard. But tell me one thing: have you had toreport the loss of that engine to anybody higher up?"

"I shall have to report it to General Manager Frisbie, of course, if wedon't find it. "

"But haven't you already reported it?"

"No; that is, I guess not. Wait a minute. "

A touch of the bell-push brought Hallock to the door of the inneroffice. The green shade was pulled low over his eyes, and he held thepen he had been using as if it were a dagger. 

"Hallock, have you reported the disappearance of that switching-engineto Mr. Frisbie?" asked the superintendent. 

The answer seemed reluctant, and it was given in the single word ofassent. 

"When?" asked Lidgerwood. 

"In the weekly summary for last week; you signed it, " said the chiefclerk. 

"Did I tell you to include that particular item in the report?"Lidgerwood did not mean to give the inquiry the tang of an impliedreproof, but the fight with the outlaws was beginning to make his mannerincisive. 

"You didn't need to tell me; I know my business, " said Hallock, and histone matched his superior's. 

Lidgerwood looked at McCloskey, and, at the trainmaster's almostimperceptible nod, said, "That's all, " and Hallock disappeared andclosed the door. 

"Well?" queried Lidgerwood sharply, when they had privacy again. 

McCloskey was shifting uneasily from one foot to the other. 

"My name's Scotch, and they tell me I've got Scotch blood in me, " hebegan. "I don't like to shoot my mouth off till I know what I'm doing. Isuppose I quarrelled with Hallock once a day, regular, before you cameon the job, Mr. Lidgerwood, and I'll say again that I don't likehim--never did. That's what makes me careful about throwing it into himnow. "

"Go on, " said Lidgerwood. 

"Well, you know he wanted to be superintendent of this road. He kept thewires to New York hot for a week after he found out that the P. S-W. Wasin control. He missed it, and you naturally took it over his head--atleast, maybe that's the way he looks at it. "

"Take it for granted and get to the point, " urged Lidgerwood, alwaysimpatient of preliminary bush-beating. 

"There isn't any point, if you don't see any, " said McCloskeystubbornly. "But I can tell you how it would strike me, if I had to bewearing your shoes just now. You've got a man for your chief clerk whohas kept this whole town guessing for two years. Some say he isn't allto the bad; some say he is a woman-killer; but they all agree that he'sas spiteful as an Indian. He wanted your job: supposing he still wantsit. "

"Stick to the facts, Mac, " said the superintendent. "You're theorizingnow, you know. "

"Well, by gravels, I will!" rasped McCloskey, pushed over the cautionaryedge by Lidgerwood's indifference to the main question at issue. "What Iknow don't amount to much yet, but it all leans one way. Hallock puts inhis daytime scratching away at his desk out there, and you'd think hedidn't know it was this year. But when that desk is shut up, you'll findhim at the roundhouse, over in the freight yard, round the switchshanties, or up at Biggs's--anywhere he can get half a dozen of the mentogether. I haven't found a man yet that I could trust to keep tab onhim, and I don't know what he's doing; but I can guess. "

"Is that all?" said Lidgerwood quietly. 

"No, it isn't! That switch-engine dropped out two weeks ago last Tuesdaynight. I've been prying into this locked-up puzzle-box every way I couldthink of ever since. _Hallock knows where that engine went!_"

"What makes you think so?"

"I'll tell you. Robinson, the night-crew engineer, was a little lateleaving her that night. His fireman had gone home, and so had theyardmen. After he had crossed the yard coming out, he saw a man sneakingtoward the shifter, keeping in the shadow of the coal-chutes. He wasjust curious enough to want to know who it was, and he made a littlesneak of his own. When he found it was Hallock, he went home and thoughtno more about it till I got him to talk. "

Lidgerwood had gone back to the pencil and the blotting-pad and themaking of squares. 

"But the motive, Mac?" he questioned, without looking up. "How could thetheft or the destruction of a locomotive serve any purpose that Hallockmight have in view?"

McCloskey did not mean any disrespect to his superior officer when heretorted: "I'm no 'cyclopædia. There are lots of things I don't know. But unless you call it off, I'm going to know a few more of them beforeI quit. "

"I don't call it off, Mac; find out what you can. But I can't believethat Hallock is heading this organized robbery and rebellion. "

"Somebody is heading it, to a dead moral certainty, Mr. Lidgerwood; thelicks are coming too straight and too well-timed. "

"Find the man if you can, and we'll eliminate him. And, by the way, ifit comes to the worst, how will Hepburn, the town marshal, stand?"

The trainmaster shook his head. 

"I don't know. Jack's got plenty of sand, but he was elected out of theshops, and by the railroad vote. If it comes to a show-down against themen who elected him----"

"That is what I mean, " nodded Lidgerwood. "It will come to a show-downsooner or later, if we can't nip the ringleaders. Young Rufford and adozen more of the dropped employees are threatening to get even. Thatmeans train-wrecking, misplaced switches, arson--anything you like. Atthe first break there are going to be some very striking examples made ofall the wreckers and looters we can land on. "

McCloskey's chair faced the window, and he was scowling and mouthing atthe tall chimney of the shop power-plant across the tracks. Where had hefallen upon the idea that this carefully laundered gentleman, who nevermissed his daily plunge and scrub, and still wore immaculate linen, lacked the confidence of his opinions and convictions? The trainmasterknew, and he thought Lidgerwood must also know, that the first blow ofthe vengeful ones would be directed at the man rather than at thecompany's property. 

"I guess maybe Hepburn will do his duty when it comes to the pinch, " hesaid finally. And the subject having apparently exhausted itself, hewent about his business, which was to call up the telegraph operator atTimanyoni to ask why he had broken the rule requiring the conductor andengineer, both of them, to sign train orders in his presence. 

Thereupon, quite in keeping with the militant state of affairs on aharassed Red Butte Western, ensued a sharp and abusive wire quarrel atlong range; and when it was over, Timanyoni was temporarily strickenfrom the list of night telegraph stations pending the hastening forwardof a relief operator, to take the place of the one who, with manyprofane objurgations curiously clipped in rattling Morse, had wired hisopinion of McCloskey and the new superintendent, closely interwoven withhis resignation. 

It was after dark that evening when Lidgerwood closed his desk on thepencilled blotting-pad and groped his way down the unlighted stair tothe Crow's Nest platform. 

The day passenger from the east was in, and the hostler had just coupledEngine 266 to the train for the night run to Red Butte. Lidgerwoodmarked the engine's number, and saw Dawson talking to Williams, theengineer, as he turned the corner at the passenger-station end of thebuilding. Later, when he was crossing the open plaza separating therailroad yard from the town, he thought he heard the draftsman's stepbehind him, and waited for Dawson to come up. 

[Illustration: His hand was on the latch of the door-yard gate when aman rose out of the gloom. ]

The rearward darkness, made blacker by contrast with the white beam ofthe 266's headlight, yielding no one and no further sounds, he went on, past the tar-paper-covered hotel, past the flanking of saloons and thefalse-fronted shops, past the "Arcade" with its crimson sidewalk eyesetting the danger signal for all who should enter Red-Light Sammy's, and so up to the mesa and to the cottage of seven-o'clock dinners. 

His hand was on the latch of the dooryard gate when a man rose out ofthe gloom--out of the ground at his feet, as it appeared toLidgerwood--and in the twinkling of an eye the night and the starry domeof it were effaced for the superintendent in a flash of red lightningand a thunder-clap louder than the crash of worlds. 

When he began to realize again, Dawson was helping him to his feet, andthe draftsman's mother was calling anxiously from the door. 

"What was it?" Lidgerwood asked, still dazed and half blinded. 

"A man tried to kill you, " said Dawson in his most matter-of-fact tone. "I happened along just in time to joggle his arm. That, and your quickdrop, did the business. Not hurt, are you?"

Lidgerwood was gripping the gate and trying to steady himself. A chill, like a violent attack of ague, was shaking him to the bone. 

"No, " he returned, mastering the chattering teeth by the supremesteffort of will. "Thanks to you, I guess--I'm--not hurt. Who w-was theman?"

"It was Rufford. He followed you from the Crow's Nest. Williams saw himand put me on, so I followed him. "

"Williams? Then he isn't----"

"No, " said Dawson, anticipating the query. "He is with us, and he isswinging the best of the engineers into line. But come into the houseand let me give you a drop of whiskey. This thing has got on your nervesa bit--and no wonder. "

But Lidgerwood clung to the gate-palings for yet another steadyingmoment. 

"Rufford, you said: you mean the discharged telegraph operator?"

"Worse luck, " said Dawson. "It was his brother Bart, the 'lookout' atRed-Light Sammy's; the fellow they call 'The Killer'. "

VIII

BENSON'S BRIDGE-TIMBERS

It was on the morning following the startling episode at the Dawsons'gate that Benson, lately arrived from the west on train 204, came intothe superintendent's office with the light of discovery in his eye. Butthe discovery, if any there were, was made to wait upon a word offriendly solicitude. 

"What's this they were telling me down at the lunch-counter justnow--about somebody taking a pot-shot at you last night?" he asked. "Dougherty said it was Bart Rufford; was it?"

Lidgerwood confirmed the gossip with a nod. "Yes, it was Rufford, soDawson says. I didn't recognize him, though; it was too dark. "

"Well, I'm mighty glad to see that he didn't get you. What was the row?"

"I don't know, definitely; I suppose it was because I told McCloskey todischarge his brother a while back. The brother has been hanging abouttown and making threats ever since he was dropped from the pay-rolls, but no one has paid any attention to him. "

"A pretty close call, wasn't it?--or was Dougherty only putting on a fewfrills to go with my cup of coffee?"

"It was close enough, " admitted Lidgerwood half absently. He wasthinking not so much of the narrow escape as of the fresh andhumiliating evidence it had afforded of his own wretched unreadiness. 

"All right; you'll come around to my way of thinking after a while. Itell you, Lidgerwood, you've got to heel yourself when you live in a guncountry. I said I wouldn't do it, but I have done it, and I'll tell youright now, when anybody in this blasted desert makes monkey-motions atme, I'm going to blow the top of his head off, quick. "

Lidgerwood's gaze was resting on the little drawer in his desk which nowcontained nothing but a handful of loose cartridges. 

"Hasn't it ever occurred to you, Jack, that I am the one man in thedesert who cannot afford to go armed? I am supposed to stand for law andorder. What would my example be worth if it should be noised around thatI, too, had become a 'gun-toter'?"

"Oh, I'm not going to argue with you, " laughed Benson. "You'll go yourown way and do as you please, and probably get yourself comfortably shotup before you get through. But I didn't come up here to wrangle with youabout your theoretical notions of law and order. I came to tell you thatI have been hunting for those bridge-timbers of mine. "

"Well?" queried Lidgerwood; "have you found them?"

"No, and I don't believe anybody will ever find them. It's going to beanother case of Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to becomforted because they are not. "

"But you have discovered something?"

"Partly yes, and partly no. I think I told you at the time that theyvanished between two days like a puff of smoke, leaving no trace behindthem. How it was done I couldn't imagine. There is a wagon-roadparalleling the river over there at the Siding, as you know, and thefirst thing I did the next morning was to look for wagon-tracks. No setof wheels carrying anything as heavy as those twelve-by-twelvetwenty-fours had gone over the road. "

"How were they taken, then? They couldn't have been floated off down theriver, could they?"

"It was possible, but not at all probable, " said the engineer. "Mytheory was that they were taken away on somebody's railroad car. Therewere only two sources of information, at first--the night operator atLittle Butte twelve miles west, and the track-walker at Point-of-Rocks, whose boat goes down to within two or three miles of the Gloria bridge. Goodloe, at Little Butte, reports that there was nothing moving on themain line after the passing of the midnight freight east; andShaughnessy, the track-walker, is just a plain, unvarnished liar: heknows a lot more than he will tell. "

"Still, you are looking a good bit more cheerful than you were lastweek, " was Lidgerwood's suggestion. 

"Yes; after I got the work started again with a new set of timbers, Ispent three or four days on the ground digging for information like adog after a woodchuck. There are some prospectors panning on the barthree miles up the Gloria, but they knew nothing--or if they knew theywouldn't tell. That was the case with every man I talked to on our sideof the river. But over across the Timanyoni, nearly opposite the mouthof the Gloria, there is a little creek coming in from the north, and onthis creek I found a lone prospector--a queer old chap who hails frommy neck of woods up in Michigan. "

"Go on, " said Lidgerwood, when the engineer stopped to light his pipe. 

"The old man told me a fairy tale, all right, " Benson went on. "He wasas full of fancies as a fig is of seeds. I have been trying to believethat what he told me isn't altogether a pipe-dream, but it soundsmightily like one. He says that about two o'clock in the morning ofSaturday, two weeks ago, an engine and a single car backed down from thewest to the Gloria bridge, and a crowd of men swarmed off the train, loaded those bridge-timbers, and ran away with them, going back up theline to the west. He tells it all very circumstantially, though heneglected to explain how he happened to be awake and on guard at anysuch unearthly hour. "

"Where was he when he saw all this?"

"On his own side of the river, of course. It was a dark night, and theengine had no headlight. But the loading gang had plenty of lanterns, and he says they made plenty of noise. "

"You didn't let it rest at that?" said the superintendent. 

"Oh, no, indeed! I put in the entire afternoon that day on a hand-carwith four of my men to pump it for me, and if there is a foot of themain line, side-tracks, or spurs, west of the Gloria bridge, that Ihaven't gone over, I don't know where it is. The next night I crossedthe Timanyoni and tackled the old prospector again. I wanted to checkhim up--see if he had forgotten any of the little frills and details. Hehadn't. On the contrary, he was able to add what seems to me a veryimportant detail. About an hour after the disappearance of the one-cartrain with my bridge-timbers, he heard something that he had heard manytimes before. He says it was the high-pitched song of a circular saw. Iasked him if he was sure. He grinned and said he hadn't been brought upin the Michigan woods without being able to recognize that song whereverhe might hear it. "

"Whereupon you went hunting for saw-mills?" asked Lidgerwood. 

"That is just what I did, and if there is one within hearing distance ofthat old man's cabin on Quartz Creek, I couldn't find it. But I amconfident that there is one, and that the thieves, whoever they were, lost no time in sawing my bridge-timbers up into board-lumber, and I'llbet a hen worth fifty dollars against a no-account yellow dog that Ihave seen those boards a dozen times within the last twenty-four hours, without knowing it. "

"Didn't see anything of our switch-engine while you were looking foryour bridge-timbers and saw-mills and other things, did you?" queriedLidgerwood. 

"No, " was the quick reply, "no, but I have a think coming on that, too. My old prospector says he couldn't make out very well in the dark, butit seemed to him as if the engine which hauled away our bridge-timbersdidn't have any tender. How does that strike you?"

Lidgerwood grew thoughtful. The missing engine was of the "saddle-tank"type, and it had no tender. It was hard to believe that it could behidden anywhere on so small a part of the Red Butte Western system asthat covered by the comparatively short mileage in Timanyoni Park. Yetif it had not been dumped into some deep pot-hole in the river, it wasunquestionably hidden somewhere. 

"Benson, are you sure you went over all the line lying west of theGloria bridge?" he asked pointedly. 

"Every foot of it, up one side and down the other . .. No, hold on, thereis that old spur running up on the eastern side of Little Butte; it'sthe one that used to serve Flemister's mine when the workings were onthe eastern slope of the butte. I didn't go over that spur. It hasn'tbeen used for years; as I remember it, the switch connections with themain line have been taken out. "

"You're wrong about that, " said Lidgerwood definitely. "McCloskeythought so too, and told me that the frogs and point-rails had beentaken out at Silver Switch--at both of the main-line ends of the'Y', --but the last time I was over the line I noticed that the oldswitch stands were there, and that the split rails were still in place. "

Benson had been tilting comfortably in his chair, smoking his pipe, butat this he got up quickly and looked at his watch. 

"Say, Lidgerwood, I'm going back to the Park on Extra 71, which ought toleave in about five minutes, " he said hurriedly. "Tell me half a dozenthings in just about as many seconds. Has Flemister used that spur sinceyou took charge of the road?"

"No. "

"Have you ever suspected him of being mixed up in the looting?"

"I haven't known enough about him to form an opinion. "

Benson stepped to the door communicating with the outer office, andclosed it quietly. 

"Your man Hallock out there; how is he mixed up with Flemister?"

"I don't know. Why?"

"Because, the day before yesterday, when I was on the Little Buttestation platform, talking with Goodloe, I saw Flemister and Hallockwalking down the new spur together. When they saw me, they turned aroundand began to walk back toward the mine. "

"Hallock had business with Flemister, I know that much, and he took halfa day off Thursday to go and see him, " said the superintendent. 

"Do you happen to know what the business was?"

"Yes, I do. He went at my request. "

"H'm, " said Benson, "another string broken. Never mind; I've got tocatch that train. "

"Still after those bridge-timbers?"

"Still after the boards they have probably been sawed into. And before Iget back I am going to know what's at the upper end of that old SilverSwitch 'Y' spur. "

The young engineer had been gone less than half an hour, and Lidgerwoodhad scarcely finished reading his mail, when McCloskey opened the door. Like Benson, the trainmaster also had the light of discovery in his eye. 

"More thievery, " he announced gloomily. "This time they have beenlooting my department. I had ten or twelve thousand feet of high-priced, insulated copper wire, and a dozen or more telephone sets, in thestore-room. Mr. Cumberley had a notion of connecting up all the Angelsdepartments by telephone, and it got as far as the purchasing of thematerial. The wire and all those telephone sets are gone. "

"Well?" said Lidgerwood, evenly. The temptation to take it out upon thenearest man was still as strong as ever, but he was growing better ableto resist it. 

"I've done what I could, " snapped McCloskey, seeming to know what wasexpected of him, "but nobody knows anything, of course. So far as Icould find out, no one of my men has had occasion to go to thestore-room for a week. "

"Who has the keys?"

"I have one, and Spurlock, the line-chief, has one. Hallock has thethird. "

"Always Hallock!" was the half-impatient comment. "I hope you don'tsuspect him of stealing your wire. "

McCloskey tilted his hat over his eyes, and looked truculent enough tofight an entire cavalry troop. 

"That's just what I do, " he gritted. "I've got him dead to rights thistime. He was in that store-room day before yesterday, or rather nightbefore last. Callahan saw him coming out of there. "

Lidgerwood sat back in his chair and smiled. "I don't blame you much, Mac; this thing is getting to be pretty binding upon all of us. But Ithink you are mistaken in your conclusion, I mean. Hallock has beenmaking an inventory of material on hand for the past week or more, andnow that I think of it, I remember having seen your wire and thetelephone sets included in his last sheet of telegraph supplies. "

"There it goes again, " said the trainmaster sourly. "Every time I get ahalf-hitch on that fellow, something turns up to make it slip. But if Ihad my way about twenty minutes I'd go and choke him till he'd tell mewhat he has done with that wire. "

Lidgerwood was smiling again. 

"Try to be as fair to him as you can, " he advised good-naturedly. "Iknow you dislike him, and probably you have good reasons. But have youstopped to ask yourself what possible use he could make of the stolenmaterial?"

Again McCloskey's hat went to the pugnacious angle. "I don't knowanything any more; you couldn't prove it by me what day of the week itis. But I can tell you one thing, Mr. Lidgerwood"--shaking an emphaticfinger--"Flemister has just put a complete system of wiring andtelephones in his mine, and if he had the stuff for the system shippedin over our railroad, the agent at Little Butte doesn't know anythingabout it. I asked Goodloe, by grapples!"

But even this was unconvincing to the superintendent. 

"That proves nothing against Hallock, Mac, as you will see when you cooldown a little, " he said. 

"I know it doesn't, " wrathfully; "nothing proves anything any more. Isuppose I've got to say it again: I'm all in, down and out. " And he wentaway, growling to his hat-brim. 

Late in the evening of the same day, Benson returned from the west, coming in on a light engine that was deadheading from Red Butte to theAngels shops. He sought out Lidgerwood at once, and flinging himselfwearily into a chair at the superintendent's elbow, made his report ofthe day's doings. 

"I have, and I haven't, " he said, beginning in the midst of things, ashis habit was. "You were right about the track connection at SilverSwitch. It is in; Flemister put it in himself a month ago when he had acar-load of coal taken up to the back door of his mine. "

"Did you go up over the spur?"

"Yes; and I had my trouble for my pains. Before I go any further, Lidgerwood, I'd like to ask you one question: can we afford to quarrelwith Mr. Pennington Flemister?"

"Benson, we sha'n't hesitate a single moment to quarrel with the biggestmine-owner or freight-shipper this side of the Crosswater Hills if wehave the right on our side. Spread it out. What did you find?"

Benson sank a little lower in his chair. "The first thing I found was acouple of armed guards--a pair of tough-looking citizens with gunssagging at their hips, lounging around the Wire-Silver back door. Thereis quite a little nest of buildings at the old entrance to theWire-Silver, and a stockade has been built to enclose them. The old spurruns through a gate in the stockade, and the gate was open; but the twotoughs wouldn't let me go inside. I wrangled with them first, and triedto bribe them afterward, but it was no go. Then I started to walk aroundthe outside of the stockade, which is only a high board fence, and theyobjected to that. Thereupon I told them to go straight to blazes, andwalked away down the spur, but when I got out of sight around the firstcurve I took to the timber on the butte slope and climbed to a pointfrom which I could look over into Flemister's carefully builtenclosure. "

"Well, what did you see?"

"Much or little, just as you happen to look at it. There are half adozen buildings in the yard, and two of them are new and unpainted. Sizing them up from a distance, I said to myself that the lumber in themhadn't been very long out of the mill. One of them is evidently thepower-house; it has an iron chimney set in the roof, and the power-plantwas running. "

For a little time after Benson had finished his report there wassilence, and Lidgerwood had added many squares to the pencillings on hisdesk blotter before he spoke again. 

"You say two of the buildings are new; did you make any inquiries aboutrecent lumber shipments to the Wire-Silver?"

"I did, " said the young engineer soberly. "So far as our station recordsshow, Flemister has had no material, save coal, shipped in over eitherthe eastern or the western spur for several months. "

"Then you believe that he took your bridge-timbers and sawed them upinto lumber?"

"I do--as firmly as I believe that the sun will rise to-morrow. And thatisn't all of it, Lidgerwood. He is the man who has your switch-engine. As I have said, the power-plant was running while I was up there to-day. The power is a steam engine, and if you'd stand off and listen to ityou'd swear it was a locomotive pulling a light train up an easy grade. Of course, I'm only guessing at that, but I think you will agree with methat the burden of proof lies upon Flemister. "

Lidgerwood was nodding slowly. "Yes, on Flemister and some others. Whoare the others, Benson?"

"I have no more guesses coming, and I am too tired to invent any. Suppose we drop it until to-morrow. I'm afraid it means a fight or afuneral, and I am not quite equal to either to-night. "

For a long time after Benson had gone, Lidgerwood sat staring out of hisoffice window at the masthead electrics in the railroad yard. Benson'snews had merely confirmed his own and McCloskey's conclusion that someone in authority was in collusion with the thieves who were raiding thecompany. Sooner or later it must come to a grapple, and he dreaded it. 

It was deep in the night when he closed his desk and went to the littleroom partitioned off in the rear of the private office as asleeping-apartment. When he was preparing to go to bed, he noticed thatthe tiny relay on the stand at his bed's head was silent. Afterward, when he tried to adjust the instrument, he found it ruined beyondrepair. Some one had connected its wiring with the electric lightingcircuit, and the tiny coils were fused and burned into solid littlecylinders of copper. 

IX

JUDSON'S JOKE

Barton Rufford, ex-distiller of illicit whiskey in the Tennesseemountains, ex-welsher turned informer and betraying his neighborlaw-breakers to the United States revenue officers, ex-everything whichmade his continued stay in the Cumberlands impossible, was a man ofdistinction in the Red Desert. 

In the wider field of the West he had been successively a claim-jumper, a rustler of unbranded cattle, a telegraph operator in collusion with agang of train-robbers, and finally a faro "lookout": the armed guardwho sits at the head of the gaming-table in the untamed regions to killand kill quickly if a dispute arises. 

Angels acknowledged his citizenship without joy. A cold-bloodedmurderer, with an appalling record; and a man with a temper like smokingtow, an itching trigger-finger, the eye of a duck-hawk, and cat-likeswiftness of movement, he tyrannized the town when the humor was onhim; and as yet no counter-bully had come to chase him into oblivion. 

For Lidgerwood to have earned the enmity of this man was consideredequivalent to one of three things: the superintendent would throw up hisjob and leave the Red Desert, preferably by the first train; or Ruffordwould kill him; or he must kill Rufford. Red Butte Western opinion wassomewhat divided as to which horn of the trilemma the victim ofRufford's displeasure would choose, all admitting that, for the moment, the choice lay with the superintendent. Would Lidgerwood fight, or run, or sit still and be slain? In the Angels roundhouse, on the secondmorning following the attempt upon Lidgerwood's life at the gate of theDawson cottage, the discussion was spirited, not to say acrimonious. 

"I'm telling you hyenas that Collars-and-Cuffs ain't going to run away, "insisted Williams, who was just in from the all-night trip to Red Butteand return. "He ain't built that way. "

Lester, the roundhouse foreman, himself a man-queller of no mean repute, thought differently. Lidgerwood would, most likely, take to the highgrass and the tall timber. The alternative was to "pack a gun" forRufford--an alternative quite inconceivable to Lester when it waspredicated of the superintendent. 

"I don't know about that, " said Judson, the discharged--and consequentlymomentarily sobered--engineer of the 271. "He's fooled everybody morethan once since he lit down in the Red Desert. First crack everybodysaid he didn't know his business, 'cause he wore b'iled shirts: he_does_ know it. Next, you could put your ear to the ground and hear thathe didn't have the sand to round up the maverick R. B. W. He's doing it. Idon't know but he might even run a bluff on Bart Rufford, if he feltlike it. "

"Come off, John!" growled the big foreman. "You needn't be afraid totalk straight over here. He hit you when you was down, and we all knowyou're only waitin' for a chance to hit back. "

Judson was a red-headed man, effusively good-natured when he was inliquor, and a quick-tempered fighter of battles when he was not. 

"Don't you make any such mistake!" he snapped. "That's what McCloskeysaid when he handed me the 'good-by. ' 'You'll be one more to go roundfeelin' for Mr. Lidgerwood's throat, I suppose, ' says he. By cripes!what I said to Mac I'm sayin' to you, Bob Lester. I know good and wella-plenty when I've earned my blue envelope. If I'd been in the super'splace, the 271 would have had a new runner a long time ago!"

"Oh, hell! _I_ say he'll chase his feet, " puffed Broadbent, the fatmachinist who was truing off the valve-seats of the 195. "If Rufforddoesn't make him, there's some others that will. "

Judson flared up again. 

"Who you quotin' now, Fatty? One o' the shop 'prentices? Or maybe it'sRank Hallock? Say, what's he doin' monkeyin' round the back shop so muchlately? I'm goin' to stay round here till I get a chance to lick thatscrub. "

Broadbent snorted his derision of all mere enginemen. 

"You rail-pounders'd better get next to Rankin Hallock, " he warned. "He's the next sup'rintendent of the R. B. W. You'll see the 'pointmentcircular the next day after that jim-dandy over in the Crow's Nest getsmoved off'n the map. "

"Well, I'm some afeared Bart Rufford's likely to move him, " drawledClay, the six-foot Kentuckian who was filing the 195's brasses at thebench. "Which the same I ain't rejoicin' about, neither. That littlecuss is shore a mighty good railroad man. And when you ain't rubbin' hisfur the wrong way, he treats you white. "

"For instance?" snapped Hodges, a freight engineer who had been thrice"on the carpet" in Lidgerwood's office for over-running his orders. 

"Oh, they ain't so blame' hard to find, " Clay retorted. "Last week, whenwe was out on the Navajo wreck, me and the boy didn't have nodinner-buckets. Bradford was runnin' the super's car, and when Andy justsort o' happened to mention the famine up along, the little man madethat Jap cook o' his'n get us up a dinner that'd made your hair frizzle. He shore did. "

"Why don't you go and take up for him with Bart Rufford?" sneeredBroadbent, stopping his facing machine to set in a new cut on thevalve-seat. 

"Not me. I've got cold feet, " laughed the Kentuckian. "I'm like thelittle kid's daddy in the Sunday-school song: I ain't got time to dieyet--got too much to do. "

It was Williams's innings, and what he said was cautionary. 

"Dry up, you fellows; here comes Gridley. "

The master-mechanic was walking down the planked track from the backshop, carrying his years, which showed only in the graying mustache andchin beard, and his hundred and eighty pounds of well-set-up bone andmuscle, jauntily. Now, as always, he was the beau ideal of theindustrial field-officer; handsome in a clean-cut masculine way, a typeof vigor--but also, if the signs of the full face and the eager eyeswere to be regarded, of the elemental passions. 

Angelic rumor hinted that he was a periodic drunkard: he was both moreand less than that. Like many another man, Henry Gridley lived a doublelife; or, perhaps it would be nearer the truth to say that there weretwo Henry Gridleys. Lidgerwood, the Dawsons, the little world of Angelsat large, knew the virile, accomplished mechanical engineer and masterof men, which was his normal personality. What time the otherpersonality, the elemental barbarian, yawned, stretched itself, and cameawake, the unspeakable dens of the Copah lower quarter engulfed himuntil the nether-man had gorged himself on degradation. 

To his men, Gridley was a tyrant, exacting, but just; ruling them, asthe men of the desert could only be ruled, with the mailed fist. Yetthere was a human hand inside of the steel gauntlet, as all men knew. Having once beaten a bullying gang-boss into the hospital at Denver, hehad promptly charged himself with the support of the man's family. Othergenerous roughnesses were recorded of him, and if the attitude of themen was somewhat tempered by wholesome fear, it was none the lessloyal. 

Hence, when he entered the roundhouse, industrious silence supplantedthe discussion of the superintendent's case. Glancing at the group ofenginemen, and snapping out a curt criticism of Broadbent's slowness onthe valve-seats, he beckoned to Judson. When the discharged engineer hadfollowed him across the turn-table, he faced about and said, not toocrisply, "So your sins have found you out one more time, have they, John?"

Judson nodded. 

"What is it this time, thirty days?"

Judson shook his head gloomily. "No, I'm down and out. "

"Lidgerwood made it final, did he? Well, you can't blame him. "

"You hain't heard me sayin' anything, have you?" was the surlyrejoinder. 

"No, but it isn't in human nature to forget these little things. " Then, suddenly: "Where were you day before yesterday between noon and oneo'clock, about the time you should have been taking your train out?"

Judson had a needle-like mind when the alcohol was out of it, and thesudden query made him dissemble. 

"About ten o'clock I was playin' pool in Rafferty's place with the buttend of the cue. After that, things got kind o'hazy. "

"Well, I want you to buckle down and think hard. Don't you remembergoing over to Cat Biggs's about noon, and sitting down at one of theempty card-tables to drink yourself stiff?"

Judson could not have told, under the thumbscrews, why he was promptedto tell Gridley a plain lie. But he did it. 

"I can't remember, " he denied. Then then needle-pointed brain got in itsword, and he added, "Why?"

"I saw you there when I was going up to dinner. You called me in to tellme what you were going to do to Lidgerwood if he slated you for gettingdrunk. Don't you remember it?"

Judson was looking the master-mechanic fairly in the eyes when he said, "No, I don't remember a thing about that. "

"Try again, " said Gridley, and now the shrewd gray eyes under the brimof the soft-rolled felt hat held the engineer helpless. 

"I guess--I do--remember it--now, " said Judson, slowly, trying, stillineffectually, to break Gridley's masterful eyehold upon him. 

[Illustration: "Bart's afraid he can't duck without dying. "]

"I thought you would, " said the master-mechanic, without releasing him. "And you probably remember, also, that I took you out into the streetand started you home. "

"Yes, " said Judson, this time without hesitation. 

"Well, keep on remembering it; you went home to Maggie, and she put youto bed. That is what you are to keep in mind. "

Judson had broken the curious eye-grip at last, and again he said, "Why?"

Gridley hooked his finger absently in the engineer's buttonhole. 

"Because, if you don't, a man named Rufford says he'll start a lead minein you. I heard him say it last night--overheard him, I should say. That's all. "

The master-mechanic passed on, going out by the great door which openedfor the locomotive entering-track. Judson hung upon his heel for amoment, and then went slowly out through the tool-room and across theyard tracks to the Crow's Nest. 

He found McCloskey in his office above stairs, mouthing and grimacingover the string-board of the new time-table. 

"Well?" growled the trainmaster, when he saw who had opened and closedthe door. "Come back to tell me you've sworn off? That won't go downwith Mr. Lidgerwood. When he fires, he means it. "

"You wait till I ask you for my job back again, won't you, JimMcCloskey?" said the disgraced one hotly. "I hain't asked it yet; andwhat's more, I'm sober. "

"Sure you are, " muttered McCloskey. "You'd be better-natured with adrink or two in you. What's doing?"

"That's what I came over here to find out, " said Judson steadily. "Whatis the boss going to do about this flare-up with Bart Rufford?"

The trainmaster shrugged. 

"You've got just as many guesses as anybody, John. What you can bet onis that he will do something different. "

Judson had slouched to the window. When he spoke, it was without turninghis head. 

"You said something yesterday morning about me feeling for the boss'sthroat along with that gang up-town that's trying to drink itself up tothe point of hitting him back. It don't strike me that way, Mac. "

"How does it strike you?"

Judson turned slowly, crossed the room, and sat down in the only vacantchair. 

"You know what's due to happen, Mac. Rufford won't try it on again theway he tried it night before last. I heard up-town that he has postedhis de-fi: Mr. Lidgerwood shoots him on sight or he shoots Mr. Lidgerwood on sight. You can figure that out, can't you?"

"Not knowing Mr. Lidgerwood much better than you do, John, I'm not surethat I can. "

"Well, it's easy. Bart'll walk up to the boss in broad daylight, drophim, and then fill him full o'lead after he's down. I've seen him--sawhim do it to Bixby, Mr. Brewster's foreman at the Copperette. "

"Say the rest of it, " commanded McCloskey. 

"I've been thinking. While I'm laying round with nothing much to do, Ibelieve I'll keep tab on Bart for a little spell. I don't love him much, nohow. "

McCloskey's face contortion was intended to figure as a derisive smile. "Pshaw, John!" he commented, "he'd skin you alive. Why, even JackHepburn is afraid of him!"

"Jack is? How do you know that?"

McCloskey shrugged again. 

"Are you with us, John?" he asked cautiously. 

"I ain't with Bart Rufford and the tin-horns, " said Judson negatively. 

"Then I'll tell you a fairy tale, " said the trainmaster, lowering hisvoice. "I gave you notice that Mr. Lidgerwood would do somethingdifferent: he did it, bright and early this morning; went to JakeSchleisinger, who had to try twice before he could remember that he wasa justice of the peace, and swore out a warrant for Rufford's arrest, ona charge of assault with intent to kill. "

"Sure, " said Judson, "that's what any man would do in a civilizedcountry, ain't it?"

"Yes, but not here, John--not in the red-colored desert, with BartRufford's name in the body of the warrant. "

"I don't know why not, " insisted the engineer stubbornly. "But go onwith the story; it ain't any fairy tale, so far. "

"When he'd got the warrant, Schleisinger protesting all the while thatBart'd kill him for issuing it, Mr. Lidgerwood took it to Hepburn andtold him to serve it. Jack backed down so fast that he fell over hisfeet. Said to ask him anything else under God's heavens and he'd doit--anything but that. "

"Huh!" said Judson. "If I'd took an oath to serve warrants I'd serve'em, if it did make me sick at my stomach. " Then he got up and shuffledaway to the window again, and when next he spoke his voice was the voiceof a broken man. 

"I lied to you a minute ago, Mac. I did want my job back. I came overhere hopin' that you and Mr. Lidgerwood might be seein' things a littledifferent by this time. I've quit the whiskey. "

McCloskey wagged his shaggy head. 

"So you've said before, John, and not once or twice either. "

"I know, but every man gets to the bottom, some time. I've hit bed-rock, and I've just barely got sense enough to know it. Let me tell you, Mac, I've pulled trains on mighty near every railroad in this country--andthen some. The Red Butte is my last ditch. With my record I couldn't getan engine anywhere else in the United States. Can't you see what I'm upagainst?"

The trainmaster nodded. He was human. 

"Well, it's Maggie and the babies now, " Judson went on. "They don'tstarve, Mac, not while I'm on top of earth. Don't you reckon you couldmake some sort of a play for me with the boss, Jim? He's got bowels. "

McCloskey did not resent the familiarity of the Christian name, neitherdid he hold out any hope of reinstatement. 

"No, John. One or two things I've learned about Mr. Lidgerwood: hedoesn't often hit when he's mad, and he doesn't take back anything hesays in cold blood. I'm afraid you've cooked your last goose. "

"Let me go in and see him. He ain't half as hard-hearted as you are, Jim. "

The trainmaster shook his head. "No, it won't do any good. I heard himtell Hallock not to let anybody in on him this morning. "

"Hallock be--Say, Mac, what makes him keep that--" Judson broke offabruptly, pulled his hat over his eyes, and said, "Reckon it's worthwhile to shove me over to the other side, Jim McCloskey?"

"What other side?" demanded McCloskey. 

Judson scoffed openly. "You ain't making out like you don't know, areyou? Who was behind that break of Rufford's last night?"

"There didn't need to be anybody behind it. Bart thinks he has a kickcoming because his brother was discharged. "

"But there was somebody behind it. Tell me, Mac, did you ever see me toodrunk to read my orders and take my signals?"

"No, don't know as I have. "

"Well, I never was. And I don't often get too drunk to hear straight, either, even if I do look and act like the biggest fool God ever letlive. I was in Cat Biggs's day before yesterday noon, when I ought tohave been down here taking 202 east. There were two men in the back roomputting their heads together. I don't know whether they knew I was onthe other side of the partition or not. If they did, they probablydidn't pay any attention to a drivellin' idiot that couldn't wrap histongue around an order for more whiskey. "

"Go on!" snapped McCloskey, almost viciously. 

"They were talking about 'fixing' the boss. One of 'em was for the slowand safe way: small bets and a good many of 'em. The other was forpulling a straight flush on Mr. Lidgerwood, right now. Number One saidno, that things were moving along all right, and it wasn't worth whileto rush. Then something was said about a woman; I didn't catch her nameor just what the hurry man said about her, only it was something aboutMr. Lidgerwood's bein' in shape to mix up in it. At that Number Oneflopped over. 'Pull it off whenever you like!' says he, savage-like. "

McCloskey sprang from his chair and towered over the smaller man. 

"One of those men was Bart Rufford: who was the other one, Judson?"

Judson was apparently unmoved. "You're forgettin' that I was plum' fooldrunk, Jim. I didn't see either one of 'em. "

"But you heard?"

"Yes, one of 'em was Rufford, as you say, and up to a little bit ago I'd'a' been ready to swear to the voice of the one you haven't guessed. Butnow I can't. "

"Why can't you do it now?"

"Sit down and I'll tell you. I've been jarred. Everything I've told youso far, I can remember, or it seems as if I can, but right where I brokeoff a cog slipped. I must 'a' been drunker than I thought I was. Gridleysays he was going by and he says I called him in and told him, fool-wise, all the things I was going to do to Mr. Lidgerwood. He sayshe hushed me up, called me out to the sidewalk, and started me home. Mac, I don't remember a single wheel-turn of all that, and it makes mescary about the other part. "

McCloskey relapsed into his swing-chair. 

"You said you thought you recognized the other man by his voice. Itsounds like a drunken pipe-dream, the whole of it; but who did you thinkit was?"

Judson rose up, jerked his thumb toward the door of the superintendent'sbusiness office, and said, "Mac, if the whiskey didn't fake the wholebusiness for me--the man who was mumblin' with Bart Ruffordwas--Hallock!"

"Hallock?" said McCloskey; "and you said there was a woman in it? Thatfits down to the ground, John. Mr. Lidgerwood has found out somethingabout Hallock's family tear-up, or he's likely to find out. That's whatthat means!"

What more McCloskey said was said to an otherwise empty room. Judson hadopened the door and closed it, and was gone. 

Summing up the astounding thing afterward, those who could recall thedetails and piece them together traced Judson thus:

It was ten-forty when he came down from McCloskey's office, and forperhaps twenty minutes he had been seen lounging at the lunch-counter inthe station end of the Crow's Nest. At about eleven one witness had seenhim striking at the anvil in Hepburn's shop, the town marshal being thetown blacksmith in the intervals of official duty. 

Still later, he had apparently forgotten the good resolution declared toMcCloskey, and all Angels saw him staggering up and down Mesa Avenue, stumbling into and out of the many saloons, and growing, to allappearances, more hopelessly irresponsible with every fresh stumble. This was his condition when he tripped over the doorstep into the"Arcade, " and fell full length on the floor of the bar-room. Grimsby, the barkeeper, picked him up and tried to send him home, but withgood-natured and maudlin pertinacity he insisted on going on to thegambling-room in the rear. 

The room was darkened, as befitted its use, and a lighted lamp hung overthe centre of the oval faro table as if the time were midnight insteadof midday. Eight men, five of them miners from the Brewster copper mine, and three of them discharged employees of the Red Butte Western, werethe bettors; Red-Light himself, in sombrero and shirt-sleeves, wasdealing, and Rufford, sitting on a stool at the table's end, was the"lookout. "

When Judson reeled in there was a pause, and a movement to put him out. One of the miners covered his table stakes and rose to obey Rufford'snod. But at this conjuncture the railroad men interfered. Judson was afellow craftsman, and everybody knew that he was harmless in his cups. Let him stay--and play, if he wanted to. 

So Judson stayed, and stumbled round the table, losing his money anddribbling foolishness. Now faro is a silent game, and more than once anangry voice commanded the foolish one to choose his place and to shuthis mouth. But the ex-engineer seemed quite incapable of doing either. Twice he made the wavering circuit of the oval table, and when hefinally gripped an empty chair it was the one nearest to Rufford on theright, and diagonally opposite to the dealer. 

What followed seemed to have no connecting sequence for the otherplayers. Too restless to lose more than one bet in the place he hadchosen, Judson tried to rise, tangled his feet in the chair, and felldown, laughing uproariously. When he struggled to the perpendicularagain, after two or three ineffectual attempts, he was fairly behindRufford's stool. 

One man, who chanced to be looking, saw the "lookout" start and stiffenrigidly in his place, staring straight ahead into vacancy. A momentlater the entire circle of witnesses saw him take a revolver from theholster on his hip and lay it upon the table, with another from thebreast pocket of his coat to keep it company. Then his hands wentquickly behind him, and they all heard the click of the handcuffs. 

The man in the sombrero and shirt-sleeves was first to come alive. 

"Duck, Bart!" he shouted, whipping a weapon from its convenient shelfunder the table's edge. But Judson, trained to the swift handling ofmany mechanisms in the moment of respite before a wreck or aderailment, was ready for him. 

"Bart's afraid he can't duck without dying, " he said grimly, screeninghimself behind his captive. Then to the others, in the same unhastingtone: "Some of you fellows just quiet Sammy down till I get out of herewith this peach of mine. I've got the papers, and I know what I'm doin';if this thing I'm holdin' against Bart's back should happen to gooff----"

That ended it, so far as resistance was concerned. Judson backed quicklyout through the bar-room, drawing his prisoner backward after him; and amoment later Angels was properly electrified by the sight of Rufford, the Red Desert terror, marching sullenly down to the Crow's Nest, with afiery-headed little man at his elbow, the little man swinging the weaponwhich had been made to simulate the cold muzzle of the revolver when hehad pressed it into Rufford's back at the gaming-table. 

It was nothing more formidable than a short, thick "S"-wrench, of thekind used by locomotive engineers in tightening the nuts of thepiston-rod packing glands. 

X

FLEMISTER AND OTHERS

The jocosely spectacular arrest of Barton Rufford, with its appeal tothe grim humor of the desert, was responsible for a brief lull in thestorm of antagonism evoked by Lidgerwood's attempt to bring order out ofthe chaos reigning in his small kingdom. For a time Angels was a-grinagain, and while the plaudits were chiefly for Judson, the figure of thecorrectly clothed superintendent who was courageous enough to appeal tothe law, loomed large in the reflected light of the red-headedengineer's cool daring. 

For the space of a week there were no serious disasters, and Lidgerwood, with good help from McCloskey and Benson, continued to dig persistentlyinto the mystery of the wholesale robberies. With Benson's discoveriesfor a starting-point, the man Flemister was kept under surveillance, andit soon became evident to the three investigators that the owner of theWire-Silver mine had been profiting liberally at the expense of therailroad company in many ways. That there had been connivance on thepart of some one in authority in the railroad service, was also a factsafely assumable; and each added thread of evidence seemed more and moreto entangle the chief clerk. 

But behind the mystery of the robberies, Lidgerwood began to getglimpses of a deeper mystery involving Flemister and Hallock. Angelictradition, never very clearly defined and always shot through withprejudice, spoke freely of a former friendship between the two men. Whether the friendship had been broken, or whether, for reasons bestknown to themselves, they had allowed the impression to go out that ithad been broken, Lidgerwood could not determine from the bits of gossipbrought in by the trainmaster. But one thing was certain: of all theminor officials in the railway service, Hallock was the one who was bestable to forward and to conceal Flemister's thieveries. 

It was in the midst of these subterranean investigations that Lidgerwoodhad a call from the owner of the Wire-Silver. On the Saturday in theweek of surcease, Flemister came in on the noon train from the west, andit was McCloskey who ushered him into the superintendent's office. Lidgerwood looked up and saw a small man wearing the khaki of theengineers, with a soft felt hat to match. The snapping black eyes, withthe straight brows almost meeting over the nose, suggested Goethe's_Mephistopheles_, and Flemister shaved to fit the part, with curlingmustaches and a dagger-pointed imperial. Instantly Lidgerwood beganturning the memory pages in an effort to recall where he had seen theman before, but it was not until Flemister began to speak that heremembered his first day in authority, the wreck at Gloria Siding, andthe man who had driven up in a buckboard to hold converse with themaster-mechanic. 

"I've been trying to find time for a month or more to come up and getacquainted with you, Mr. Lidgerwood, " the visitor began, when Lidgerwoodhad waved him to a chair. "I hope you are not going to hold it againstme that I haven't done it sooner. "

Lidgerwood's smile was meant to be no more than decently hospitable. 

"We are not standing much upon ceremony in these days ofreorganization, " he said. Then, to hold the interview down firmly to abusiness basis: "What can I do for you, Mr. Flemister?"

"Nothing--nothing on top of earth; it's the other way round. I came todo something for you--or, rather, for one of your subordinates. Hallocktells me that the ghost of the old Mesa Building and Loan Associationstill refuses to be laid, and he intimates that some of the survivorsare trying to make it unpleasant for him by accusing him to you. "

"Yes, " said Lidgerwood, studying his man shrewdly by the road of theeye, and without prejudice to the listening ear. 

"As I understand it, the complaint of the survivors is based upon thefact that they think they ought to have had a cash dividend forthcomingon the closing up of the association's affairs, " Flemister went on; andLidgerwood again said, "Yes. "

"As Hallock has probably told you, I had the misfortune to be thepresident of the company. Perhaps it's only fair to say that it was alosing venture from the first for those of us who put the loaningcapital into it. As you probably know, the money in these mutual benefitcompanies is made on lapses, but when the lapses come all in abunch----"

"I am not particularly interested in the general subject, Mr. Flemister, " Lidgerwood cut in. "As the matter has been presented to me, I understand there was a cash balance shown on the books, and that therewas no cash in the treasury to make it good. Since Hallock was thetreasurer, I can scarcely do less than I have done. I am merely askinghim--and you--to make some sort of an explanation which will satisfy thelosers. "

"There is only one explanation to be made, " said theex-building-and-loan president, brazenly. "A few of us who were theofficers of the company were the heaviest losers, and we felt that wewere entitled to the scraps and leavings. "

"In other words, you looted the treasury among you, " said Lidgerwoodcoldly. "Is that it, Mr. Flemister?"

The mine-owner laughed easily. "I'm not going to quarrel with you overthe word, " he returned. "Possibly the proceeding was a little informal, if you measure it by some of the more highly civilized standards. "

"I don't care to go into that, " was Lidgerwood's comment, "but I cannotevade my responsibility for the one member of your official staff who isstill on my pay-roll. How far was Hallock implicated?"

"He was not implicated at all, save in a clerical way. "

"You mean that he did not share in the distribution of the money?"

"He did not. "

"Then it is only fair that you should set him straight with the others, Mr. Flemister. "

The ex-president did not reply at once. He took time to roll acigarette leisurely, to light it, and to take one or two deepinhalations, before he said: "It's a rather disagreeable thing to do, this digging into old graveyards, don't you think? I can understand whyyou should wish to be assured of Hallock's non-complicity, and I haveassured you of that; but as for these kickers, really I don't know whatyou can do with them unless you send them to me. And if you do that, Iam afraid some of them may come back on hospital stretchers. I haven'tany time to fool with them at this late day. "

Lidgerwood felt his gorge rising, and a great contempt for Flemister wasmingled with a manful desire to pitch him out into the corridor. It wasa concession to his unexplainable pity for Hallock that made himtemporize. 

"As I said before, you needn't go into the ethics of the matter with me, Mr. Flemister, " he said. "But in justice to Hallock, I think you oughtto make a statement of some kind that I can show to these men who, verynaturally, look to me for redress. Will you do that?"

"I'll think about it, " returned the mine-owner shortly; but Lidgerwoodwas not to be put off so easily. 

"You must think of it to some good purpose, " he insisted. "If youdon't, I shall be obliged to put my own construction upon your failureto do so, and to act accordingly. "

Flemister's smile showed his teeth. 

"You're not threatening me, are you, Mr. Lidgerwood?"

"Oh, no; there is no occasion for threats. But if you don't make me thatstatement, fully exonerating Hallock, I shall feel at liberty to makeone of my own, embodying what you have just told me. And if I amcompelled to do this, you must not blame me if I am not able to placethe matter in the most favorable light for you. "

This time the visitor's smile was a mere baring of the teeth. 

"Is it worth your while to make it a personal quarrel with me, Mr. Lidgerwood?" he asked, with a thinly veiled menace in his tone. 

"I am not looking for quarrelsome occasions with you or with any one, "was the placable rejoinder. "And I hope you are not going to force me toshow you up. Is there anything else? If not, I'm afraid I shall have toask you to excuse me. This is one of my many busy days. "

After Flemister had gone, Lidgerwood was almost sorry that he had notstruck at once into the matter of the thieveries. But as yet he had noproof upon which to base an open accusation. One thing he did do, however, and that was to summon McCloskey and give instructions pointingto a bit of experimental observation with the mine-owner as the subject. 

"He can't get away from here before the evening train, and I should liketo know where he goes and what be does with himself, " was the form theinstructions took. "When we find out who his accomplices are, I shallhave something more to say to him. "

"I'll have him tagged, " promised the trainmaster; and a few minuteslater, when the Wire-Silver visitor sauntered up Mesa Avenue in quest ofdiversion wherewith to fill the hours of waiting for his train, a smallman, red-haired, and with a mechanic's cap pulled down over his eyes, kept even step with him from dive to dive. 

Judson's report, made to the trainmaster that evening after thewestbound train had left, was short and concise. 

"He went up and sat in Sammy's game and didn't come out until it wastime to make a break for his train. I didn't see him talking to anybodyafter he left here. " This was the wording of the report. 

"You are sure of that, are you, John?" questioned McCloskey. 

Judson hung his head. "Maybe I ain't as sure as I ought to be. I saw himgo into Sammy's, and saw him come out again, and I know he didn't stayin the bar-room. I didn't go in where they keep the tiger. Sammy don'tlove me any more since I held Bart Rufford up with an S-wrench, and Iwas afraid I might disturb the game if I went buttin' in to make surethat Flemister was there. But I guess there ain't no doubt about it. "

Thus Judson, who was still sober, and who meant to be faithful accordingto his gifts. He was scarcely blameworthy for not knowing of theexistence of a small back room in the rear of the gambling-den; or forthe further unknowledge of the fact that the man in search of diversionhad passed on into this back room after placing a few bets at the silentgame, appearing no more until he had come out through the gambling-roomon his way to the train. If Judson had dared to press his espial, hemight have been the poorer by the loss of blood, or possibly of hislife; but, living to get away with it, he would have been the richer foran important bit of information. For one thing, he would have known thatFlemister had not spent the afternoon losing his money across thefaro-table; and for another, he might have made sure, by listening tothe subdued voices beyond the closed door, that the man he was shadowingwas not alone in the back room to which he had retreated. 

XI

NEMESIS

On the second day following Flemister's visit to Angels, Lidgerwood wascalled again to Red Butte to another conference with the mine-owners. Onhis return, early in the afternoon, his special was slowed and stoppedat a point a few miles east of the "Y" spur at Silver Switch, and uponlooking out he saw that Benson's bridge-builders were once more at workon the wooden trestle spanning the Gloria. Benson himself was incommand, but he turned the placing of the string-timbers over to hisforeman and climbed to the platform of the superintendent's service-car. 

"I won't hold you more than a few minutes, " he began, but thesuperintendent pointed to one of the camp-chairs and sat down, saying:"There's no hurry. We have time orders against 73 at Timanyoni, and wewould have to wait there, anyhow. What do you know now?--more than youknew the last time we talked?"

Benson shook his head. "Nothing that would do us any good in a jurytrial, " he admitted reluctantly. "We are not going to find out anythingmore until you send somebody up to Flemister's mine with asearch-warrant. "

Lidgerwood was gazing absently out over the low hills interveningbetween his point of view and the wooded summit of Little Butte. 

"Whom am I to send, Jack?" he asked. "I have just come from Red Butte, and I took occasion to make a few inquiries. Flemister is evidentlyprepared at all points. From what I learned to-day, I am inclined tobelieve that the sheriff of Timanyoni County would probably refuse toserve a warrant against him, if we could find a magistrate who wouldissue one. Nice state of affairs, isn't it?"

"Beautiful, " Benson agreed, adding: "But you don't want Flemister halfas bad as you want the man who is working with him. Are you still tryingto believe that it isn't Hallock?"

"I am still trying to be fair and just. McCloskey says that the two usedto be friends--Hallock and Flemister. I don't believe they are now. Hallock didn't want to go to Flemister about that building-and-loanbusiness, and I couldn't make out whether he was afraid, or whether itwas just a plain case of dislike. "

"It would doubtless be Hallock's policy--and Flemister's, too, for thatmatter--to make you believe they are not friends. You'll have to admitthey are together a great deal. "

"I'll admit it if you say so, but I didn't know it before. How do youknow it?"

"Hallock is over here every day or two; I have seen him three or fourtimes since that day when he and Flemister were walking down the newspur together and turned back at sight of me, " said Benson. "Of course, I don't know what other business Hallock may have over here, but onething I do know, he has been across the river, digging into the innerconsciousness of my old prospector. And that isn't all. After he had gotthe story of the timber stealing out of the old man, he tried to bribehim not to tell it to any one else; tried the bribe first and a scareafterward--told him that something would happen to him if he didn't keepa still tongue in his head. "

Lidgerwood shook his head slowly. "That looks pretty bad. Why should hewant to silence the old man?"

"That's just what I've been asking myself. But right on the heels ofthat, another little mystery developed. Hallock asked the old man if hewould be willing to swear in court to the truth of his story. The oldman said he would. "

"Well?" said Lidgerwood. 

"A night or two later the old prospector's shack burned down, and thenext morning he found a notice pinned to a tree near one of hissluice-boxes. It was a polite invitation for him to put distance betweenhim and the Timanyoni district. I suppose you can put two and twotogether, as I did. "

Again Lidgerwood said: "It looks pretty bad for Hallock. No one but thethieves themselves could have any possible reason for driving the oldman out of the country. Did he go?"

"Not much; he isn't built that way. That same day he went to workbuilding him a new shack; and he swears that the next man who gets nearenough to set it afire won't live to get away and brag about it. Twodays afterward Hallock showed up again, and the old fellow ran him offwith a gun. "

Just then the bridge-foreman came up to say that the timbers were inplace, and Benson swung off to give Lidgerwood's engineer instructionsto run carefully. As the service-car platform came along, Lidgerwoodleaned over the railing for a final word with Benson. "Keep in touchwith your old man, and tell him to count on us for protection, " he said;and Benson nodded acquiescence as the one-car train crept out upon thedismantled bridge. 

Having an appointment with Leckhard, of the main line, timed for anearly hour the following morning, Lidgerwood gave his conductorinstructions to stop at Angels only long enough to get orders for theeastern division. 

When the division station was reached, McCloskey met the service-car inaccordance with wire instructions sent from Timanyoni, bringing anarmful of mail, which Lidgerwood purposed to work through on the run toCopah. 

"Nothing new, Mac?" he asked, when the trainmaster came aboard. 

"Nothing much, only the operators have notified me that there'll betrouble, _pronto_, if we don't put Hannegan and Dickson back on thewires. The grievance committee intimated pretty broadly that they couldswing the trainmen into line if they had to make a fight. "

"We put no man back who has been discharged for cause, " said thesuperintendent firmly. "Did you tell them that?"

"I did. I have been saying that so often that it mighty nearly saysitself now, when I hear my office door open. "

"Well, there is nothing to do but to go on saying it. We shall eithermake a spoon or spoil a horn. How would you be fixed in the event of atelegraphers' strike?"

"I've been figuring on that. It may seem like tempting the good Lord tosay it, but I believe we could hold about half of the men. "

"That is decidedly encouraging, " said the man who needed to findencouragement where he could. "Two weeks ago, if you had said one inten, I should have thought you were overestimating. We shall win outyet. "

But now McCloskey was shaking his head dubiously. "I don't know. AndyBradford has been giving me an idea of how the trainmen stand, and hesays there is a good deal of strike talk. Williams adds a word about theshop force: he says that Gridley's men are not saying anything, butthey'll be likely to go out in a body unless Gridley wakes up at thelast minute and takes a club to them. "

Lidgerwood's conductor was coming down the platform of the Crow's Nestwith his orders in his hand, and McCloskey made ready to swing off. "Ican reach you care of Mr. Leckhard, at Copah, I suppose?" he asked. 

"Yes. I shall be back some time to-morrow; in the meantime there isnothing to do but to sit tight in the boat. Use my private code if youwant to wire me. I don't more than half trust that young fellow, Dix, Callahan's day operator. And, by the way, Mr. Frisbie is sending me astenographer from Denver. If the young man turns up while I am away, seeif you can't get Mrs. Williams to board him. "

McCloskey promised and dropped off, and the one-car special presentlyclanked out over the eastern switches. Lidgerwood went at once to hisdesk and promptly became deaf and blind to everything but his work. Thelong desert run had been accomplished, and the service-car train wasclimbing the Crosswater grades, when Tadasu Matsuwari began to lay thetable for dinner. Lidgerwood glanced at his watch, and ran his fingerdown the line of figures on the framed time-table hanging over his desk. 

"Humph!" he muttered; "Acheson's making better time with me than he everhas before. I wonder if Williams has succeeded in talking him over toour side? He is certainly running like a gentleman to-day, at allevents. "

The superintendent sat down to Tadasu's table and took his time toTadasu's excellent dinner, indulging himself so far as to smoke aleisurely cigar with his black coffee before plunging again into thesea of work. Not to spoil his improving record, Engineer Achesoncontinued to make good time, and it was only a little after eleveno'clock when Lidgerwood, looking up from his work at the final slowingof the wheels, saw the masthead lights of the Copah yards. 

Taking it for granted that Superintendent Leckhard had long since lefthis office in the Pacific Southwestern building, Lidgerwood gave ordersto have his car placed on the station-spur, and went on with his work. Being at the moment deeply immersed in the voluminous papers of a claimfor stock killed, he was quite oblivious of the placement of the car, and of everything else, until the incoming of the fast main-line mailfrom the east warned him that another hour had passed. When the mail wasgone on its way westward, the midnight silence settled down again, withnothing but the minimized crashings of freight cars in the lowershifting-yard to disturb it. The little Japanese had long since made uphis bunk in one of the spare state-rooms, the train crew had departedwith the engine, and the last mail-wagon had driven away up-town. Lidgerwood had closed his desk and was taking a final pull at the shortpipe which was his working companion, when the car door opened silentlyand he saw an apparition. 

Standing in the doorway and groping with her hands held out before heras if she were blind, was a woman. Her gown was the tawdry half-dress ofthe dance-halls, and the wrap over her bare shoulders was a gaudyimitation in colors of the Spanish mantilla. Her head was withoutcovering, and her hair, which was luxuriant, hung in disorder over herface. One glance at the eyes, fixed and staring, assured Lidgerwoodinstantly that he had to do with one who was either drink-maddened ordemented. 

"Where is he?" the intruder asked, in a throaty whisper, staring, not athim, as Lidgerwood was quick to observe, but straight ahead at theportieres cutting off the state-room corridor from the open compartment. And then: "I told you I would come, Rankin; I've been watching years andyears for your car to come in. Look--I want you to see what you havemade of me, you and that other man. "

Lidgerwood sat perfectly still. It was quite evident that the woman didnot see him. But his thoughts were busy. Though it was by little morethan chance, he knew that Hallock's Christian name was Rankin, andinstantly he recalled all that McCloskey had told him about the chiefclerk's marital troubles. Was this poor painted wreck the woman whowas, or who had been, Hallock's wife? The question had scarcelyformulated itself before she began again. 

"Why don't you answer me? Where are you?" she demanded, in the samehusky whisper; "you needn't hide--I know you are here. _What have youdone to that man?_ You said you would kill him; you promised me that, Rankin: have you done it?"

Lidgerwood reached up cautiously behind him, and slowly turned off thegas from the bracket desk-lamp. Without wishing to pry deeper than heshould into a thing which had all the ear-marks of a tragedy, he couldnot help feeling that he was on the verge of discoveries which mighthave an important bearing upon the mysterious problems centring in thechief clerk. And he was afraid the woman would see him. 

But he was not permitted to make the discoveries. The woman had takentwo or three steps into the car, still groping her way as if thebrightly lighted interior were the darkest of caverns, when some oneswung over the railing of the observation platform, and SuperintendentLeckhard appeared at the open door. Without hesitation he entered andtouched the woman on the shoulder. "Hello, Madgie, " he said, notungently, "you here again? It's pretty late for even your kind to beout, isn't it? Better trot away and go to bed, if you've got one to goto; he isn't here. "

The woman put her hands to her face, and Lidgerwood saw that she wasshaking as if with a sudden chill. Then she turned and darted away likea frightened animal. Leckhard was drawing a chair up to face Lidgerwood. 

"Did she give you a turn?" he asked, when Lidgerwood reached up andturned the desk-lamp on full again. 

"Not exactly that, though it was certainly startling enough. I had nowarning at all; when I looked up, she was standing pretty nearly whereshe was when you came in. She didn't seem to see me at all, and she wastalking crazily all the time to some one else--some one who isn't here. "

"I know, " said Leckhard; "she has done it before. "

"Whom is she trying to find?" asked Lidgerwood, wishing to have hissuspicion either denied or confirmed. 

"Didn't she call him by name?--she usually does. It's your chief clerk, Hallock. She is--or was--his wife. Haven't you heard the ghastly storyyet?"

"No; and, Leckhard, I don't know that I care to hear it. It can'tpossibly concern me. "

"It's just as well, I guess, " said the main-line superintendentcarelessly. "I probably shouldn't get it straight anyway. It's a ratherhorrible affair, though, I believe. There is another man mixed up init--the man whom she is always asking if Hallock has killed. Curiouslyenough, she never names the other man, and there have been a good manyguesses. I believe your head boiler-maker, Gridley, has the most votes. He's been seen with her here, now and then--when he's on one of his'periodicals. ' By Jove! Lidgerwood, I don't envy you your job overyonder in the Red Desert a little bit. .. . But about the consolidation ofthe yards here: I got a telegram after I wired you, making it necessaryfor me to go west on main-line Twenty-seven early in the morning, so Istayed up to talk this yard business over with you to-night. "

It was well along in the small hours when the roll of blue-print mapswas finally laid aside, and Leckhard rose yawning. "We'll carry it outas you propose, and divide the expense between the two divisions, " hesaid in conclusion. "Frisbie has left it to us, and he will approvewhatever we agree upon. Will you go up to the hotel with me, or bunkdown here?"

Lidgerwood said he would stay with his car; or, better still, now thatthe business for which he had come to Copah was despatched, he wouldhave the roundhouse night foreman call a Red Butte Western crew and goback to his desert. 

"We are in the thick of things over on the jerk-water just now, " heexplained, "and I don't like to stay away any longer than I have to. "

"Having a good bit of trouble with the sure-shots?" asked Leckhard. "What was that story I heard about somebody swiping one of yourswitching-engines?"

"It was true, " said Lidgerwood, adding, "But I think we shall recoverthe engine--and some other things--presently. " He liked Leckhard wellenough, but he wished he would go. There are exigencies in which eventhe comments of a friend and well-wisher are superfluous. 

"You have a pretty tough gang to handle over these, " the well-wisherwent on. "I wouldn't touch a job like yours with a ten-foot pole, unlessI could shoot good enough to be sure of hitting a half-dollar nine timesout of ten at thirty paces. Somebody was telling me that you havealready had trouble with that fellow Rufford. "

"Nobody was hurt, and Rufford is in jail, " said Lidgerwood, hoping tokill the friendly inquiry before it should run into details. 

"Oh, well, it's all in the day's work, I suppose, which reminds me: myday's work to-morrow won't amount to much if I don't go and turn in. Good-night. "

When Leckhard was gone, Lidgerwood climbed the stair in the stationbuilding to the despatcher's office and gave orders for the return ofhis car to Angels. Half an hour later the one-car special was retracingits way westward up the valley of the Tumbling Water, and Lidgerwood wastrying to go to sleep in the well-appointed little state-room which itwas Tadasu Matsuwari's pride to keep spick and span and spotlesslyclean. But there were disturbing thoughts, many and varied, to keep himawake, chief among them those which hung upon the dramatic midnightepisode with the demented woman for its central figure. Through whatdreadful Valley of Humiliation had she come to reach the abysmal depthsin which the one cry of her soul was a cry for vengeance? Who was theunnamed man whom Hallock had promised to kill? How much or how littlewas this tragedy figuring in the trouble storm which was brooding overthe Red Desert? And how much or how little would it involve one who wasanxious only to see even-handed justice prevail?

These and similar insistent questions kept Lidgerwood awake long afterhis train had left the crooked pathway marked out by the Tumbling Water, and when he finally fell asleep the laboring engine of the one-carspecial was storming the approaches to Crosswater Summit. 

XII

THE PLEASURERS

The freight wreck in the Crosswater Hills, coming a fortnight afterRufford's arrest and deportation to Copah and the county jail, rudelymarked the close of the short armistice in the conflict between law andorder and the demoralization which seemed to thrive the more lustily inproportion to Lidgerwood's efforts to stamp it out. 

Thirty-two boxes, gondolas, and flats, racing down the Crosswater gradesin the heart of a flawless, crystalline summer afternoon at the heels ofClay's big ten-wheeler, suddenly left the steel as a unit to heapthemselves in chaotic confusion upon the right-of-way, and to round outthe disaster at the moment of impact by exploding a shipment of giantpowder somewhere in the midst of the debris. 

Lidgerwood was on the western division inspecting, with Benson, one ofthe several tentative routes for a future extension of the Red Butteline to a connection with the Transcontinental at Lemphi beyond theHophras, when the news of the wreck reached Angels. Wherefore, it wasnot until the following morning that he was able to leave thehead-quarters station, on the second wrecking-train, bringing the big100-ton crane to reinforce McCloskey, who had been on the ground withthe lighter clearing tackle for the better part of the night. 

With a slowly smouldering fire to fight, and no water to be had nearerthan the tank-cars at La Guayra, the trainmaster had wrought miracles. By ten o'clock the main line was cleared, a temporary siding for aworking base had been laid, and McCloskey's men were hard at workpicking up what the fire had spared when Lidgerwood arrived. 

"Pretty clean sweep this time, eh, Mac?" was the superintendent'sgreeting, when he had penetrated to the thick of things where McCloskeywas toiling and sweating with his men. 

"So clean that we get nothing much but scrap-iron out of what's left, "growled McCloskey, climbing out of the tangle of crushed cars and bentand twisted iron-work to stand beside Lidgerwood on the main-lineembankment. Then to the men who were making the snatch-hitch for thenext pull: "A little farther back, boys; farther yet, so she won'toverbalance on you; that's about it. Now, _wig_ it!"

"You seem to be getting along all right with the outfit you've got, " wasLidgerwood's comment. "If you can keep this up we may as well go back toAngels. "

"No, don't!" protested the trainmaster. "We can snake out thesescrap-heaps after a fashion, but when it comes to resurrecting the195--did you notice her as you came along? We kept the fire from gettingto her, but she's dug herself into the ground like a dog after awoodchuck!"

Lidgerwood nodded. "I looked her over, " he said. "If she'd had a littlemore time and another wheel-turn or two to spare, she might havedisappeared entirely--like that switching-engine you can't find. I'mtaking it for granted that you haven't found it yet--or have you?"

"No, I haven't!" grated McCloskey, and he said it like a man with agrievance. Then he added: "I gave you all the pointers I could find twoweeks ago. Whenever you get ready to put Hallock under the hydraulicpress, you'll squeeze what you want to know out of him. "

This was coming to be an old subject and a sore one. The trainmasterstill insisted that Hallock was the man who was planning the robberiesand plotting the downfall of the Lidgerwood management, and he wantedto have the chief clerk systematically shadowed. And it was Lidgerwood'swholly groundless prepossession for Hallock that was still keeping himfrom turning the matter over to the company's legal department--this inspite of the growing accumulation of evidence all pointing to Hallock'streason. Subjected to a rigid cross-examination, Judson had insistedthat a part, at least, of his drunken recollection was real--that partidentifying the voices of the two plotters in Cat Biggs's back room asthose of Rufford and Hallock. Moreover, it was no longer deniable thatthe chief clerk was keeping in close touch with the dischargedemployees, for some purpose best known to himself; and latterly he hadbeen dropping out of his office without notice, disappearing, sometimes, for a day at a time. 

Lidgerwood was recalling the last of these disappearances when thesecond wrecking-train, having backed to the nearest siding to admit of areversal of its make-up order and the placing of the crane in the lead, came up to go into action. McCloskey shaded his eyes from the sun'sglare and looked down the line. 

"Hello!" he exclaimed. "Got a new wrecking-boss?"

The superintendent nodded. "I have one in the making. Dawson wanted tocome along and try his hand. "

"Did Gridley send him?"

"No; Gridley is away somewhere. "

"So Fred's your understudy, is he? Well, I've got one, too. I'll showhim to you after a while. "

They were walking back over the ties toward the half-buried 195. Theten-wheeler was on its side in the ditch, nuzzling the opposite bank ofa low cutting. Dawson had already divided his men: half of them to placethe huge jack-beams and outriggers of the self-contained steam liftingmachine to insure its stability, and the other half to trench under thefallen engine and to adjust the chain slings for the hitch. 

"It's a pretty long reach, Fred, " said the superintendent. "Going to tryit from here?"

"Best place, " said the reticent one shortly. 

Lidgerwood was looking at his watch. 

"Williams will be due here before long with a special from Copah. Idon't want to hold him up, " he remarked. 

"Thirty minutes?" inquired the draftsman, without taking mind or eye offhis problem. 

"Oh, yes; forty or fifty, maybe. "

"All right, I'll be out of the way, " was the quiet rejoinder. 

"Yes, you will!" was McCloskey's ironical comment, when the draftsmanhad gone around to the other side of the great crane. 

"Let him alone, " said Lidgerwood. "It lies in my mind that we aredeveloping a genius, Mac. "

"He'll fall down, " grumbled the trainmaster. "That crane won't pick upthe '95 clear the way she's lying. "

"Won't it?" said Lidgerwood. "That's where you are mistaken. It willpick up anything we have on the two divisions. It's the biggest and bestthere is made. How did you come to get a tool like that on the Red ButteWestern?"

McCloskey grinned. 

"You don't know Gridley yet. He's a crank on good machinery. That cranewas a clean steal. "

"What?"

"I mean it. It was ordered for one of the South American railroads, andwas on its way to the Coast over the P. S-W. About the time it got asfar as Copah, we happened to have a mix-up in our Copah yards, with aditched engine that Gridley couldn't pick up with the 60-ton crane wehad on the ground. So he borrowed this one out of the P. S-W. Yards, used it, liked it, and kept it, sending our 60-ton machine on to theSouth Americans in its place. "

"What rank piracy!" Lidgerwood exclaimed. "I don't wonder they call usbuccaneers over here. How could he do it without being found out?"

"That puzzled more than two or three of us; but one of the men told mesome time afterward how it was done. Gridley had a painter go down inthe night and change the lettering--on our old crane and on this newone. It happened that they were both made by the same manufacturingcompany, and were of substantially the same general pattern. I supposethe P. S-W. Yard crew didn't notice particularly that the crane they hadlent us out of the through westbound freight had shrunk somewhat in theusing. But I'll bet those South Americans are saying pleasant things tothe manufacturers yet. "

"Doubtless, " Lidgerwood agreed, and now he was not smiling. The littleside-light on the former Red-Butte-Western methods--and uponGridley--was sobering. 

By this time Dawson had got his big lifter in position, with its hugesteel arm overreaching the fallen engine, and was giving his ordersquietly, but with clean-cut precision. 

"Man that hand-fall and take slack! Pay off, Darby, " to the hoisterengineer. "That's right; more slack!"

The great tackling-hook, as big around as a man's thigh, settledaccurately over the 195. 

"There you are!" snapped Dawson. "Now make your hitch, boys, and belively about it. You've got just about one minute to do it in!"

"Heavens to Betsey!" said McCloskey. "He's going to pick it up at onehitch--and without blocking!"

"Hands off, Mac, " said Lidgerwood good-naturedly. "If Fred didn't knowthis trade before, he's learning it pretty rapidly now. "

"That's all right, but if he doesn't break something before he getsthrough----"

But Dawson was breaking nothing. Having designed locomotives, he knew tothe fraction of an inch where the balancing hitch should be made forlifting one. Also machinery, and the breaking strains of it, were as hisdaily bread. While McCloskey was still prophesying failure, he wasgiving the word to Darby, the hoister engineer. 

"Now then, Billy, try your hitch! Put the strain on a little at a timeand often. Steady!--now you've got her--keep her coming!"

Slowly the big freight-puller rose out of its furrow in the gravel, righting itself to the perpendicular as it came. Anticipating the inwardswing of it, Dawson was showing his men how to place ties and rails fora short temporary track, and when he gave Darby the stop signal, thehoisting cables were singing like piano strings, and the big engine wasswinging bodily in the air in the grip of the crane tackle, poised to anicety above the steel placed to receive it. 

Dawson climbed up to the main-line embankment where Darby could see him, and where he could see all the parts of his problem at once. Then hishands went up to beckon the slacking signals. At the lifting of hisfinger there was a growling of gears and a backward racing of machinery, a groan of relaxing strains, and a cry of "All gone!" and the 195 stoodupright, ready to be hauled out when the temporary track should beextended to a connection with the main line. 

"Let's go up to the other end and see how your understudy is making it, Mac, " said the gratified superintendent. "It is quite evident that wecan't tell this young man anything he doesn't already know about pickingup locomotives. "

On the way up the track he asked about Clay and Green, the engineer andfireman who were in the wreck. 

"They are not badly hurt, " said the trainmaster. "They both jumped--onGreen's side, luckily. Clay was bruised considerably, and Green says heknows he plowed up fifty yards of gravel with his face before hestopped--and he looked it. They both went home on 201. "

Lidgerwood was examining the cross-ties, which were cut and scarred bythe flanges of many derailed wheels. 

"You have no notion of what did it?" he queried, turning abruptly uponMcCloskey. 

"Only a guess, and it couldn't be verified in a thousand years. The '95went off first, and Clay and Green both say it felt as if a rail hadturned over on the outside of the curve. "

"What did you find when you got here?"

"Chaos and Old Night: a pile of scrap with a hole torn in the middle ofit as if by an explosion, and a fire going. "

"Of course, you couldn't tell anything about the cause, under suchconditions. "

"Not much, you'd say; and yet a queer thing happened. The entire trainwent off so thoroughly that it passed the point where the trouble beganbefore it piled up. I was able to verify Clay's guess--a rail had turnedover on the outside of the curve. "

"That proves nothing more than poor spike-holds in a few dry-rottedcross-ties, " Lidgerwood objected. 

"No; there were a number of others farther along also turned over andbroken and bent. But the first one was the only freak. "

"How was that?"

"Well, it wasn't either broken or bent; but when it turned over it notonly unscrewed the nuts of the fish-plate bolts and threw them away--itpulled out every spike on both sides of itself and hid them. "

Lidgerwood nodded gravely. "I should say your guess has already verifieditself. All it lacks is the name of the man who loosened the fish-platebolts and pulled the spikes. "

"That's about all. "

The superintendent's eyes narrowed. 

"Who was missing out of the Angels crowd of trouble-makers yesterday, Mac?"

"I hate to say, " said the trainmaster. "God knows I don't want to put itall over any man unless it belongs to him, but I'm locoed every time itcomes to that kind of a guess. Every bunch of letters I see spells justone name. "

"Go on, " said Lidgerwood sharply. 

"Hallock came somewhere up this way on 202 yesterday. "

"I know, " was the quick reply. "I sent him out to Navajo to meetCruikshanks, the cattleman with the long claim for stock injured in theGap wreck two weeks ago. "

"Did he stop at Navajo?" queried the trainmaster. 

"I suppose so; at any rate, he saw Cruikshanks. "

"Well, I haven't got any more guesses, only a notion or two. This is apretty stiff up-grade for 202--she passes here at two-fifty--just aboutan hour before Clay found that loosened rail--and it wouldn't beimpossible for a man to drop off as she was climbing this curve. "

But now the superintendent was shaking his head. 

"It doesn't hold together, Mac; there are too many parts missing. Yourhypothesis presupposes that Hallock took a day train out of Angels, rodetwelve miles past his destination, jumped off here while the train wasin motion, pulled the spikes on this loosened rail, and walked back toNavajo in time to see the cattleman and get in to Angels on the delayedNumber 75 this morning. Could he have done all these things withoutadvertising them to everybody?"

"I know, " confessed the trainmaster. "It doesn't look reasonable. "

"It isn't reasonable, " Lidgerwood went on, arguing Hallock's case as ifit were his own. "Bradford was 202's conductor; he'd know if Hallockfailed to get off at Navajo. Gridley was a passenger on the same train, and he would have known. The agent at Navajo would be a third witness. He was expecting Hallock on that train, and was no doubt holdingCruikshanks. Your guesses prefigure Hallock failing to show up when thetrain stopped at Navajo, and make it necessary for him to explain to thetwo men who were waiting for him why he let Bradford carry him by so farthat it took him several hours to walk back. You see how incredible itall is?"

"Yes, I see, " said McCloskey, and when he spoke again they were severalrail-lengths nearer the up-track end of the wreck, and his question wentback to Lidgerwood's mention of the expected special. 

"You were saying something to Dawson about Williams and a special train;is that Mr. Brewster coming in?"

"Yes. He wired from Copah last night. He has Mr. Ford's car--the_Nadia_. "

The trainmaster's face-contortion was expressive of the deepest chagrin. 

"Suffering Moses! but this is a nice thing for the president of theroad to see as he comes along! Wouldn't the luck we're having make a dogsick?"

Lidgerwood shook his head. "That isn't the worst of it, Mac. Mr. Brewster isn't a railroad man, and he will probably think this is all inthe day's work. But he is going to stop at Angels and go over to hiscopper mine, which means that he will camp right down in the midst ofthe mix-up. I'd cheerfully give a year's salary to have him stay away afew weeks longer. "

McCloskey was not a swearing man in the Red Desert sense of the term, but now his comment was an explosive exclamation naming the conventionalplace of future punishment. It was the only word he could findadequately to express his feelings. 

The superintendent changed the subject. 

"Who is your foreman, Mac?" he inquired, as a huge mass of the tangledscrap was seen to rise at the end of the smaller derrick's grapple. 

"Judson, " said McCloskey shortly. "He asked leave to come along as alaborer, and when I found that he knew more about train-scrapping than Idid, I promoted him. " There was something like defiance in thetrainmaster's tone. 

"From the way in which you say it, I infer that you don't expect me toapprove, " said Lidgerwood judicially. 

McCloskey had been without sleep for a good many hours, and hispatience was tenuous. The derby hat was tilted to its most contentiousangle when he said:

"I can't fight for you when you're right, and not fight against you whenI think you are wrong, Mr. Lidgerwood. You can have my head any time youwant it. "

"You think I should break my word and take Judson back?"

"I think, and the few men who are still with us think, that you ought togive the man who stood in the breach for you a chance to earn bread andmeat for his wife and babies, " snapped McCloskey, who had gone too farto retreat. 

Lidgerwood was frowning when he replied: "You don't see the pointinvolved. I can't reward Judson for what you, yourself, admit was apersonal service. I have said that no drunkard shall pull a train onthis division. Judson is no less a drink-maniac for the fact that hearrested Rufford when everybody else was afraid to. "

McCloskey was mollified a little. 

"He says he has quit drinking, and I believe him this time. But this jobI've given him isn't pulling trains. "

"No; and if you have cooled off enough, you may remember that I haven'tyet disapproved your action. I don't disapprove. Give him anything youlike where a possible relapse on his part won't involve the lives ofother people. Is that what you want me to say?"

"I was hot, " said the trainmaster, gruffly apologetic. "We've got nonetoo many friends to stand by us when the pinch comes, and we were losingthem every day you held out against Judson. "

"I'm still holding out on the original count. Judson can't run an enginefor me until he has proved conclusively and beyond question that he hasquit the whiskey. Whatever other work you can find for him----"

McCloskey slapped his thigh. "By George! I've got a job right now! Whyon top of earth didn't I think of him before? He's the man to keep tabon Hallock. "

But now Lidgerwood was frowning again. 

"I don't like that, Mac. It's a dirty business to be shadowing a man whohas a right to suppose that you are trusting him. "

"But, good Lord! Mr. Lidgerwood, haven't you got enough to go on?Hallock is the last man seen around the engine that disappears; hespends a lot of his time swapping grievances with the rebels; and he isout of town and within a few miles of here, as you know, when thiswreck happens. If all that isn't enough to earn him a littlesuspicion----"

"I know; I can't argue the case with you, Mac, But I can't do it. "

"You mean you won't do it. I respect your scruples, Mr. Lidgerwood. Butit is no longer a personal matter between you and Hallock: the company'sinterests are involved. "

Without suspecting it, the trainmaster had found the weak joint in thesuperintendent's armor. For the company's sake the personal point ofview must be ignored. 

"It is such a despicable thing, " he protested, as one who yieldsreluctantly. "And if, after all, Hallock is innocent----"

"That is just the point, " insisted McCloskey. "If he is innocent, noharm will be done, and Judson will become a witness for instead ofagainst him. "

"Well, " said Lidgerwood; and what more he would have said about theconspiracy was cut off by the shrill whistle of a down-coming train. "That's Williams with the special, " he announced, when the whistle gavehim leave. "Is your flag out?"

"Sure. It's up around the hill, with a safe man to waggle it. "

Lidgerwood cast an anxious glance toward Dawson's huge derrick-car, which was still blocking the main line. The hoist tackle was swingingfree, and the jack-beams and outriggers were taken in. 

"Better send somebody down to tell Dawson to pull up here to yourtemporary siding, Mac, " he suggested; but Dawson was one of thosepriceless helpers who did not have to be told in detail. He had heardthe warning whistle, and already had his train in motion. 

By a bit of quick shifting, the main line was cleared before Williamsswung cautiously around the hill with the private car. In obedience toLidgerwood's uplifted finger the brakes were applied, and the _Nadia_came to a full stop, with its observation platform opposite the end ofthe wrecking-track. 

A big man, in a soft hat and loose box dust-coat, with twinkling littleeyes and a curling brown beard that covered fully three-fourths of hisface, stood at the hand-rail. 

"Hello, Howard!" he called down to Lidgerwood. "By George! I'd totallyforgotten that you were out here. What are you trying to do? Got so manycars and engines that you have to throw some of them away?"

Lidgerwood climbed up the embankment to the track, and McCloskeycarefully let him do it alone. The "Hello, Howard!" had not been thrownaway upon the trainmaster. 

"It looks a little that way, I must admit, Cousin Ned, " said the culpritwho had answered so readily to his Christian name. "We tried pretty hardto get it cleaned up before you came along, but we couldn't quite makeit. "

"Oho! tried to cover it up, did you? Afraid I'd fire you? You needn'tbe. My job as president merely gets me passes over the road. Ford's yourman; he's the fellow you want to be scared of. "

"I am, " laughed Lidgerwood. The big man's heartiness was alwaysinfectious. Then: "Coming over to camp with us awhile? If you are, Ihope you carry your commissary along. Angels will starve you, otherwise. "

"Don't tell me about that tin-canned tepee village, Howard--I _know_. I've been there before. How are we doing over in the Timanyonifoot-hills? Getting much ore down from the Copperette? Climb up here andtell me all about it. Or, better still, come on across the desert withus. They don't need you here. "

The assertion was quite true. With Dawson, the trainmaster, and anunderstudy Judson for bosses, there was no need of a fourth. Yetintuition, or whatever masculine thing it is that stands for intuition, prompted Lidgerwood to say:

"I don't know as I ought to leave. I've just come out from Angels, youknow. "

But the president was not to be denied. 

"Climb up here and quit trying to find excuses. We'll give you a betterluncheon than you'll get out of the dinner-pails; and if you carryyourself handsomely, you may get a dinner invitation after we get in. That ought to tempt any man who has to live in Angels the year round. "

Lidgerwood marked the persistent plural of the personal pronoun, and agreat fear laid hold upon him. None the less, the president's invitationwas a little like the king's--it was, in some sense, a command. Lidgerwood merely asked for a moment's respite, and went down toannounce his intention to McCloskey and Dawson. Curiously enough, thedraftsman seemed to be trying to ignore the private car. His back wasturned upon it, and he was glooming out across the bare hills, with hissquare jaw set as if the ignoring effort were painful. 

"I'm going back to Angels with the president, " said the superintendent, speaking to both of them. "You can clean up here without me. "

The trainmaster nodded, but Dawson seemed not to have heard. At allevents, he made no sign. Lidgerwood turned and ascended the embankment, only to have the sudden reluctance assail him again as he put his footon the truck of the _Nadia_ to mount to the platform. The hesitation wasonly momentary, this time. Other guests Mr. Brewster might have, withoutincluding the one person whom he would circle the globe to avoid. 

"Good boy!" said the president, when Lidgerwood swung over the highhand-rail and leaned out to give Williams the starting signal. And whenthe scene of the wreck was withdrawing into the rearward distance, thepresident felt for the door-knob, saying: "Let's go inside, where weshan't be obliged to see so much of this God-forsaken country at onetime. "

One half-minute later the superintendent would have given much to besafely back with McCloskey and Dawson at the vanishing curve ofscrap-heaps. In that half-minute Mr. Brewster had opened the car door, and Lidgerwood had followed him across the threshold. 

The comfortable lounging-room of the _Nadia_ was not empty; nor was itpeopled by a group of Mr. Brewster's associates in the copper combine, the alternative upon which Lidgerwood had hopefully hung the "we's" andthe "us's. "

Seated on a wicker divan drawn out to face one of the wide side-windowswere two young women, with a curly-headed, clean-faced young man betweenthem. A little farther along, a rather austere lady, whose pose was ofcalm superiority to her surroundings, looked up from her magazine tosay, as her husband had said: "Why, Howard! are you here?" Just beyondthe austere lady, and dozing in his chair, was a white-haired man whosestrongly marked features proclaimed him the father of one of the youngwomen on the divan. 

And in the farthest corner of the open compartment, facing each othercompanionably in an "S"-shaped double chair, were two other youngpeople--a man and a woman. .. . Truly, the heavens had fallen! For theyoung woman filling half of the _tête-à-tête_ chair was that one personwhom Lidgerwood would have circled the globe to avoid meeting. 

XIII

BITTER-SWEET

Taking his cue from certain passages in the book of painful memories, Lidgerwood meant to obey his first impulse, which prompted him to followMr. Brewster to the private office state-room in the forward end of thecar, disregarding the couple in the _tête-à-tête_ contrivance. But thetriumphantly beautiful young woman in the nearer half of thecrooked-backed seat would by no means sanction any such easy solution ofthe difficulty. 

"Not a word for me, Howard?" she protested, rising and fairly compellinghim to stop and speak to her. Then: "For pity's sake! what have you beendoing to yourself to make you look so hollow-eyed and anxious?" Afterwhich, since Lidgerwood seemed at a loss for an answer to thehalf-solicitous query, she presented her companion of the "S"-shapedchair. "Possibly you will shake hands a little less abstractedly withMr. Van Lew. Herbert, this is Mr. Howard Lidgerwood, my cousin, severaltimes removed. He is the tyrant of the Red Butte Western, and I canassure you that he is much more terrible than he looks--aren't you, Howard?"

Lidgerwood shook hands cordially enough with the tall young athlete who, it seemed, would never have done increasing his magnificent stature ashe rose up out of his half of the lounging-seat. 

"Glad to meet you, Mr. Lidgerwood, I'm sure, " said the young man, gripping the given hand until Lidgerwood winced. "Miss Eleanor has beentelling me about you--marooned out here in the Red Desert. By Jove!don't you know I believe I'd like to try it awhile myself. It's agessince I've had a chance to kill a man, and they tell me----"

Lidgerwood laughed, recognizing Miss Brewster's romancing gift, or theresults of it. 

"We shall have to arrange a little round-up of the bad men from BitterCreek for you, Mr. Van Lew. I hope you brought your armament along--theregulation 45's, and all that. "

Miss Brewster laughed derisively. 

"Don't let him discourage you, Herbert, " she mocked. "Bitter Creek is inWyoming--or is it in Montana?" this with a quick little eye-stab forLidgerwood, "and the name of Mr. Lidgerwood's refuge is Angels. Also, papa says there is a hotel there called the 'Celestial. ' Do you live atthe Celestial, Howard?"

"No, I never properly lived there. I existed there for a few weeks untilMrs. Dawson took pity on me. Mrs. Dawson is from Massachusetts. "

"Hear him!" scoffed Miss Eleanor, still mocking. "He says that as if tobe 'from Massachusetts' were a patent of nobility. He knows I had thecruel misfortune to be born in Colorado. But tell me, Howard, is Mrs. Dawson a charming young widow?"

"Mrs. Dawson is a very charming middle-aged widow, with a grown son anda daughter, " said Lidgerwood, a little stiffly. It seemed entirelyunnecessary that she should ridicule him before the athlete. 

"And the daughter--is she charming, too? But that says itself, since shemust also date 'from Massachusetts. '" Then to Van Lew: "Every one outhere in the Red Desert is 'from' somewhere, you know. "

"Miss Dawson is quite beneath your definition of charming, I imagine, "was Lidgerwood's rather crisp rejoinder; and for the third time he madeas if he would go on to join the president in the office state-room. 

"You are staying to luncheon with us, aren't you?" asked Miss Brewster. "Or do you just drop in and out again, like the other kind of angels?"

"Your father commands me, and he says I am to stay. And now, if you willexcuse me----"

This time he succeeded in getting away, and up to the luncheon hourtalked copper and copper prospects to Mr. Brewster in the seclusion ofthe president's office compartment. The call for the midday meal hadbeen given when Mr. Brewster switched suddenly from copper to silver. 

"By the way, there were a few silver strikes over in the Timanyonisabout the time of the Red Butte gold excitement, " he remarked. "Some ofthem have grown to be shippers, haven't they?"

"Only two, of any importance, " replied the superintendent: "the Ruby, inRuby Gulch, and Flemister's Wire-Silver, at Little Butte. You couldn'tcall either of them a bonanza, but they are both shipping fair ore ingood quantities. "

"Flemister, " said the president reflectively. "He's a character. Knowhim personally, Howard?"

"A little, " the superintendent admitted. 

"A little is a-plenty. It wouldn't pay you to know him very well, "laughed the big man good-naturedly. "He has a somewhat paralyzing wayof getting next to you financially. I knew him in the old Leadvilledays; a born gentleman, and also a born buccaneer. If the men he hasheld up and robbed were to stand in a row, they'd fill a Denver street. "

"He is in his proper longitude out here, then, " said Lidgerwood rathergrimly. "This is the 'hold-up's heaven. '"

"I'll bet Flemister is doing his share of the looting, " laughed thepresident. "Is he alone in the mine?"

"I don't know that he has any partners. Somebody told me, when I firstcame over here, that Gridley, our master-mechanic, was in with him; butGridley says that is a mistake--that he thinks too much of hisreputation to be Flemister's partner. "

"Hank Gridley, " mused the president; "Hank Gridley and 'his reputation'!It would certainly be a pity if that were to get corroded in any way. There is a man who properly belongs to the Stone Age--what you mightcall an elemental 'scoundrel. "

"You surprise me!" exclaimed Lidgerwood. "I didn't like him at first, but I am convinced now that it was only unreasoning prejudice. Heappeals to me as being anything but a scoundrel. "

"Well, perhaps the word is a bit too savage, " admitted Gridley'saccuser. "What I meant was that he has capabilities that way, and notmuch moral restraint. He is the kind of man to wade through fire andblood to gain his object, without the slightest thought of theconsequences to others. Ever hear the story of his marriage? No? Remindme of it some time, and I'll tell you. But we were speaking ofFlemister. You say the Wire-Silver has turned out pretty well?"

"Very well indeed, I believe. Flemister seems to have money to burn. "

"He always has, his own or somebody else's. It makes little differenceto him. The way he got the Wire-Silver would have made Black-Beard thepirate turn green with envy. Know anything about the history of themine?"

Lidgerwood shook his head. 

"Well, I do; just happen to. You know how it lies--on the western slopeof Little Butte ridge?"

"Yes. "

"That is where it lies now. But the original openings were made on theeastern slope of the butte. They didn't pan out very well, and Flemisterbegan to look for a victim to whom he could sell. About that time a man, whose name I can never recall, took up a claim on the western slope ofthe ridge directly opposite Flemister. This man struck it pretty rich, and Flemister began to bully him on the plea that the new discovery wasonly a continuation of his own vein straight through the hill. You canguess what happened. "

"Fairly well, " said Lidgerwood. "Flemister lawed the other man out. "

"He did worse than that; he drove straight into the hill, past his ownlines, and actually took the money out of the other man's mine to use asa fighting fund. I don't know how the courts sifted it out, finally; Ididn't follow it up very closely. But Flemister put the other man to thewall in the end--'put it all over him, ' as your man Bradford would say. There was some domestic tragedy involved, too, in which Flemister playedthe devil with the other man's family; but I don't know any of thedetails. "

"Yet you say Flemister is a born gentleman, as well as a bornbuccaneer?"

"Well, yes; he behaves himself well enough in decent company. He isn'texactly the kind of man you can turn down short--he has education, goodmanners, and all that, you know; but if he were hard up I shouldn't lethim get within roping distance of my pocket-book, or, if I had given himoccasion to dislike me, within easy pistol range. "

"Wherein he is neither better nor worse than a good many others whotake the sunburn of the Red Desert, " was Lidgerwood's comment, and justthen the waiter opened the door a second time to say that luncheon wasserved. 

"Don't forget to remind me that I'm to tell you Gridley's story, Howard, " said the president, rising out of the depths of hislounging-chair and stripping off the dust-coat, "Reads like aromance--only I fancy it was anything but a romance for poor LizzieGridley. Let's go and see what the cook has done for us. "

At luncheon Lidgerwood was made known to the other members of theprivate-car party. The white-haired old man who had been dozing in hischair was Judge Holcombe, Van Lew's uncle and the father of the prettierof the two young women who had been entertaining Jefferis, thecurly-headed collegian. Jefferis laughingly disclaimed relationship withanybody; but Miss Carolyn Doty, the less pretty but more talkative ofthe two young women, confessed that she was a cousin, twice removed, ofMrs. Brewster. 

Quite naturally, Lidgerwood sought to pair the younger people when thetable gathering was complete, and was not entirely certain of hisprefiguring. Eleanor Brewster and Van Lew sat together and wereapparently absorbed in each other to the exclusion of all thingsextraneous. Jefferis had Miss Doty for a companion, and the afflictionof her well-balanced tongue seemed to affect neither his appetite norhis enjoyment of what the young woman had to say. 

Miriam Holcombe had fallen to Lidgerwood's lot, and at first he thoughtthat her silence was due to the fact that young Jefferis had gotten uponthe wrong side of the table. But after she began to talk, he changed hismind. 

"Tell me about the wrecked train we passed a little while ago, Mr. Lidgerwood, " she began, almost abruptly. "Was any one killed?"

"No; it was a freight, and the crew escaped. It was a rather narrowescape, though, for the engineer, and fireman. "

"You were putting it back on the track?" she asked. 

"There isn't much of it left to put back, as you may have observed, "said Lidgerwood. Then he told her of the explosion and the fire. 

She was silent for a few moments, but afterward she went on, half-gropingly he thought. 

"Is that part of your work--to get the trains on the track when they runoff?"

He laughed. "I suppose it is--or at least, in a certain sense, I'mresponsible for it. But I am lucky enough to have a wrecking-boss--twoof them, in fact, and both good ones. "

She looked up quickly, and he was sure that he surprised something morethan a passing interest in the serious eyes--a trouble depth, he wouldhave called it, had their talk been anything more than the ordinaryconventional table exchange. 

"We saw you go down to speak to two of your men: one who wore his hatpulled down over his eyes and made dreadful faces at you as hetalked----"

"That was McCloskey, our trainmaster, " he cut in. 

"And the other----?"

"Was wrecking-boss Number Two, " he told her, "my latest apprentice, anda very promising young subject. This was his first time out under myadministration, and he put McCloskey and me out of the running at once. "

"What did he do?" she asked, and again he saw the groping wistfulness inher eyes, and wondered at it. 

"I couldn't explain it without being unpardonably technical. But perhapsit can best be summed up in saying that he is a fine mechanicalengineer with the added gift of knowing how to handle men. "

"You are generous, Mr. Lidgerwood, to--to a subordinate. He ought to bevery loyal to you. "

"He is. And I don't think of him as a subordinate--I shouldn't even ifhe were on my pay-roll instead of on that of the motive-powerdepartment. I am glad to be able to call him my friend, Miss Holcombe. "

Again a few moments of silence, during which Lidgerwood was staringgloomily across at Miss Brewster and Van Lew. Then another curiouslyabrupt question from the young woman at his side. 

"His college, Mr. Lidgerwood; do you chance to know where he wasgraduated?"

At another moment Lidgerwood might have wondered at the young woman'spersistence. But now Benson's story of Dawson's terrible misfortune wascrowding all purely speculative thoughts out of his mind. 

"He took his engineering course in Carnegie, but I believe he did notstay through the four years, " he said gravely. 

Miss Holcombe was looking down the table, down and across to where herfather was sitting, at Mr. Brewster's right. When she spoke again thepersonal note was gone; and after that the talk, what there was of it, was of the sort that is meant to bridge discomforting gaps. 

In the dispersal after the meal, Lidgerwood attached himself to MissDoty; this in sheer self-defense. The desert passage was still in itsearlier stages, and Miss Carolyn's volubility promised to be the less oftwo evils, the greater being the possibility that Eleanor Brewster mightseek to re-open a certain spring of bitterness at which he had beenconstrained to drink deeply and miserably in the past. 

The self-defensive expedient served its purpose admirably. For thebetter part of the desert run, the president slept in his state-room, Mrs. Brewster and the judge dozed in their respective easy-chairs, andJefferis and Miriam Holcombe, after roaming for an uneasy half-hour fromthe rear platform to the cook's galley forward, went up ahead, at one ofthe stops, to ride--by the superintendent's permission--in the enginecab with Williams. Miss Brewster and Van Lew were absorbed in a book ofplays, and their corner of the large, open compartment was the onefarthest removed from the double divan which Lidgerwood had chosen forMiss Carolyn and himself. 

Later, Van Lew rolled a cigarette and went to the smoking-compartment, which was in the forward end of the car; and when next Lidgerwood brokeMiss Doty's eye-hold upon him, Miss Brewster had also disappeared--intoher state-room, as he supposed. Taking this as a sign of his release, hegently broke the thread of Miss Carolyn's inquisitiveness, and went outto the rear platform for a breath of fresh air and surcease from thefashery of a neatly balanced tongue. 

When it was quite too late to retreat, he found the deep-recessedobservation platform of the _Nadia_ occupied. Miss Brewster was not inher state-room, as he had mistakenly persuaded himself. She was sittingin one of the two platform camp-chairs, and she was alone. 

"I thought you would come, if I only gave you time enough, " she said, quite coolly. "Did you find Carolyn very persuasive?"

He ignored the query about Miss Doty, replying only to the first part ofher speech. 

"I thought you had gone to your state-room. I hadn't the slightest ideathat you were out here. "

"Otherwise you would not have come? How magnificently churlish you canbe, upon occasion, Howard!"

"It doesn't deserve so hard a name, " he rejoined patiently. "For themoment I am your father's guest, and when he asked me to go to Angelswith him----"

--"He didn't tell you that mamma and Judge Holcombe and Carolyn andMiriam and Herbert and Geof. Jefferis and I were along, " she cut inmaliciously. "Howard, don't you know you are positively spiteful, attimes!"

"No, " he denied. 

"Don't contradict me, and don't be silly. " She pushed the other chairtoward him. "Sit down and tell me how you've been enduring the interval. It is more than a year, isn't it?"

"Yes. A year, three months, and eleven days. " He had taken the chairbeside her because there seemed to be nothing else to do. 

"How mathematically exact you are!" she gibed. "To-morrow it will be ayear, three months, and twelve days; and the day after to-morrow--mercyme! I should go mad if I had to think back and count up that way everyday. But I asked you what you had been doing. "

He spread his hands. "Existing, one way and another. There has alwaysbeen my work. "

"'All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, '" she quoted. "You areexcessively dull to-day, Howard. Hasn't it occurred to you?"

"Thank you for expressing it so delicately. It seems to be mymisfortune to disappoint you, always. "

"Yes, " she said, quite unfeelingly. Then, with a swift relapse into puremockery: "How many times have you fallen in love during the one year, three months, and eleven days?"

His frown was almost a scowl. "Is it worth while to make an unendingjest of it, Eleanor?"

"A jest?--of your falling in love? No, my dear cousin, several timesremoved, no one would dare to jest with you on that subject. But tellme; I am really and truly interested. Will you confess to three times?That isn't so very many, considering the length of the interval. "

"No. "

"Twice, then? Think hard; there must have been at least two littlequickenings of the heartbeats in all that time. "

"No. "

"Still no? That reduces it to one--the charming Miss Dawson----"

"You might spare her, even if you are not willing to spare me. You knowwell enough there has never been any one but you, Eleanor; that therenever will be any one but you. "

The train was passing the western confines of the waterless tract, and acool breeze from the snowcapped Timanyonis was sweeping across the openplatform. It blew strands of the red-brown hair from beneath the closelyfitting travelling-hat; blew color into Miss Brewster's cheeks and adaring brightness into the laughing eyes. 

"What a pity!" she said in mock sympathy. 

"That I can't measure up to your requirements of the perfect man? Yes, it is a thousand pities, " he agreed. 

"No; that isn't precisely what I meant. The pity is that I seem to youto be unable to appreciate your many excellencies and your--constancy. "

"I think you were born to torment me, " he rejoined gloomily. "Why didyou come out here with your father? You must have known that I washere. "

"Not from any line you have ever written, " she retorted. "Alicia Fordtold me, otherwise I shouldn't have known. "

"Still, you came. Why? Were you curious?"

"Why should I be curious, and what about?--the Red Desert? I've seendeserts before. "

"I thought you might be curious to know what disposition the Red Desertwas making of such a failure as I am, " he said evenly. "I can forgivethat more easily than I can forgive your bringing of the other man alongto be an on-looker. "

"Herbert, you mean? He is a good boy, a nice boy--and perfectlyharmless. You'll like him immensely when you come to know him better. "

"You like him?" he queried. 

"How can you ask--when you have just called him 'the other man'?"

Lidgerwood turned in his chair and faced her squarely. 

"Eleanor, I had my punishment over a year ago, and I have been hopingyou would let it suffice. It was hard enough to lose you without beingcompelled to stand by and see another man win you. Can't you understandthat?"

She did not answer him. Instead, she whipped aside from that phase ofthe subject to ask a question of her own. 

"What ever made you come out here, Howard?"

"To the superintendency of the Red Butte Western? You did. "

"I?"

"Yes, you. "

"It is ridiculous!"

"It is true. "

"Prove it--if you can; but you can't. "

"I am proving it day by day, or trying to. I didn't want to come, butyou drove me to it. "

"I decline to take any such hideous responsibility, " she laughedlightly. "There must have been some better reason; Miss Dawson, perhaps. "

"Quite likely, barring the small fact that I didn't know there was aMiss Dawson until I had been a month in Angels. "

"Oh!" she said half spitefully. And then, with calculated malice, "Howard, if you were only as brave as you are clever!. .. Why can't yoube a man and strike back now and then?"

"Strike back at the woman I love? I'm not quite down to that, I hope, even if I was once too cowardly to strike for her. "

"Always _that!_ Why won't you let me forget?"

"Because you must not forget. Listen: two weeks ago--only two weeksago--one of the Angels--er--peacemakers stood up in his place and shotat me. What I did made me understand that I had gained nothing in ayear. "

"Shot at you?" she echoed, and now he might have discovered a note ofreal concern in her tone if his ear had been attuned to hear it. "Tellme about it. Who was it? and why did he shoot at you?"

His answer seemed to be indirection itself. 

"How long do you expect to stay in Angels and its vicinity?" he asked. 

"I don't know. This is partly a pleasure trip for us younger folk. Father was coming out alone, and I--that is, mamma decided to come andmake a car-party of it. We may stay two or three weeks, if the otherswish it. But you haven't answered me. I want to know who the man was, and why he shot at you. "

"Exactly; and you have answered yourself. If you stay two weeks, or twodays, in Angels you will doubtless hear all you care to about mytroubles. When the town isn't talking about what it is going to do tome, it is gossiping about the dramatic arrest of my would-be assassin. "

"You are most provoking!" she declared. "Did you make the arrest?"

"Don't shame me needlessly; of course I didn't. One of our locomotiveengineers, a man whom I had discharged for drunkenness, was the hero. Itwas a most daring thing. The desperado is known in the Red Desert as'The Killer, ' and he has had the entire region terrorized so completelythat the town marshal of Angels, a man who has never before shirked hisduty, refused to serve the warrant. Judson, the engineer, made thecapture--took the 'terror' from his place in a gambling-den, disarmedhim, and brought him in. Judson himself was unarmed, and he did thetrick with a little steel wrench such as engineers use about alocomotive. "

Miss Brewster, being Colorado-born, was deeply interested. 

"Now you are no longer dull, Howard!" she exclaimed. "Tell me in wordsjust how Mr. Judson did it. "

"It was an old dodge, so old that it seemed new to everybody. As I toldyou, Judson was discharged for drunkenness. All Angels knows him for afighter to the finish when he is sober, and for the biggest fool and themost harmless one when he is in liquor. He took advantage of this, reeled into the gambling-place as if he were too drunk to see straight, played the fool till he got behind his man--after which the mattersimplified itself. Rufford, the desperado, had no means of knowing thatthe cold piece of metal Judson was pressing against his back was not themuzzle of a loaded revolver, and he had every reason for supposing thatit was; hence, he did all the things Judson told him to do. "

Miss Eleanor did not need to vocalize her approval of Judson; the darkeyes were alight with excitement. 

"How fine!" she applauded. "Of course, after that, you took Mr. Judsonback into the railway service?"

"Indeed, I did nothing of the sort; nor shall I, until he demonstratesthat he means what he says about letting the whiskey alone. "

"'Until he demonstrates'--don't be so cold-blooded, Howard! Possibly hesaved your life. "

"Quite probably. But that has nothing to do with his reinstatement as anengineer of passenger-trains. It would be much better for Rufford tokill me than for me to let Judson have the chance to kill a train-loadof innocent people. "

"And yet, a few moments ago, you called yourself a coward, cousin mine. Could you really face such an alternative without flinching?"

"It doesn't appeal to me as a question involving any special degree ofcourage, " he said slowly. "I am a great coward, Eleanor--not a littleone, I hope. "

"It doesn't appeal to you?--dear God!" she said. "And I have beencalling you . .. But would you do it, Howard?"

He smiled at her sudden earnestness. 

"How generous your heart is, Eleanor, when you let it speak for itself!If you will promise not to let it change your opinion of me--youshouldn't change it, you know, for I am the same man whom you held up toscorn the day we parted--if you will promise, I'll tell you that forweeks I have gone about with my life in my hands, knowing it. It hasn'trequired any great amount of courage; it merely comes along in the lineof my plain duty to the company--it's one of the things I draw my salaryfor. "

"You haven't told me why this desperado wanted to kill you--why you arein such a deep sea of trouble out here, Howard, " she reminded him. 

"No; it is a long story, and it would bore you if I had time to tell it. And I haven't time, because that is Williams's whistle for the Angelsyard. "

He had risen and was helping his companion to her feet when Mrs. Brewster came to the car door to say:

"Oh, you are out here, are you, Howard? I was looking for you to let youknow that we dine in the _Nadia_ at seven. If your duties willpermit----"

Lidgerwood's refusal was apologetic but firm. 

"I am very sorry, Cousin Jessica, " he protested. "But I left a deskfulof stuff when I ran away to the wreck this morning, and really I'mafraid I shall have to beg off. "

"Oh, don't be so dreadfully formal!" said the president's wifeimpatiently. "You are a member of the family, and all you have to do isto say bluntly that you can't come, and then come whenever you can whilewe are here. Carolyn Doty is dying to ask you a lot more questions aboutthe Red Desert. She confided to me that you were the most interestingtalker----"

Miss Eleanor's interruption was calculated to temper the passed-onpraise. 

"He has been simply boring me to death, mamma, until just a few minutesago. I shall tell Carolyn that she is too easily pleased. "

Mrs. Brewster, being well used to Eleanor's flippancies, paid noattention to her daughter. 

"You will come to us whenever you can, Howard; that is understood, " shesaid. And so the social matter rested. 

Lidgerwood was half-way down the platform of the Crow's Nest, headingfor his office and the neglected desk, when Williams's engine camebacking through one of the yard tracks on its way to the roundhouse. Atthe moment of its passing, a little man with his cap pulled over hiseyes dropped from the gangway step and lounged across to thehead-quarters building. 

It was Judson; and having seen him last toiling away man-fashion at thewreck in the Crosswater Hills, Lidgerwood hailed him. 

"Hello, Judson! How did you get here? I thought you were doing a turnwith McCloskey. "

The small man's grin was ferocious. 

"I was, but Mac said he didn't have any further use for me--said I wastoo much of a runt to be liftin' and pullin' along with growed-up men. Icame down with Williams on the '66. "

Lidgerwood turned away. He remembered his reluctant consent toMcCloskey's proposal touching the espial upon Hallock, and was sorry hehad given it. It was too late to recall it now; but neither by word norlook did the superintendent intimate to the discharged engineer that heknew why McCloskey had sent him back to Angels on the engine of thepresident's special. 

XIV

BLIND SIGNALS

Lidgerwood was not making the conventional excuse when he gave thedeskful of work as a reason for not accepting the invitation to dinewith the president's party in the _Nadia_. Being the practical as wellas the nominal head of the Red Butte line, and the only official withcomplete authority west of Copah, his daily mail was always heavy, andduring his frequent absences the accumulations stored up work for everyspare hour he could devote to it. 

It was this increasing clerical burden which had led him to ask thegeneral manager for a stenographer, and during one of the later absencesthe young man had come--a rapid, capable young fellow with the gift ofknowing how to make himself indispensable to a superior, coupled withthe ability to take care of much of the routine correspondence withoutspecific instructions, and with a disposition to be loyal to his salt. 

Climbing the stair to his office on the second floor of the Crow's Nestafter the brief exchange of question and answer with Judson, Lidgerwoodfound his new helper hard at work grinding through the day's train mail. 

"Don't scamp your meals, Grady, " was his greeting to the stenographer, as he opened his own desk. "This is a pretty busy shop, but it is wellto remember that there is always another day coming, and if there isn't, it won't make any difference how much or how little is left undone. "

"Colgan wired that you were on Mr. Brewster's special, and I was waitingon the chance that you might want to rush something through when you gotin, " returned the young Irishman, reaching mechanically for hisnote-book. 

"I shall want to rush a lot of it through after a while, but you'dbetter go and get your supper now and come back fresh for it, " said thesuperintendent, who was always humane to every one but himself. "Wasthere anything special in to-day's mail?"

"Only this, " turning up a letter marked "Immediate" and bearing thecancellation stamp of the postal car which had passed eastward on Train202. 

Lidgerwood read the marked letter twice before he placed it face downin the "unanswered" basket. It was from Flemister, and it called for adecision which the superintendent was willing to postpone for themoment. After he had read thoughtfully through everything else on thewaiting list, he took up the mine-owner's letter again. All thingsconsidered, it was a little puzzling. He had not seen Flemister sincethe day of the rather spiteful conversation, with the building-and-loantheft for a topic, and on that occasion the mine-owner had gone awaywith threats in his mouth. Yet his letter was distinctly friendly, conveying an offer of neighborly help. 

The occasion for the neighborliness arose upon a right-of-wayinvolvement. Acting under instructions from Vice-President Ford, Lidgerwood had already begun to move in the matter of extending the RedButte Western toward the Nevada gold-fields, and Benson had been runningpreliminary surveys and making estimates of cost. Of the two morefeasible routes, that which left the main line at Little Butte, turningsouthward up the Wire-Silver gulch, had been favorably reported on bythe engineer. The right of way over this route, save for a few milesthrough an upland valley of cattle ranches, could be acquired from thegovernment, and among the ranch owners only one was disposed to fightthe coming of the railroad--for a purely mercenary purpose, Bensondeclared. 

It was about this man, James Grofield, that Flemister wrote. Theranchman, so the letter stated, had passed through Little Butte early inthe day, on his way to Red Butte. He would be returning by theaccommodation late in the afternoon, and would stop at the Wire-Silvermine, where he had stabled his horses. For some reason he had taken adislike to Benson, but if Lidgerwood could make it convenient to comeover to Little Butte on the evening passenger-train from Angels, thewriter of the letter would arrange to keep Grofield over-night, and theright-of-way matter could doubtless be settled satisfactorily. 

This was the substance of the mine-owner's letter, and if Lidgerwoodhesitated it was partly because he was suspicious of Flemister's suddenfriendliness. Then the motive--Flemister's motive--suggested itself, andthe suspicion was put to sleep. The Wire-Silver mine was five milesdistant from the main line at Little Butte, at the end of a spur; if theextension should be built, it would be a main-line station, with all theadvantages accruing therefrom. Flemister was merely putting thepersonal animosities aside for a good and sufficient business reason. 

Lidgerwood looked at his watch. If Grady should not be gone too long, hemight be able to work through the pile of correspondence and get away onthe evening passenger; and when the stenographer came back the work wasattacked with that end in view. But after an hour's rapid dictating, along-drawn whistle signal announced the incoming of the train he wastrying to make and warned him that the race against time had failed. 

"It's no use; we'll have to make two bites of it, " he said to Grady, andthen he left his desk to go downstairs for a breathing moment and thecup of coffee which he meant to substitute for the dinner which the lackof time had made him forego. 

Train 205, the train Flemister had suggested that he might take, wasjust pulling in from the long run across the desert when he reached thefoot of the stairs. That it was too late to take this means of reachingLittle Butte and the Wire-Silver mine was a small matter; it merelymeant that he would be obliged to order out the service-car and gospecial, if he should finally decide to act upon Flemister's suggestion. 

Angels being a meal station, there was a twenty-minute stop for alltrains, and the passengers from 205 were crowding the platform andhurrying to the dining-room and lunch-counter when Lidgerwood made hisway to the station end of the building. In the men's room, whither hewent to order his cup of coffee, there was a mixed throng of travellers, with a sprinkling of trainmen and town idlers, among the latter a numberof the lately discharged railroad employees. Lidgerwood marked a groupof the trouble-makers withdrawing to a corner of the room as he entered, and while the waiter was serving his coffee, he saw Hallock join thegroup. It was only a straw, but straws are significant when the wind isblowing from a threatening quarter. Once again Lidgerwood rememberedMcCloskey's proposal, and his own reluctant assent to it, and now he wasnot too greatly conscience-stricken when he saw Judson quietly workinghis way through the crowded room to a point of espial upon the group inthe corner. 

"Your coffee's getting cold, Mr. Lidgerwood, " the man behind the counterwarned him, and Lidgerwood whirled around on the pivot stool and turnedhis back upon the malcontents and their watcher. The keen inner sense, which neither the physiologists nor the psychologists have yet beenable to define or to name, apprised him of a threat developing in thedistant corner, but he resolutely ignored it, drank his coffee, andpresently went his way around the peopled end of the building and backto the office entrance, meaning to go above stairs and put in anotherhour with Grady before he should decide definitely about making thenight run to Little Butte. 

His foot was on the threshold of the stairway door when Judson overtookhim. 

"Mac told me to report to you when I couldn't get at him, " theex-engineman began abruptly. "There's something hatching, but I can'tfind out what it is. Are you thinking about goin' out on the roadanywhere to-night, Mr. Lidgerwood?"

Lidgerwood's decision was taken on the instant. 

"Yes; I think I shall go west in my car in an hour or so. Why?"

"There ain't any 'why, ' I guess, if you feel like goin'. But what Idon't savvy is why them fellows back yonder in the waitin'-room are sodead anxious to find out if you _are_ goin'. "

As he spoke, a man who had been skulking behind a truck-load of expressfreight, so near that he could have touched either of them with anout-stretched arm, withdrew silently in the direction of the lunch-room. He was a tall man with stooping shoulders, and his noiseless retreatwas cautiously made, yet not quite cautiously enough, since Judson'ssharp eyes marked the shuffling figure vanishing in the shadow cast bythe over-hanging shelter roof of the station. 

"By cripes!--look at that, will you?" he exclaimed, pointing to theretreating figure. "That's Hallock, and he was listening!"

Lidgerwood shook his head. 

"No, that isn't Hallock, " he denied. And then, with a bit of theman-driving rasp in his voice: "See here, Judson, don't you letMcCloskey's prejudices run away with you; make a memorandum of that andpaste it in your hat. I know what you have been instructed to do, and Ihave given my consent, but it is with the understanding that you will beat least as fair as you would be if McCloskey's bias happened to run theother way. I don't want you to make a case against Hallock unless youcan get proof positive that he is disloyal to the company and to me; andI'll tell you here and now that I shall be much better pleased if youcan bring me the assurance that he is a true man. "

"But that _was_ Hallock, " insisted Judson, "or else it was his livin'double. "

"No; follow him and you'll see for yourself. It was more like that RubyGulch operator who quit in a quarrel with McCloskey a week or two ago. What is his name?--Sheffield. "

Judson hastened down the platform to satisfy himself, and Lidgerwoodmounted the stair to his office. Grady was still pounding the keys ofthe type-writer on the batch of letters given him in the busy hourfollowing his return from supper, and the superintendent turned his backupon the clicking activities and went to stand at the window, from whichhe could look down upon the platform with the waiting passenger-traindrawn up beside it. 

Seeing the cheerful lights in the side-tracked _Nadia_, he fell tothinking of Eleanor, opening the door of conscious thought to her andsaying to himself that she was never more than a single step beyond thethreshold of that door. Looking across to the _Nadia_, he knew now whyhe had hesitated so long before deciding to go on the night trip toTimanyoni Park. Chilled hearts follow the analogy of cold hands. Whenthe fire is near, a man will go and spread his fingers to the blaze, though he may be never so well assured that they will ache for itafterward. 

But with this thought came another and a more manly one--the woman heloved was in Angels, and she would doubtless remain in Angels or itsimmediate vicinity for some time; that was unpreventable; but he couldstill resolve that there should not be a repetition of the old tragedyof the moth and the candle. It was well that at the very outset a dutycall had come to enable him to break the spell of her nearness, and itwas also well that he had decided not to disregard it. 

The train conductor's "All aboard!" shouted on the platform just belowhis window, drew his attention from the _Nadia_ and the distractingthought of Eleanor's nearness. Train 205 was ready to resume itswestward flight, and the locomotive bell was clanging musically. Ahalf-grown moon, hanging low in the black dome of the night, yellowedthe glow of the platform incandescents. The last few passengers werehurrying up the steps of the cars, and the conductor was swinging hislantern in the starting signal for the engineer. 

At the critical moment, when the train was fairly in motion, Lidgerwoodsaw Hallock--it was unmistakably Hallock this time--spring from theshadow of a baggage-truck and whip up to the step of the smoker, and ascant half-second later he saw Judson race across the wide platform andthrow himself like a self-propelled projectile against and through theclosing doors of the vestibule at the forward end of the sleeper. 

Judson's dash and his capture of the out-going train were easilyaccounted for: he had seen Hallock. But where was Hallock going?Lidgerwood was still asking himself the question half-abstractedly whenhe crossed to his desk and touched the buzzer-push which summoned anoperator from the despatcher's room. 

"Wire Mr. Pennington Flemister, care of Goodloe, at Little Butte, that Iam coming out with my car, and should be with him by eleven o'clock. Then call up the yard office and tell Matthews to let me have the carand engine by eight-thirty, sharp, " he directed. 

The operator made a note of the order and went out, and thesuperintendent settled himself in his desk-chair for another hour's hardwork with the stenographer. At twenty-five minutes past eight he heardthe wheel-grindings of the up-coming service-car, and the wearyshort-hand man snapped a rubber band upon the notes of the final letter. 

"That's all for to-night, Grady, and it's quite enough, " was thesuperintendent's word of release. "I'm sorry to have to work you solate, but I'd like to have those letters written out and mailed beforeyou lock up. Are you good for it?"

"I'm good for anything you say, Mr. Lidgerwood, " was the response of theone who was loyal to his salt, and the superintendent put on his lightcoat and went out and down the stair. 

At the outer door he turned up the long platform, instead of down, andwalked quickly to the _Nadia_, persuading himself that he must, incommon decency, tell the president that he was going away; persuadinghimself that it was this, and not at all the desire to warm his hands atthe ungrateful fire of Eleanor's mockery, that was making him turn hisback for the moment upon the waiting special train. 

XV

ELEANOR INTERVENES

The president's private car was side-tracked on the short spur at theeastern end of the Crow's Nest, and when Lidgerwood reached it he foundthe observation platform fully occupied. The night was no more thanpleasantly cool, and the half-grown moon, which was already dipping toits early extinguishment behind the upreared bulk of the Timanyonis, struck out stark etchings in silver and blackest shadow upon a ground offallow dun and vanishing grays. On such nights the mountain desert hidesits forbidding face, and the potent spell of the silent wilderness haddrawn the young people of the _Nadia's_ party to the out-doortrysting-place. 

"Hello, Mr. Lidgerwood, is that you?" called Van Lew, when thesuperintendent came across to the spur track. "I thought you said thiswas a bad man's country. We have been out here for a solid hour, andnobody has shot up the town or even whooped a single lonesome war-whoop;in fact, I think your village with the heavenly name has goneingloriously to bed. We're defrauded. "

"It does go to bed pretty early--that part of it which doesn't stay uppretty late, " laughed Lidgerwood. Then he came closer and spoke to MissBrewster. "I am going west in my car, and I don't know just when I shallreturn. Please tell your father that everything we have here is entirelyat his service. If you don't see what you want, you are to ask for it. "

"Will there be any one to ask when you are gone?" she inquired, neithersorrowing nor rejoicing, so far as he could determine. 

"Oh, yes; McCloskey, my trainmaster, will be in from the wreck beforemorning, and he will turn flip-flaps trying to make things pleasant foryou, if you will give him the chance. "

She made the adorable little grimace which always carried him swiftlyback to a certain summer of ecstatic memories; to a time when herkeenest retort had been no more than a playful love-thrust and there hadbeen no bitterness in her mockery. 

"Will he make dreadful faces at me, as he did at you this morning whenyou went down among the smashed cars at the wreck to speak to him?" sheasked. 

"So you were looking out of the window, too, were you? You are a closeobserver and a good guesser. That was Mac, and--yes, he will probablymake faces at you. He can't help it any more than he can helpbreathing. "

Miss Brewster was running her fingers along the hand-rail as if it werethe key-board of a piano. "You say you don't know how long you will beaway?" she asked. 

"No; but probably not more than the night. I was only providing for theunexpected, which some people say is what always happens. "

"Will your run take you as far as the Timanyoni Canyon?"

"Yes; through it, and some little distance beyond. "

"You have just said that we are to ask for what we want. Did you meanit?"

"Surely, " he replied unguardedly. 

"Then we may as well begin at once, " she said coolly; and turningquickly to the others: "O all you people; listen a minute, will you?Hush, Carolyn! What do you say to a moonlight ride through one of thegrandest canyons in the West in Mr. Lidgerwood's car? It will besomething to talk about as long as you live. Don't all speak at once, please. "

But they did. There was an instant and enthusiastic chorus of approval, winding up rather dolefully, however, with Miss Doty's, "But your motherwill never consent to it, Eleanor!"

"Mr. Lidgerwood will never consent, you mean, " put in Miriam Holcombequietly. 

Lidgerwood said what he might without being too crudely inhospitable. His car was entirely at the service of the president's party, of course, but it was not very commodious compared with the _Nadia_. Moreover, hewas going on a business trip, and at the end of it he would have toleave them for an hour or two, or maybe longer. Moreover, again, if theygot tired they would have to sleep as they could, though possibly hisstate-room in the service-car might be made to accommodate the threeyoung women. All this he said, hoping and believing that Mrs. Brewsterwould not only refuse to go herself but would promptly veto anunchaperoned excursion. 

But this was one time when his distantly related kinswoman disappointedhim. Mrs. Brewster, cajoled by her daughter, yielded a reluctantconsent, going to the car door to tell Lidgerwood that she would holdhim responsible for the safe return of the trippers. 

"See, now, how fatally easy it is for one to promise more--oh, so verymuch more!--than one has any idea of performing, " murmured thepresident's daughter, dropping out to walk beside the victim when theparty trooped down the long platform of the Crow's Nest to theservice-car. And when he did not reply: "Please don't be grumpy. "

"It was the maddest notion!" he protested. "Whatever made you suggestit?"

"More churlishness?" she said reproachfully. And then, with ironicalsentiment: "There was a time when you would have moved heaven and earthfor a chance to take me somewhere with you, Howard. "

"To be with you; yes, that is true. But----"

Her rippling laugh was too sweet to be shrill; none the less it held init a little flick of the whip of malice. 

"Listen, " she said. "I did it out of pure hatefulness. You showed soplainly this afternoon that you wished to be quit of me--of the entireparty--that I couldn't resist the temptation to pay you back with good, liberal interest. Possibly you will think twice before you snub meagain, Howard, dear. "

Quickly he stopped and faced her. The others were a few steps inadvance; were already boarding the service-car. 

"One word, Eleanor--and for Heaven's sake let us make it final. Thereare some things that I can endure and some others that I cannot--willnot. I love you; what you said to me the last time we were together madeno difference; nothing you can ever say will make any difference. Youmust take that fact into consideration while you are here and we areobliged to meet. "

"Well?" she said, and there was nothing in her tone to indicate that shefelt more than a passing interest in his declaration. 

"That is all, " he ended shortly. "I am, as I told you this afternoon, the same man that I was a year ago last spring, as deeply infatuatedand, unhappily, just as far below your ideal of what your lover shouldbe. In justice to me, in justice to Van Lew--"

"I think your conductor is waiting to speak to you, " she broke insweetly, and he gave it up, putting her on the car and turning toconfront the man with the green-shaded lantern who proved to beBradford. 

"Any special orders, Mr. Lidgerwood?" inquired the reformedcattle-herder, looking stiff and uncomfortable in his new serviceuniform--one of Lidgerwood's earliest requirements for men on duty inthe train service. 

"Yes. Run without stop to Little Butte, unless the despatcher calls youdown. Time yourself to make Little Butte by eleven o'clock, or a littlelater. Who is on the engine?"

"Williams. "

"Williams? How does it come that he is doubling out with me? He has justmade the run over the Desert Division with the president's car. "

"So have I, for that matter, " said Bradford calmly; "but we both got ahurry call about fifteen minutes ago. "

Lidgerwood held his watch to the light of the green-shaded lantern. Ifhe meant to keep the wire appointment with Flemister, there was no timeto call out another crew. 

"I don't like to ask you and Williams to double out of your turn, especially when I know of no necessity for it. But I'm in a rush. Canyou two stand it?"

"Sure, " said the ex-cow-man. Then he ventured a word of his own. "I'llride up ahead with Williams--you're pretty full up, back here in thecar, anyway--and then you'll know that two of your own men are keepin'tab on the run. With the wrecks we're enjoying----"

Lidgerwood was impatient of mysteries. 

"What do you mean, Andy?" he broke in. "Anything new?"

"Oh, nothing you could put your finger on. Same old rag-chewin' going onup at Cat Biggs's and the other waterin' troughs about how you've got tobe done up, if it costs money. "

"That isn't new, " objected Lidgerwood irritably. 

"Tumble-weeds, " said Bradford, "rollin' round over the short-grass. Butthey show which way the wind's comin' from, and give you the jumps whenyou wouldn't have 'em natural. Williams had a spell of 'em a few minutesago when he went over to take the 266 out o' the roundhouse and foundone of the back-shop men down under her tinkerin' with her trucks. "

"What's that?" was the sharp query. 

"That's all there was to it, " Bradford went on imperturbably. "Williamsasked the shopman politely what in hell he was doing under there, andthe fellow crawled out and said he was just lookin' her over to see ifshe was all right for the night run. Now, you wouldn't think there wasany tumble-weed in that to give a man the jumps, but Williams had 'em, all the same. Says he to me, tellin' me about it just now: 'That's allright, Andy, but how in blue blazes did he, or anybody else exceptMatthews and the caller, know that the 266 was goin' out? that's whatI'd like to know. ' And I had to pass it up. "

Lidgerwood asked a single question. 

"Did Williams find that anything had been tampered with?"

"Nothing that you could shoot up the back-shop man for. One of the trucksafety-chains--the one on the left side, back--was loose. But itcouldn't have hurt anything if it had been taken off. We ain't runnin'on safety-chains these days. "

"Safety-chain loose, you say?--so if the truck should jump and swing itwould keep on swinging? You tell Williams when you go up ahead that Iwant that machinist's name. "

"H'm, " said Bradford; "reckon it was meant to do that?"

"God only knows what isn't meant, these times, Andy. Hold on a minutebefore you give Williams the word to go. " Then he turned to youngJefferis, who had come out on the car platform to light a cigarette. "Will you ask Miss Brewster to step out here for a moment?"

Eleanor came at the summons, and Jefferis gave the superintendent aclear field by dropping off to ask Bradford for a match. 

"You sent for me, Howard?" said the president's daughter, and honeycould not have matched her tone for sweetness. 

"Yes. I shall have to anticipate the Angels gossips a little by tellingyou that we are in the midst of a pretty bitter labor fight. That is whypeople go gunning for me. I can't take you and your friends over theroad to-night. "

"Why not?" she inquired. 

"Because it may not be entirely safe. "

"Nonsense!" she flashed back. "What could happen to us on a littleexcursion like this?"

"I don't know, but I wish you would reconsider and go back to the_Nadia_. "

"I shall do nothing of the sort, " she said, wilfully. And then, withtotally unnecessary cruelty, she added: "Is it a return of the oldmalady? Are you afraid again, Howard?"

The taunt was too much. Wheeling suddenly, Lidgerwood snapped out asummons to Jefferis: "Get aboard, Mr. Jefferis; we are going. "

At the word Bradford ran forward, swinging his lantern, and a momentlater the special train shot away from the Crow's Nest platform and outover the yard switches, and began to bore its way into the westwardnight. 

XVI

THE SHADOWGRAPH

Forty-two miles south-west of Angels, at a point where all furtherprogress seems definitely barred by the huge barrier of the greatmountain range, the Red Butte Western, having picked its devious way toan apparent _cul-de-sac_ among the foot-hills and hogbacks, plungesabruptly into the echoing canyon of the Eastern Timanyoni. 

For forty added miles the river chasm, throughout its length a narrow, tortuous crevice, with sheer and towering cliffs for its walls, affordsa precarious footing for the railway embankment, leading the double lineof steel with almost sentient reluctance, as it seems, through themighty mountain barrier. At its western extremity the canyon forms thegate-way to a shut-in valley of upheaved hills and inferior mountainsisolated by wide stretches of rolling grassland. To the eastward andwestward of the great valley rise the sentinel peaks of the twoenclosing mountain ranges; and across the shut-in area the riverplunges from pool to pool, twisting and turning as the craggy anddensely forested lesser heights constrain it. 

Red Butte, the centre of the evanescent mining excitement which wasoriginally responsible for the building of the railroad, lieshigh-pitched among the shouldering spurs of the western boundary range. Seeking the route promising the fewest cuts and fills and the easiestgrades, Chandler, the construction chief of the building company, hadfollowed the south bank of the river to a point a short distance beyondthe stream-fronting cliffs of the landmark hill known as Little Butte;and at the station of the same name he had built his bridge across theTimanyoni and swung his line in a great curve for the northward climbamong the hogbacks to the gold-mining district in which Red Butte wasthe principal camp. 

Elsewhere than in a land of sky-piercing peaks and continent-crestinghighlands, Little Butte would have been called a true mountain. On theengineering maps of the Red Butte Western its outline appears as aroughly described triangle with five-mile sides, the three angles of thefigure marked respectively by Silver Switch, Little Butte station andbridge, and the Wire-Silver mine. 

Between Silver Switch and the bridge station, the main line of therailroad follows the base of the triangle, with the precipitous bluffsof the big hill on the left and the torrenting flood of the Timanyoni onthe right. Along the eastern side of the triangle, and leaving the maintrack at Silver Switch, ran the spur which had formerly served theWire-Silver when the working opening of the mine had been on the easternslope of the ridge-like hill. For some years previous to the summer ofoverturnings this spur had been disused, though its track, ending amonga group of the old mine buildings five miles away, was still incommission. 

Along the western side of the triangle, with Little Butte station forits point of divergence from the main line, ran the new spur, built toaccommodate Flemister after he had dug through the hill, ousted therightful owner of the true Wire-Silver vein, and had transferred hislabor hamlet and his plant--or the major part of both--to the westernslope of the butte, at this point no more than a narrow ridge separatingthe eastern and western gulches. 

Train 205, with ex-engineer Judson apparently sound asleep in one of therearward seats of the day coach, was on time when it swung out of thelower canyon portal and raced around the curves and down the grades inits crossing of Timanyoni Park. At Point-of-Rocks Judson came awakesufficiently to put his face to the window, with a shading hand to cutoff the car lights; but having thus located the train's placement in thePark-crossing race, he put his knees up against the back of theadjoining seat, pulled his cap over his eyes, and to all outwardappearances went to sleep again. Four or five miles farther along, however, there came a gentle grinding of brake-shoes upon the chilledwheel-treads that aroused him quickly. Another flattening of his noseagainst the window-pane showed him the familiar bulk of Little Buttelooming black in the moonlight, and a moment later he had let himselfsilently into the rear vestibule of the day coach, and was as silentlyopening the folding doors of the vestibule itself. 

Hanging off by the hand-rails, he saw the engine's headlight pick up theswitch-stand of the old spur. The train was unmistakably slowing now, and he made ready to jump if the need should arise, picking his place atthe track side as the train lights showed him the ground. As the speedwas checked, Judson saw what he was expecting to see. Precisely at theinstant of the switch passing, a man dropped from the forward step ofthe smoker and walked swiftly away up the disused track of the oldspur. Judson's turn came a moment later, and when his end of the daycoach flicked past the switch-stand he, too, dropped to the ground, and, waiting only until he could follow without being detected, set out afterthe tall figure, which was by that time scarcely more than an indistinctand retreating blur in the moonlight. 

The chase led directly up the old spur, but it did not continue quite tothe five-mile-distant end of it. A few hundred yards short of thestockade enclosing the old buildings the shadowy figure took to theforest and began to climb the ridge, going straight up, as nearly asJudson could determine. The ex-engineer followed, still keeping hisdistance. From the first bench above the valley level he looked back anddown into the stockade enclosure. All of the old buildings were dark, but one of the two new and unpainted ones was brilliantly lighted, andthere were sounds familiar enough to Judson to mark it as theWire-Silver power-house. Notwithstanding his interest in the chase, Judson was curious enough to stand a moment listening to the sharplydefined exhausts of the high-speeded steam-engine driving thegenerators. 

"Say!" he ejaculated, under his breath, "if that engine ain't a deadmatch for the old 216 pullin' a grade, I don't want a cent! Doublecylinder, set on the quarter, and _choo-chooin_' like it ought to have apair o' steel rails under it. If I had time I'd go down yonder and breaka winder in that power-shack; blamed if I wouldn't!"

But, unhappily, there was no time to spare; as it was, he had lingeredtoo long, and when he came out upon the crest of the narrow ridge andattained a point of view from which he could look down upon thebuildings clustering at the foot of the western slope, he had lost thescent. The tall man had disappeared as completely and suddenly as if theearth had opened and swallowed him. 

This, in Judson's prefiguring, was a small matter. The tall man, whomthe ex-engineer had unmistakably recognized at the moment oftrain-forsaking as Rankin Hallock, was doubtless on his way toFlemister's head-quarters at the foot of the western slope. Why heshould take the roundabout route up the old spur and across themountain, when he might have gone on the train to Little Butte stationand so have saved the added distance and the hard climb, was a questionwhich Judson answered briefly: for some reason of his own, Hallock didnot wish to be seen going openly to the Wire-Silver head-quarters. Hencethe drop from the train at Silver Switch and the long tramp up thegulch and over the ridge. 

Forecasting it thus, Judson lost no time on the summit of mysteriousdisappearances. Choosing the shortest path he could find which promisedto lead him down to the mining hamlet at the foot of thewestward-fronting slope, he set his feet in it and went stumbling downthe steep declivity, bringing up, finally, on a little bench just abovethe mine workings. Here he stopped to get his breath and his bearings. From his halting-place the mine head-quarters building lay just belowhim, at the right of the tunnel entrance to the mine. It was a long logbuilding of one story, with warehouse doors in the nearer gable andlighted windows to mark the location of the offices at the opposite end. 

Making a détour to dodge the electric-lighted tunnel mouth, Judsoncarefully reconnoitred the office end of the head-quarters building. There was a door, with steps giving upon the down-hill side, and therewere two windows, both of which were blank to the eye by reason of thedrawn-down shades. Two persons, at least, were in the lighted room;Judson could hear their voices, but the thick log walls muffled thesounds to an indistinct murmur. On the mountain-facing side of thebuilding, which was in shadow, the ex-engineer searched painstakinglyfor some open chink or cranny between the logs, but there was no avenueof observation either for the eye or the ear. Just as he had made up hismind to risk the moonlight on the other side of the head-quarters, asound like the moving of chairs on a bare floor made him dodge quicklybehind the bole of a great mountain pine which had been left standing atthe back of the building. The huge tree was directly opposite one of thewindows, and when Judson looked again the figure of a man sitting in achair was sharply silhouetted on the drawn window-shade. 

Judson stared, rubbed his eyes, and stared again. It had never occurredto him before that the face of a man, viewed in blank profile, coulddiffer so strikingly from the same face as seen eye to eye. That the manwhose shadow was projected upon the window-shade was Rankin Hallock, hecould not doubt. The bearded chin, the puffy lips, the prominent nosewere all faithfully outlined in the exaggerated shadowgraph. But the hatwas worn at an unfamiliar angle, and there was something in the erect, bulking figure that was still more unfamiliar. Judson backed away andstared again, muttering to himself. If he had not traced Hallock almostto the door of Flemister's quarters, there might have been room for thethin edge of the doubt wedge. The unfamiliar pose and the rakish tilt ofthe soft hat were not among the chief clerk's rememberedcharacteristics; but making due allowance for the distortion of themagnified facial outline, the profile was Hallock's. 

Having definitely settled for himself the question of identity, Judsonrenewed his search for some eavesdropping point of vantage. Risking themoonlight, he twice made the circuit of the occupied end of thebuilding. There was a line of light showing under the ill-fitting door, and with the top step of the down-hill flight for a perching-place onemight lay an ear to the crack and overhear. But door and steps weresharply struck out in the moonlight, and they faced the mining hamletwhere the men of the day shift were still stirring. 

Judson knew the temper of the Timanyoni miners. To be seen crouching onthe boss's doorstep would be to take the chance of making a target ofhimself for the first loiterer of the day shift who happened to look hisway. Dismissing the risky expedient, he made a third circuit frommoon-glare to shadow, this time upon hands and knees. To the lowly comethe rewards of humility. Framed level upon stout log pillars on thedown-hill side, the head-quarters warehouse and office sheltered a spacebeneath its floor which was roughly boarded up with slabs from thelog-sawing. Slab by slab the ex-engineer sought for his rat-hole, tryingeach one softly in its turn. When there remained but three more to betugged at, the loosened one was found. Judson swung it cautiously asideand wriggled through the narrow aperture left by its removal. A crawlingminute later he was crouching beneath the loosely jointed floor of thelighted room, and the avenue of the ear had broadened into a fairhighway. 

Almost at once he was able to verify his guess that there were only twomen in the room above. At all events, there were only two speakers. Theywere talking in low tones, and Judson had no difficulty in identifyingthe rather high-pitched voice of the owner of the Wire-Silver mine. Theman whose profile he had seen on the window-shade had the voice whichbelonged to the outlined features, but the listener under the floor hada vague impression that he was trying to disguise it. Judson knewnothing about the letter in which Flemister had promised to arrange fora meeting between Lidgerwood and the ranchman Grofield. What he did knowwas that he had followed Hallock almost to the door of Flemister'soffice, and that he had seen a shadowed face on the office window-shadewhich could be no other than the face of the chief clerk. It was inspite of all this that the impression that the second speaker was tryingto disguise his voice persisted. But the ex-engineer of fastpassenger-trains was able to banish the impression after the first fewminutes of eavesdropping. 

Judson had scarcely found his breathing space between the floor timbers, and had not yet overheard enough to give him the drift of the low-tonedtalk, when the bell of the private-line telephone rang in the roomabove. It was Flemister who answered the bell-ringer. 

"Hello! Yes; this is Flemister. .. . Yes, I say; _this_ is Flemister;you're talking to him. .. . What's that?--a message about Mr. Lidgerwood?. .. All right; fire away. "

"Who is it?" came the inquiry, in the grating voice which fitted, andyet did not fit, the man whom Judson had followed from his boarding ofthe train at Angels to Silver Switch, and from the gulch of the old spurto his disappearance on the wooded slope of Little Butte ridge. 

The listener heard the click of the telephone ear-piece replacement. 

"It's Goodloe, talking from his station office at Little Butte, "replied the mine owner. "The despatcher has just called him up to saythat Lidgerwood left Angels in his service-car, running special, ateight-forty, which would figure it here at about eleven, or a littlelater. "

"Who is running it?" inquired the other man rather anxiously, Judsondecided. 

"Williams and Bradford. A fool for luck, every time. We might have hadto _écraser_ a couple of our friends. "

The French was beyond Judson, but the mine-owner's tone supplied themissing meaning, and the listener under the floor had a sensation likethat which might be produced by a cold wind blowing up the nape of hisneck. 

"There is no such thing as luck, " rasped the other voice. "My time wasdamned short--after I found out that Lidgerwood wasn't coming on thepassenger. But I managed to send word to Matthews and Lester, tellingthem to make sure of Williams and Bradford. We could spare both of them, if we have to. "

"Good!" said Flemister. "Then you had some such alternative in mind asthat I have just been proposing?"

"No, " was the crusty rejoinder. "I was merely providing for thehundredth chance. I don't like your alternative. "

"Why don't you?"

"Well, for one thing, it's needlessly bloody. We don't have to go atthis thing like a bull at a gate. I've had my finger on the pulse ofthings ever since Lidgerwood took hold. The dope is working all right ina purely natural way. In the ordinary run of things, it will be only afew days or weeks before Lidgerwood will throw up his hands and quit, and when he goes out, I go in. That's straight goods this time. "

"You thought it was before, " sneered Flemister, "and you got beautifullyleft. " Then: "You're talking long on 'naturals' and the 'ordinary run ofthings, ' but I notice you schemed with Bart Rufford to put him out ofthe fight with a pistol bullet!"

Judson felt a sudden easing of strains. He had told McCloskey that hewould be willing to swear to the voice of the man whom he had overheardplotting with Rufford in Cat Biggs's back room. Afterward, after he hadsufficiently remembered that a whiskey certainty might easily lead up toa sober perjury, he had admitted the possible doubt. But now Flemister'staunt made assurance doubly sure. Moreover, the arch-plotter was notdenying the fact of the conspiracy with "The Killer. "

"Rufford is a blood-thirsty devil--like yourself, " the other man wassaying calmly. "As I have told you before, I've discovered Lidgerwood'sweakness--he can't call a sudden bluff. Rufford's play--the play I toldhim to make--was to get the drop on him, scare him up good, and chasehim out of town--out of the country. He overran his orders--and went tojail for it. "

"Well?" said the mine-owner. 

"Your scheme, as you outlined it to me in your cipher wire thisafternoon, was built on this same weakness of Lidgerwood's, and I agreedto it. As I understood it, you were to toll him up here with some lieabout meeting Grofield, and then one of us was to put a pistol in hisface and bluff him into throwing up his job. As I say, I agreed to it. He'll have to go when the fight with the men gets hot enough; but hemight hold on too long for our comfort. "

"Well?" said Flemister again, this time more impatiently, Judsonthought. 

"He queered your lay-out by carefully omitting to come on the passenger, and now you propose to fall back upon Rufford's method. I don'tapprove. "

Again the mine-owner said "Why don't you?" and the other voice took upthe question argumentatively. 

"First, because it is unnecessary, as I have explained. Lidgerwood isofficially dead, right now. When the grievance committees tell him whathas been decided upon, he will put on his hat and go back to wherever itwas that he came from. "

"And secondly?" suggested Flemister, still with the nagging sneer in histone. 

There was a little pause, and Judson listened until the effort grewpositively painful. 

"The secondly is a weakness of mine, you'll say, Flemister. I want hisjob; partly because it belongs to me, but chiefly because if I don't getit a bunch of us will wind up breaking stone for the State. But Ihaven't anything against the man himself. He trusts me; he has defendedme when others have tried to put him wise; he has been damned white tome, Flemister. "

"Is that all?" queried the mine-owner, in the tone of the prosecutingattorney who gives the criminal his full length of the rope with whichto hang himself. 

"All of that part of it--and you are saying to yourself that it is agood deal more than enough. Perhaps it is; but there is still anotherreason for thinking twice before burning all the bridges behind us. Lidgerwood is Ford's man; if he throws up his job of his own accord, Imay be able to swing Ford into line to name me as his successor. On theother hand, if Lidgerwood is snuffed out and there is the faintestsuspicion of foul play. .. . Flemister, I'm telling you right here and nowthat that man Ford will neither eat nor sleep until he has set the dogson us!"

There was another pause, and Judson shifted his weight cautiously fromone elbow to the other. Then Flemister began, without heat and equallywithout compunction. The ex-engineer shivered, as if the measured wordshad been so many drops of ice-water dribbling through the cracks in thefloor to fall upon his spine. 

"You say it is unnecessary; that Lidgerwood will be pushed out by thelabor fight. My answer to that is that you don't know him quite as wellas you think you do. If he's allowed to live, he'll stay--unlesssomebody takes him unawares and scares him off, as I meant to doto-night when I wired you. If he continues to live, and stay, you knowwhat will happen, sooner or later. He'll find you out for thedouble-faced cur that you are--and after that, the fireworks. "

At this the other voice took its turn at the savage sneering. 

"You can't put it all over me that way, Flemister; you can't, and, byGod, you sha'n't! You're in the hole just as deep as I am, foot forfoot!"

"Oh, no, my friend, " said the cooler voice. "I haven't been stealing incar-load lots from the company that hires me; I have merely been buyinga little disused scrap from you. You may say that I have planned a fewof the adverse happenings which have been running the loss-and-damageaccount of the road up into the pictures during the past fewweeks--possibly I have; but you are the man who has been carrying outthe plans, and you are the man the courts will recognize. But we'rewasting time sitting here jawing at each other like a pair of old women. It's up to us to obliterate Lidgerwood; after which it will be up to youto get his job and cover up your tracks as you can. If he lives, he'lldig; and if he digs, he'll turn up things that neither of us can standfor. See how he hangs onto that building-and-loan ghost. He'll treesomebody on that before he's through, you mark my words! And it runs inmy mind that the somebody will be you. "

"But this trap scheme of yours, " protested the other man; "it's a frost, I tell you! You say the night passenger from Red Butte is late. I knowit's late, now; but Cranford's running it, and it is all down-hill fromRed Butte to the bridge. Cranford will make up his thirty minutes, andthat will put his train right here in the thick of things. Call it offfor to-night, Flemister. Meet Lidgerwood when he comes and tell him aneasy lie about your not being able to hold Grofield for the right-of-waytalk. "

Judson heard the creak and snap of a swing-chair suddenly righted, andthe floor dust jarred through the cracks upon him when the mine-ownersprang to his feet. 

"Call it off and let you drop out of it? Not by a thousand miles, mycautious friend! Want to stay here and keep your feet warm while I goand do it? Not on your tintype, you yapping hound! I'm about ready tofreeze you, anyway, for the second time--mark that, will you?--for thesecond time. No, keep your hands where I can see 'em, or I'll knife youright where you sit! You can bully and browbeat a lot of railroadbuckies when you're playing the boss act, _but I know you_! You comewith me or I'll give the whole snap away to Vice-President Ford. I'lltell him how you built a street of houses in Red Butte out of companymaterial and with company labor. I'll prove to him that you've scrappedfirst one thing and then another--condemned them so you might sell themfor your own pocket. I'll----"

"Shut up!" shouted the other man hoarsely. And then, after a momentthat Judson felt was crammed to the bursting point with murderouspossibilities: "Get your tools and come on. We'll see who's got theyellows before we're through with this!"

XVII

THE DIPSOMANIAC

There are moments when the primal instincts assert themselves with asort of blind ferocity, and to Judson, jammed under the floor timbers ofFlemister's head-quarters office, came one of these moments when heheard the two men in the room above moving to depart, and found himselfcaught between the timbers so that he could not retreat. 

What had happened he was unable, in the first fierce struggle forfreedom, fully to determine. It was as if a living hand had reached downto pin him fast in the tunnel-like space. Then he discovered that a hugesplinter on one of the joists was thrust like a great barb into hiscoat. Ordinarily cool and collected in the face of emergencies, theex-engineer lost his head for a second or so and fought like a trappedanimal. Then the frenzy fit passed and the quick wit reasserted itself. Extending his arms over his head and digging his toes into the dry earthfor a purchase, he backed, crab-wise, out of the entangled coat, freedthe coat, and made for the narrow exit in a sweating panic ofexcitement. 

Notwithstanding the excitement, however, the recovered wit was takingnote of the movements of the men who were leaving the room overhead. They were not going out by the direct way--out of the door facing themoonlight and the mining hamlet. They were passing out through thestore-room in the rear. Also, there were other foot-falls--cautioustreadings, these--as of some third person hastening to be first at themore distant door of egress. 

Judson was out of his dodge-hole and flitting from pine to pine on theupper hill-side in time to see a man leap from the loading platform atthe warehouse end of the building and run for the sheltering shadows ofthe timbering at the mine entrance. Following closely upon the heels oftheir mysterious file leader came the two whose footsteps Judson hadbeen timing, and these, too, crossed quickly to the tunnel mouth of themine and disappeared within it. 

Judson pursued swiftly and without a moment's hesitation. Happily forhim, the tunnel was lighted at intervals by electric incandescents, their tiny filaments glowing mistily against the wet and glisteningtunnel roof. Going softly, he caught a glimpse of the two men as theypassed under one of the lights in the receding tunnel depths, and amoment later he could have sworn that a third, doubtless the man who hadleaped from the loading platform to run and hide in the shadows at themine mouth, passed the same light, going in the same direction. 

A hundred yards deeper into the mountain there was a confirmingrepetition of the flash-light picture for the ex-engineer. The two men, walking rapidly now, one a step in advance of the other, passed underanother of the overhead light bulbs, and this time Judson, watching forthe third man, saw him quite plainly. The sight gave him a start. Thethird man was tall, and he wore a soft hat drawn low over his face. 

"Well, I'll be jiggered!" muttered the trailer, pulling his cap down tohis ears and quickening his pace. "If I didn't know better, I'd swearthat was Hallock again--or Hallock's shadder follerin' him at a goodlong range!"

The chase was growing decidedly mysterious. The two men in the leadcould be no others than Flemister and the chief clerk, presumably ontheir way to the carrying out of whatever plot they had agreed upon, with Lidgerwood for the potential victim. But since this plot evidentlyturned upon the nearing approach of Lidgerwood's special train, why werethey plunging on blindly into the labyrinthine depths of the Wire-Silvermine? This was an even half of the mystery, and the other half was quiteas puzzling. Who was the third man? Was he a confederate in the plot, orwas he also following to spy upon the conspirators?

Judson was puzzled, but he did not let his bewilderment tangle the feetof his principal purpose, which was to keep Flemister and his reluctantaccomplice in sight. This purpose was presently defeated in a mostsingular manner. At the end of one of the longer tunnel levels, a blackand dripping cavern, lighted only by a single incandescent shining likea star imprisoned in the dismal depths, the ex-engineer saw whatappeared to be a wooden bulkhead built across the passage andeffectively blocking it. When the two men came to this bulkhead theypassed through it and disappeared, and the shock of the confined air inthe tunnel told of a door slammed behind them. 

Judson broke into a stumbling run, and then stopped short in increasingbewilderment. At the slamming of the door the third man had dartedforward out of the shadows to fling himself upon the wooden barrier, beating upon it with his fists and cursing like a madman. Judson saw, understood, and acted, all with the instinctive instantaneousness bornof his trade of engine-driving. The two men in advance were merelytaking the short cut through the mountain to the old workings on theeastern slope, and the door in the bulkhead, which was doubtless one ofthe airlocks in the ventilating system of the mine, had fastened itselfautomatically after Flemister had released it. 

Judson was a hundred yards down the tunnel, racing like a trainedsprinter for the western exit, before he thought to ask himself why thethird man was playing the madman before the locked door. But that was amatter negligible to him; his affair was to get out of the mine with theloss of the fewest possible seconds of time--to win out, to climb theridge, and to descend the eastern slope to the old workings before thetwo plotters should disappear beyond the hope of rediscovery. 

He did his best, flying down the long tunnel reaches with little regardfor the precarious footing, tripping over the cross-ties of theminiature tramway and colliding with the walls, now and then, betweenthe widely separated electric bulbs. Far below, in the deeper levels, hecould hear the drumming chatter of the power-drills and the purring ofthe compressed air, but the upper gangway was deserted, and it was notuntil he was stumbling through the timbered portal that a watchman roseup out of the shadows to confront and halt him. There was no time tospare for soft words or skilful evasions. With a savage upper-cut thatcaught the watchman on the point of the jaw and sent him crashing amongthe picks and shovels of the mine-mouth tool-room, Judson darted outinto the moonlight. But as yet the fierce race was only fairly begun. Without stopping to look for a path, the ex-engineer flung himself atthe steep hill-side, running, falling, clambering on hands and knees, bursting by main strength through the tangled thickets of young pines, and hurling himself blindly over loose-lying bowlders and the trunks offallen trees. When, after what seemed like an eternity of lung-burstingstruggles, he came out upon the bare summit of the ridge, his tongue waslike a dry stick in his mouth, refusing to shape the curses that hissoul was heaping upon the alcohol which had made him a wind-broken, gasping weakling in the prime of his manhood. 

For, after all the agonizing strivings, he was too late. It was a roughquarter-mile down to the shadowy group of buildings whence the hummingof the dynamo and the quick exhausts of the high-speeded steam-enginerose on the still night air. Judson knew that the last lap was not inhis trembling muscles or in the thumping heart and the wind-brokenlungs. Moreover, the path, if any there were, was either to the right orthe left of the point to which he had attained; fronting him there was asteep cliff, trifling enough as to real heights and depths, but anall-sufficient barrier for a spent runner. 

The ex-engineer crawled cautiously to the edge of the barrier cliff, rubbed the sweat out of his smarting eyes, and peered down into thehalf-lighted shadows of the stockaded enclosure. It was not very longbefore he made them out--two indistinct figures moving about among thedisused and dilapidated ore sheds clustering at the track end of the oldspur. Now and again a light glowed for an instant and died out, like themomentary brilliance of a gigantic fire-fly, by which the watcher on thecliff's summit knew that the two were guiding their movements by thehelp of an electric flash-lamp. 

What they were doing did not long remain a mystery. Judson heard adistance-diminished sound, like the grinding of rusty wheels upon ironrails, and presently a shadowy thing glided out of one of the ore shedsand took its place upon the track of the old spur. Followed a series ofclankings still more familiar to the watcher--the _ting_ of metal uponmetal, as of crow-bars and other tools cast carelessly, one upon theother, in the loading of the shadowy vehicle. Making a telescope of hishands to shut out the glare from the lighted windows of the power-house, Judson could dimly discern the two figures mounting to their places onthe deck of the thing which he now knew to be a hand-car. A momentlater, to the musical _click-click_ of wheels passing over rail-joints, the little car shot through the gate-way in the stockade and sped awaydown the spur, the two indistinct figures bowing alternately to eachother like a pair of grotesque automatons. 

Winded and leg-weary as he was, Judson's first impulse prompted him toseek for the path to the end that he might dash down the hill and givechase. But if he would have yielded, another pursuer was before him toshow him the futility of that expedient. While the clicking of thehand-car wheels was still faintly audible, a man--the door-hammeringmadman, Judson thought it must be--materialized suddenly from somewherein the under-shadows to run down the track after the disappearingconspirators. The engineer saw the racing foot-pursuer left behind soquickly that his own hope of overtaking the car died almost before ithad taken shape. 

"That puts it up to me again, " he groaned, rising stiffly. Then he facedonce more toward the western valley and the point of the great triangle, where the lights of Little Butte station and bridge twinkled uncertainlyin the distance. "If I can get down yonder to Goodloe's wire in time tocatch the super's special before it passes Timanyoni"--he went on, onlyto drop his jaw and gasp when he held the face of his watch up to themoonlight. Then, brokenly, "My God! I couldn't begin to do it unless Ihad wings: he said eleven o'clock, and it's ten-ten right now!"

There was the beginning of a frenzied outburst of despairing cursesupbubbling to Judson's lips when he realized his utter helplessness andthe consequences menacing the superintendent's special. True, he did notknow what the consequences were to be, but he had overheard enough to besure that Lidgerwood's life was threatened. Then, at the climax ofdespairing helplessness he remembered that there was a telephone in themine-owner's office--a telephone that connected with Goodloe's stationat Little Butte. Here was a last slender chance of getting a warning toGoodloe, and through him, by means of the railroad wire, to thesuperintendent's special. Instantly Judson forgot his weariness, andraced away down the western slope of the mountain, prepared to fight hisway to the telephone if the entire night shift of the Wire-Silver shouldtry to stop him. 

It cost ten of the precious fifty minutes to retrace his steps down themountain-side, and five more, were lost in dodging the mine watchman, who, having recovered from the effects of Judson's savage blow, wasprowling about the mine buildings, revolver in hand, in search of hismysterious assailant. After the watchman was out of the way, five otherminutes went to the cautious prying open of the window least likely toattract attention--the window upon whose drawn shade the convincingprofile had been projected. Judson's lips were dry and his hands wereshaking again when he crept through the opening, and dropped into theunfamiliar interior, where the darkness was but thinly diluted by themoonlight filtering through the small, dingy squares of the oppositewindow. To have the courage of a house-breaker, one must be a burglar infact; and the ex-engineer knew how swiftly and certainly he would paythe penalty if any one had seen him climbing in at the forced window, or should chance to discover him now that he was in. 

But there was a stronger motive than fear, fear for himself, to set himgroping for the telephone. The precious minutes were flying, and he knewthat by this time the two men on the hand-car must have reached the mainline at Silver Switch. Whatever helpful chain of events might be set inmotion by communicating with Goodloe, must be linked up quickly. 

He found the telephone without difficulty. It was an old-fashioned set, with a crank and bell for ringing up the call at the other end of theline. A single turn of the crank told him that it was cut off somewhere, doubtless by a switch in the office wiring. In a fresh fever ofexcitement he began a search for the switch, tracing with his fingersthe wires which led from the instrument and following where they ranaround the end of the room on the wainscoting. In the corner farthestfrom his window of ingress he found the switch and felt it out. It was asimple cut-out, designed to connect either the office instrument or themine telephones with the main wire, as might be desired. Under theswitch stood a corner cupboard, and in feeling for the wire connectionson top of the cupboard, Judson found his fingers running lightly overthe bounding surfaces of an object with which he was, unhappily, onlytoo familiar--a long-necked bottle with the seal blown in the glass. Thecorner cupboard was evidently Flemister's sideboard. 

Almost before he knew what he was doing, Judson had grasped the bottleand had removed the cork. Here was renewed strength and courage, and aswift clearing of the brain, to be had for the taking. At the drawing ofthe cork the fine bouquet of the liquor seemed instantly to fill theroom with its subtle and intoxicating essence. With the smell of thewhiskey in his nostrils he had the bottle half-way to his lips before herealized that the demon of appetite had sprung upon him out of thedarkness, taking him naked and unawares. Twice he put the bottle down, only to take it up again. His lips were parched; his tongue rattled inhis mouth, and within there were cravings like the fires of hell, threatening torments unutterable if they should not be assuaged. 

"God have mercy!" he mumbled, and then, in a voice which the risingfires had scorched to a hoarse whisper: "If I drink, I'm damned to alleternity; and if I don't take just one swallow, I'll never be able totalk so as to make Goodloe understand me!"

It was the supreme test of the man. Somewhere, deep down in thesoul-abyss of the tempted one, a thing stirred, took shape, and arose tohelp him to fight the devil of appetite. Slowly the fierce thirst burneditself out. The invisible hand at his throat relaxed its cruel grip, anda fine dew of perspiration broke out thickly on his forehead. At thesweating instant the newly arisen soul-captain within him whispered, "Now, John Judson--once for all!" and staggering to the open window heflung the tempting bottle afar among the scattered bowlders, waitinguntil he had heard the tinkling crash of broken glass before he turnedback to his appointed task. 

His hands were no longer trembling when he once more wound the crank ofthe telephone and held the receiver to his ear. There was an answeringskirl of the bell, and then a voice said: "Hello! This is Goodloe:what's wanted?"

Judson wasted no time in explanations. "This is Judson--John Judson. GetTimanyoni on your wire, quick, and catch Mr. Lidgerwood's special. TellBradford and Williams to run slow, looking for trouble. Do you getthat?"

A confused medley of rumblings and clankings crashed in over the wire, and in the midst of the interruption Judson heard Goodloe put down thereceiver. In a flash he knew what was happening at Little Buttestation. The delayed passenger-train from the west had arrived, and theagent was obliged to break off and attend to his duties. 

Anxiously Judson twirled the crank, again and yet again. Since Goodloehad not cut off the connection, the mingled clamor of the station cameto the listening ear; the incessant clicking of the telegraphinstruments on Goodloe's table, the trundling roar of a baggage-truck onthe station platform, the cacophonous screech of the passenger-engine'spop-valve. With the _phut_ of the closing safety-valve came theconductor's cry of "All aboard!" and then the long-drawn sobs of the bigengine as Cranford started the train. Judson knew that in all humanprobability the superintendent's special had already passed Timanyoni, the last chance for a telegraphic warning; and here was the passengerslipping away, also without warning. 

Goodloe came back to the telephone when the train clatter had died away, and took up the broken conversation. 

"Are you there yet, John?" he called. And when Judson's yelp answeredhim: "All right; now, what was it you were trying to tell me about thespecial?"

Judson did not swear; the seconds were too vitally precious. He merelyrepeated his warning, with a hoarse prayer for haste. 

There was another pause, a break in the clicking of Goodloe's telegraphinstruments, and then the agent's voice came back over the wire: "Can'treach the special. It passed Timanyoni ten minutes ago. "

Judson's heart was in his mouth, and he had to swallow twice before hecould go on. 

"Where does it meet the passenger?" he demanded. 

"You can search me, " replied the Little Butte agent, who was not ofthose who go out of their way to borrow trouble. Then, suddenly: "Holdthe 'phone a minute; the despatcher's calling me, right now. "

There was a third trying interval of waiting for the man in the darkenedroom at the Wire-Silver head-quarters; an interval shot through withpricklings of feverish impatience, mingled with a lively sense of therisk he was running; and then Goodloe called again. 

"Trouble, " he said shortly. "Angels didn't know that Cranford had madeup so much time. Now he tries to give me an order to hold thepassenger--after it's gone by. So long. I'm going to take a lantern andmog along up the track to see where they come together. "

Judson hung up the receiver, reset the wire switch to leave it as he hadfound it, climbed out through the open window and replaced the sash; allthis methodically, as one who sets the death chamber in order after thesheet has been drawn over the face of the corpse. Then he stumbled downthe hill to the gulch bottom and started out to walk along the new spurtoward Little Butte station, limping painfully and feeling mechanicallyin his pocket for his pipe, which had apparently been lost in some oneof the many swift and strenuous scene-shiftings. 

XVIII

AT SILVER SWITCH

Like that of other railroad officials, whose duties constrain them tospend much time in transit, Lidgerwood's desk-work went with him up anddown and around and about on the two divisions, and before leaving hisoffice in the Crow's Nest to go down to the waiting special, he hadthrust a bunch of letters and papers into his pocket to be groundthrough the business-mill on the run to Little Butte. 

It was his surreptitious transference of the rubber-banded bunch ofletters to the oblivion of the closed service-car desk, observed by MissBrewster, that gave the president's daughter an opportunity to makepartial amends for having turned his business trip into a car-party. Before the special was well out of the Angels yard she was commandingsilence, and laying down the law for the others, particularizing CarolynDoty, though only by way of a transfixing eye. 

"Listen a moment, all of you, " she called. "We mustn't forget that thisisn't a planned excursion for us; it's a business trip for Mr. Lidgerwood, and we are here by our own invitation. We must makeourselves small, accordingly, and not bother him. _Savez vous?_"

Van Lew laughed, spread his long arms, and swept them all out toward therear platform. But Miss Eleanor escaped at the door and went back toLidgerwood. 

"There, now!" she whispered, "don't ever say that I can't do the reallyhandsome thing when I try. Can you manage to work at all, with thesechatterers on the car?"

She was steadying herself against the swing of the car, with one shapelyhand on the edge of the desk, and he covered it with one of his own. 

"Yes, I can work, " he asserted. "The one thing impossible is not to loveyou, Eleanor. It's hard enough when you are unkind; you mustn't make itharder by being what you used always to be to me. "

"What a lover you are when you forget to be self-conscious!" she saidsoftly; none the less she freed the imprisoned hand with a hasty littlejerk. Then she went on with playful austerity: "Now you are to doexactly what you were meaning to do when you didn't know we were comingwith you. I'll make them all stay away from you just as long as I can. "

She kept her promise so well that for an industrious hour Lidgerwoodscarcely realized that he was not alone. For the greater part of theinterval the sight-seers were out on the rear platform, listening toMiss Brewster's stories of the Red Desert. When she had repeated all shehad ever heard, she began to invent; and she was in the midst of one ofthe most blood-curdling of the inventions when Lidgerwood, having workedthrough his bunch of papers, opened the door and joined the platformparty. Miss Brewster's animation died out and her voice trailed awayinto--"and that's all; I don't know the rest of it. "

Lidgerwood's laugh was as hearty as Van Lew's or the collegian's. 

"Please go on, " he teased. Then quoting her: "'And after they had shotup all the peaceable people in the town, they fell to killing eachother, and'--Don't let me spoil the dramatic conclusion. "

"You are the dramatic conclusion to that story, " retorted Miss Brewster, reproachfully. Whereupon she immediately wrenched the conversation asideinto a new channel by asking how far it was to the canyon portal. 

"Only a mile or two now, " was Lidgerwood's rejoinder. "Williams hasbeen making good time. " And two minutes later the one-car train, withthe foaming torrent of the Timanyoni for its pathfinder, plunged betweenthe narrow walls of the upper canyon, and the race down the grade of thecrooked water-trail through the heart of the mountains began. 

There was little chance for speech, even if the overawing grandeurs ofthe stupendous crevice, seen in their most impressive presentment asalternating vistas of stark, moonlighted crags and gulches and depths ofblackest shadow, had encouraged it. The hiss and whistle of theair-brakes, the harsh, sustained note of the shrieking wheel-flangesshearing the inner edges of the railheads on the curves, and thestuttering roar of the 266's safety-valve were continuous; a deafeningmedley of sounds multiplied a hundred-fold by the demoniac laughter ofthe echoes. 

Miss Carolyn clung to the platform hand-rail, and once Lidgerwoodthought he surprised Van Lew with his arm about her; thought it, andimmediately concluded that he was mistaken. Miriam Holcombe had theopposite corner of the platform, and Jefferis was making it his businessto see to it that she was not entirely crushed by the grandeurs. 

Miss Brewster, steadying herself by the knob of the closed door, wasnot overawed; she had seen Rocky Mountain canyons at their best andtheir worst, many times before. But excitement, and the relaxing of theconventional leash that accompanies it, roused the spirit of daringmockery which was never wholly beyond call in Miss Brewster's mentalprocesses. With her lips to Lidgerwood's ear she said: "Tell me, Howard;how soon should a chaperon begin to make a diversion? I'm only anapprentice, you know. Does it occur to you that these young persons needto be shocked into a better appreciation of the conventions?"

There was a small Pintsch globe in the hollow of the "umbrella roof, "with its single burner turned down to a mere pea of light. Lidgerwood'sanswer was to reach up and flood the platform with a sudden glow ofartificial radiance. The chorus of protest was immediate andreproachful. 

"Oh, Mr. Lidgerwood! don't spoil the perfect moonlight that way!" criedMiss Doty, and the others echoed the beseeching. 

"You'll get used to it in a minute, " asserted Lidgerwood, ingood-natured sarcasm. "It is so dark here in the canyon that I'm afraidsome of you might fall overboard or get hit by the rocks, or something. "

"The idea!" scoffed Miss Carolyn. Then, petulantly, to Van Lew: "We mayas well go in. There is nothing more to be seen out here. "

Lidgerwood looked to Eleanor for his cue, or at least for a whiff ofmoral support. But she turned traitor. 

"You can do the meanest things in the name of solicitude, Howard, " shebegan; but before she could finish he had reached up and turned the gasoff with a snap, saying, "All right; anything to please the children. "After which, however, he spoke authoritatively to Van Lew and Jefferis. "Don't let your responsibilities lean out over the railing, you two. There are places below here where the rocks barely give a train room topass. "

"_I'm_ not leaning out, " said Miss Brewster, as if she resented hiscare-taking. Then, for his ear alone: "But I shall if I want to. "

"Not while I am here to prevent you. "

"But you couldn't prevent me, you know. "

"Yes, I could. "

"How?"

The special was rushing through the darkest of the high-walled clefts inthe lower part of the canyon. "This way, " he said, his love suddenlybreaking bounds, and he took her in his arms. 

She freed herself quickly, breathless and indignantly reproachful. 

"I am ashamed for you!" she panted. And then, with carefully calculatedmalice: "What if Herbert had been looking?"

"I shouldn't care if all the world had been looking, " was the stubbornrejoinder. Then, passionately: "Tell me one thing before we go anyfarther, Eleanor: have you given him the right to call me out?"

"How can you doubt it?" she said; but now she was laughing at him again. 

There was safety only in flight, and he fled; back to his desk and thework thereon. He was wading dismally through a thick mass ofcorrespondence, relating to a cattleman's claim for stock killed, andthinking of nothing so little as the type-written words, when the roarof the echoing canyon walls died away, and the train came to a stand atTimanyoni, the first telegraph station in the shut-in valley between themountain ranges. A minute or two later the wheels began to revolveagain, and Bradford came in. 

"More maverick railroading, " he said disgustedly. "Timanyoni had his redlight out, and when I asked for orders he said he hadn't any--thoughtmaybe we'd want to ask for 'em ourselves, being as we was running wild. "

"So he thoughtfully stopped us to give us the chance!" snappedLidgerwood in wrathful scorn. "What did you do?"

"Oh, as long as he had done it, I had him call up the Angels despatcherto find out where we were at. We're on 204's time, you know--ought tohave met her here. "

"Why didn't we?" asked the superintendent, taking the time-card from itspigeon-hole and glancing at Train 204's schedule. 

"She was late out of Red Butte; broke something and had to stop and tieit up; lost a half-hour makin' her get-away. "

"Then we reach Little Butte before 204 gets there--is that it?"

"That's about the way the night despatcher has it ciphered out. He gavethe Timanyoni plug operator hot stuff for holdin' us up. "

Lidgerwood shook his head. The artless simplicity of Red-Butte-Westernmethods, or unmethods, was dying hard, inexcusably hard. 

"Does the night despatcher happen to know just where 204 is, at thispresent moment?" he inquired with gentle irony. 

Bradford laughed. 

"I'd be willing to bet a piebald pinto against a no-account yaller dogthat he don't. But I reckon he won't be likely to let her get pastLittle Butte, comin' this way, when he has let us get by Timanyonigoin' t'other way. "

"That's all right, Andy; that is the way you would have a right tofigure it out if you were running a special on a normally healthyrailroad--you'd be justified in running to your next telegraph station, regardless. But the Red Butte Western is an abnormally unhealthyrailroad, and you'd better feel your way--pretty carefully, too. FromPoint-of-Rocks you can see well down toward Little Butte. Tell Williamsto watch for 204's headlight, and if he sees it, to take the siding atSilver Switch, the old Wire-Silver spur. "

Bradford nodded, and when Lidgerwood reimmersed himself in thecattleman's claim papers, went forward to share Williams's watch in thecab of the 266. 

Twenty minutes farther on, the train slowed again, made a momentarystop, and began to screech and grind heavily around a sharp curve. Lidgerwood looked out of the window at his right. The moon had gonebehind a huge hill, a lantern was pricking a point in the shadows somelittle distance from the track, and the tumultuous river was no longersweeping parallel with the embankment. He shut his desk and went to therear platform, projecting himself into the group of sight-seers just asthe train stopped for the second time. 

"Where are we now?" asked Miss Brewster, looking up at the dark mass ofthe hill whose forested ramparts loomed black in the near foreground. 

"At Silver Switch, " replied Lidgerwood; and when the bobbing lanterncame nearer he called to the bearer of it. "What is it, Bradford?"

"The passenger, I reckon, " was the answer. "Williams thought he saw itas we came around Point-o'-Rocks, and he was afraid the despatcher hadgot balled up some and let 'em get past Little Butte without ameet-order. "

For a moment the group on the railed platform was silent, and in thelittle interval a low, humming sound made itself felt rather than heard;a shuddering murmur, coming from all points of the compass at once, asit seemed, and filling the still night air with its vibrations. 

"Williams was right!" rejoined the superintended sharply. "She'scoming!" And even as he spoke, the white glare of an electric headlightburst into full view on the shelf-like cutting along the northern faceof the great hill, pricking out the smallest details of the waitingspecial, the closed switch, and the gleaming lines of the rails. 

With this powerful spot-light to project its cone of dazzlingbrilliance upon the scene, the watchers on the railed platform of thesuperintendent's service-car saw every detail in the swift outworking ofthe tragic spectacle for which the hill-facing curve was thestage-setting. 

When the oncoming passenger-train was within three or four hundred yardsof the spur track switch and racing toward it at full speed, a man, whoseemed to the onlookers to rise up out of the ground in the train'spath, ran down the track to meet the uprushing headlight, waving hisarms frantically in the stop signal. For an instant that seemed an age, the passenger engineer made no sign. Then came a short, sharpwhistle-scream, a spewing of sparks from rail-head and tire at the clipof the emergency brakes, a crash as of the ripping asunder of themechanical soul and body, and a wrecked train lay tilted at an angle offorty-five degrees against the bank of the hill-side cutting. 

It was a moment for action rather than for words, and when he clearedthe platform hand-rail and dropped, running, Lidgerwood was only thefraction of a second ahead of Van Lew and Jefferis. With Bradfordswinging his lantern for Williams and his fireman to come on, the fourmen were at the wreck before the cries of fright and agony had brokenout upon the awful stillness following the crash. 

There was quick work and heart-breaking to be done, and, for the firstfew critical minutes, a terrible lack of hands to do it. Cranford, theengineer, was still in his cab, pinned down by the coal which hadshifted forward at the shock of the sudden stop. In the wreck of thetender, the iron-work of which was rammed into shapeless crumplings bythe upreared trucks of the baggage-car, lay the fireman, past humanhelp, as a hasty side-swing of Bradford's lantern showed. 

The baggage-car, riding high upon the crushed tender, was body-whole, but the smoker, day-coach, and sleeper were all more or less shattered, with the smoking-car already beginning to blaze from the broken lamps. It was a crisis to call out the best in any gift of leadership, andLidgerwood's genius for swift and effective organization came out strongunder the hammer-blow of the occasion. 

"Stay here with Bradford and Jefferis, and get that engineer out!" hecalled to Van Lew. Then, with arms outspread, he charged down upon thetrain's company, escaping as it could through the broken windows of thecars. "This way, every man of you!" he yelled, his shout dominating theclamor of cries, crashing glass, and hissing steam. "The fire's whatwe've got to fight! Line up down to the river, and pass water inanything you can get hold of! Here, Groner"--to the train conductor, whowas picking himself up out of the ditch into which the shock had thrownhim--"send somebody to the Pullman for blankets. Jump for it, man, before this fire gets headway!"

Luckily, there were by this time plenty of willing hands to help. TheTimanyoni is a man's country, and there were few women in the train'spassenger list. Quickly a line was formed to the near-by margin of theriver, and water, in hats, in buckets improvised out of pieces of tintorn from the wrecked car-roofs, in saturated coats, cushion covers, andPullman blankets, hissed upon the fire, beat it down, and presentlyextinguished it. 

Then the work of extricating the imprisoned ones began, light for itbeing obtained by the backing of Williams's engine to the main lineabove the switch so that the headlight played upon the scene. 

Lidgerwood was fairly in the thick of the rescue work when MissBrewster, walking down the track from the service-car and bringing thetwo young women who were afraid to be left behind, launched herself andher companions into the midst of the nerve-racking horror. 

"Give us something to do, " she commanded, when he would have sent themback; and he changed his mind and set them at work binding up wounds andcaring for the injured quite as if they had been trained nurses sentfrom heaven at the opportune moment. 

In a very little time the length and breadth of the disaster were fullyknown, and its consequences alleviated, so far as they might be with themeans at hand. There were three killed outright in the smoker, two inthe half-filled day-coach, and none in the sleeper; six in all, including the fireman pinned beneath the wreck of the tender. Cranford, the engineer, was dug out of his coal-covered grave by Van Lew andJefferis, badly burned and bruised, but still living; and there were ascore of other woundings, more or less dreadful. 

Red Butte was the nearest point from which a relief-train could be sent, and Lidgerwood promptly cut the telegraph wire, connected his pocket setof instruments, and sent in the call for help. That done he transferredthe pocket relay to the other end of the cut wire, and called up thenight despatcher at Angels. Fortunately, McCloskey and Dawson were justin with the two wrecking-trains from the Crosswater Hills, and thesuperintendent ordered Dawson to come out immediately with his trainand a fresh crew, if it could be obtained. 

Dawson took the wire and replied in person. His crew was good foranother tussle, he said, and his train was still in readiness. He wouldstart west at once, or the moment the despatcher could clear for him, and would be at Silver Switch as soon as the intervening miles wouldpermit. 

Eleanor Brewster and her guests were grouped beside Lidgerwood when hedisconnected the pocket set from the cut wire, and temporarily repairedthe break. The service-car had been turned into a make-shift hospitalfor the wounded, and the car-party was homeless. 

"We are all waiting to say how sorry we are that we insisted on comingand thus adding to your responsibilities, Howard, " said the president'sdaughter, and now there was no trace of mockery in her voice. 

His answer was entirely sympathetic and grateful. 

"I'm only sorry that you have been obliged to see and take part in sucha frightful horror, that's all. As for your being in the way--it's quitethe other thing. Cranford owes his life to Mr. Van Lew and Jefferis; andas for you three, " including Eleanor and the two young women, "yourwork is beyond any praise of mine. I'm anxious now merely because Idon't know what to do with you while we wait for the relief-train tocome. "

"Ignore us completely, " said Eleanor promptly. "We are going over tothat little level place by the side-track and make us a camp-fire. Wewere just waiting to be comfortably forgiven for having burdened youwith a pleasure party at such a time. "

"We couldn't foresee this, any of us, " he made haste to say. "Now, ifyou'll do what you suggested--go and build a fire to wait by?--I hope itwon't be very long. "

Freed of the more crushing responsibilities, Lidgerwood found Bradfordand Groner, and with the two conductors went down the track to the pointof derailment to make the technical investigation of causes. 

Ordinarily, the mere fact of a destructive derailment leaves little tobe discovered when the cause is sought afterward. But, singularlyenough, the curved track was torn up only on the side toward the hill;the outer rail was still in place, and the cross-ties, deeply bedded inthe hard gravel of the cutting, showed only the surface mutilation ofthe grinding wheels. 

"Broken flange under the 215, I'll bet, " said Groner, holding hislantern down to the gashed ties. But Bradford denied it. 

"No, " he contradicted: "Cranford was able to talk a little after wetoted him back to the service-car. He says it was a broken rail; says hesaw it and saw the man that was flaggin' him down, all in good time togive her the air before he hit it. "

"What man was that?" asked Groner, whose point of view had not been thatof an onlooker. 

Lidgerwood answered for himself and Bradford. 

"That is one of the things we'd like to know, Groner. Just before thesmash a man, whom none of us recognized, ran down the track and tried togive Cranford the stop signal. "

They had been walking on down the line, looking for the actual point ofderailment. When it was found, it proved Cranford's assertion--in part. There was a gap in the rail on the river side of the line, but it wasnot a fracture. At one of the joints the fish-plates were missing, andthe rail-ends were sprung apart sidewise sufficiently to let the wheelflanges pass through. Groner went down on his hands and knees with thelantern held low, and made another discovery. 

"This ain't no happen-so, Mr. Lidgerwood, " he said, when he got up. "Thespikes are pulled!"

Lidgerwood said nothing. There are discoveries which are beyond speech. But he stooped to examine for himself. Groner was right. For a distanceof eight or ten feet the rail had been loosened, and the spikes weregone out of the corresponding cross-ties. After it was loosened, therail had been sprung aside, and the bit of rock inserted between theparted ends to keep them from springing together was still in place. 

Lidgerwood's eyes were bloodshot when he rose and said:

"I'd like to ask you two men, as men, what devil out of hell would set atrap like this for a train-load of unoffending passengers?"

Bradford's slow drawl dispelled a little of the mystery. 

"It wasn't meant for Groner and his passenger-wagons, I reckon. In thenatural run of things, it was the 266 and the service-car that oughtto've hit this thing first--204 bein' supposed to be a half-hour off herschedule. It was aimed for us, all right enough. And it wasn't meant tothrow us into the hill, neither. If we'd hit it goin' west, we'd be inthe river. That's why it was sprung out instead of in. "

Lidgerwood's right hand, balled into a fist, smote the air, and hisoutburst was a fierce imprecation. In the midst of it Groner said, "Listen!" and a moment later a man, walking rapidly up the track fromthe direction of Little Butte station, came into the small circle oflantern-light. Groner threw the light on the new-comer, revealing ahaggard face--the face of the owner of the Wire-Silver mine. 

"Heavens and earth, Mr. Lidgerwood--this is awful!" he exclaimed. "Iheard of it by 'phone, and hurried over to do what I could. My men ofthe night-shift are on the way, walking up the track, and the entireWire-Silver outfit is at your disposal. "

"I am afraid you are a little late, Mr. Flemister, " was Lidgerwood'srejoinder, unreasoning antagonism making the words sound crisp andungrateful. "Half an hour ago----"

"Yes, certainly; Goodloe should have 'phoned me, if he knew, " cut in themine-owner. "Anybody hurt?"

"Half of the number involved, and six dead, " said the superintendentsoberly; then the four of them walked slowly and in silence up the tracktoward the two camp-fires, where the unhurt survivors and theservice-car's guests were fighting the chill of the high-mountainmidnight. 

XIX

THE CHALLENGE

Lidgerwood was unpleasantly surprised to find that the president'sdaughter knew the man whom her father had tersely characterized as "aborn gentleman and a born buccaneer, " but the fact remained. When hecame with Flemister into the circle of light cast by the smaller of thetwo fires, Miss Brewster not only welcomed the mine-owner; sheimmediately introduced him to her friends, and made room for him on theflat stone which served her for a seat. 

Lidgerwood sat on a tie-end a little apart, morosely observant. It isthe curse of the self-conscious soul to find itself often at themeeting-point of comparisons. The superintendent knew Flemister alittle, as he had admitted to the president; and he also knew that someof his evil qualities were of the sort which appeal, by the law ofopposites, to the normal woman, the woman who would condemn evil in theabstract, perhaps, only to be irresistibly drawn by some of its purelymasculine manifestations. The cynical assertion that the worst of mencan win the love of the best of women is something both more and lessthan a mere contradiction of terms; and since Eleanor Brewster's manlyideal was apparently builded upon physical courage as its pedestal, Flemister, in his dare-devil character, was quite likely to be the manto embody it. 

But just now the "gentleman buccaneer" was not living up to the fullmeasure of his reputation in the dare-devil field, as Lidgerwood was notslow to observe. His replies to Miss Brewster and the others were notalways coherent, and his face, seen in the flickering firelight, wasalmost ghastly. True, the talk was low-toned and fragmentary; desultoryenough to require little of any member of the group sitting around thesmouldering fire on the spur embankment. Death, in any form, insistsupon its rights, of silence and of respect, and the six motionlessfigures lying under the spread Pullman-car sheets on the other side ofthe spur track were not to be ignored. 

Yet Lidgerwood fancied that of the group circling the fire, Flemisterwas the one whose eyes turned oftenest toward the sheeted figures acrossthe track; sometimes in morbid starings, but now and again with thehaggard side-glance of fear. Why was the mine-owner afraid? Lidgerwoodanalyzed the query shrewdly. Was he implicated in the matter of theloosened rail? Remembering that the trap had been set, not for thepassenger train, but for the special, the superintendent dismissed thecharge against Flemister. Thus far he had done little to incur themine-owner's enmity--at least, nothing to call for cold-blooded murderin reprisal. Yet the man was acting very curiously. Much of the time hescarcely appeared to hear what Miss Brewster was saying to him. Moreover, he had lied. Lidgerwood recalled his glib explanation at themeeting beside the displaced rail. Flemister claimed to have had thenews of the disaster by 'phone: where had he been when the 'phonemessage found him? Not at his mine, Lidgerwood decided, since he couldnot have walked from the Wire-Silver to the wreck in an hour. It was allvery puzzling, and what little suppositional evidence there was, wasconflicting. Lidgerwood put the query aside finally, but with a mentalreservation. Later he would go into this newest mystery and probe it tothe bottom. Judson would doubtless have a report to make, and this mighthelp in the probing. 

Fortunately, the waiting interval was not greatly prolonged;fortunately, since for the three young women the reaction was come andthe full horror of the disaster was beginning to make itself felt. Lidgerwood contrived the necessary diversion when the relief-train fromRed Butte shot around the curve of the hillside cutting. 

"Van Lew, suppose you and Jefferis take the women out of the way for afew minutes, while we are making the transfer, " he suggested quietly. "There are enough of us to do the work, and we can spare you. "

This left Flemister unaccounted for, but with a very palpable effort heshook himself free from the spell of whatever had been shackling him. 

"That's right, " he assented briskly. "I was just going to suggest that. "Then, indicating the men pouring out of the relief train: "I see that mybuckies have come up on your train to lend a hand; command us just thesame as if we belonged to you. That is what we are here for. "

Van Lew and the collegian walked the three young women a little way upthe old spur while the wrecked train's company, the living, the injured, and the dead, were transferring down the line to the relief-train to betaken back to Red Butte. Flemister helped with the other helpers, butLidgerwood had an uncomfortable feeling that the man was always at hiselbow; he was certainly there when the last of the wounded had beencarried around the wreck, and the relief-train was ready to back away toLittle Butte, where it could be turned upon the mine-spur "Y. " It waswhile the conductor of the train was gathering his volunteers fordeparture that Flemister said what he had apparently been waiting for achance to say. 

"I can't help feeling indirectly responsible for this, Mr. Lidgerwood, "he began, with something like a return of his habitual self-possession. "If I hadn't asked you to come over here to-night----"

Lidgerwood interrupted sharply: "What possible difference would thathave made, Mr. Flemister?"

It was not a special weakness of Flemister's to say the damaging thingunder pressure of the untoward and unanticipated event; it is rather acommon failing of human nature. In a flash he appeared to realize thathe had admitted too much. 

"Why--I understood that it was the unexpected sight of your specialstanding on the 'Y' that made the passenger engineer lose his head, " hecountered lamely, evidently striving to recover himself and to effacethe damaging admission. 

It chanced that they were standing directly opposite the break in thetrack where the rail ends were still held apart by the small stone. Lidgerwood pointed to the loosened rail, plainly visible under thevolleying play of the two opposing headlights. 

"There is the cause of the disaster, Mr. Flemister, " he said hotly; "atrap set, not for the passenger-train, but for my special. Somebody setit; somebody who knew almost to a minute when we should reach it. Mr. Flemister, let me tell you something: I don't care any more for my ownlife than a sane man ought to care, but the murdering devil who pulledthe spikes on that rail reached out, unconsciously perhaps, but none theless certainly, after a life that I would safe-guard at the price of myown. Because he did that, I'll spend the last dollar of the fortune myfather left me, if needful, in finding that man and hanging him!"

It was the needed flick of the whip for the shaken nerve of themine-owner. 

"Ah, " said he, "I am sure every one will applaud that determination, Mr. Lidgerwood; applaud it, and help you to see it through. " And then, quiteas calmly: "I suppose you will go back from here with your special, won't you? You can't get down to Little Butte until the track isrepaired, and the wreck cleared. Your going back will make nodifference in the right-of-way matter; I can arrange for a meeting withGrofield at any time--in Angels, if you prefer. "

"Yes, " said Lidgerwood absently, "I am going back from here. "

"Then I guess I may as well ride down to my jumping-off place with mymen; you don't need us any longer. Make my adieux to Miss Brewster andthe young ladies, will you, please?"

Lidgerwood stood at the break in the track for some minutes after theretreating relief-train had disappeared around the steep shoulder of thegreat hill; was still standing there when Bradford, having once moreside-tracked the service-car on the abandoned mine spur, came down toask for orders. 

"We'll hold the siding until Dawson shows up with the wrecking-train, "was the superintendent's reply, "He ought to be here before long. Whereare Miss Brewster and her friends?"

"They are all up at the bonfire. I'm having the Jap launder the car alittle before they move in. "

There was another interval of delay, and Lidgerwood held aloof from thegroup at the fire, pacing a slow sentry beat up and down beside theditched train, and pausing at either turn to listen for the signal ofDawson's coming. It sounded at length: a series of shrillwhistle-shrieks, distance-softened, and presently the drumming ofhasting wheels. 

The draftsman was on the engine of the wrecking-train, and he droppedoff to join the superintendent. 

"Not so bad for my part of it, this time, " was his comment, when he hadlooked the wreck over. Then he asked the inevitable question: "What didit?"

Lidgerwood beckoned him down the line and showed him the sprung rail. Dawson examined it carefully before he rose up to say: "Why didn't theyspring it the other way, if they wanted to make a thorough job of it?That would have put the train into the river. "

Lidgerwood's reply was as laconic as the query. "Because the trap wasset for my car, going west; not for the passenger, going east. "

"Of course, " said the draftsman, as one properly disgusted with his ownlack of perspicacity. Then, after another and more searching scrutiny, in which the headlight glare of his own engine was helped out by theburning of half a dozen matches: "Whoever did that, knew his business. "

"How do you know?"

"Little things. A regular spike-puller claw-bar was used--the marks ofits heel are still in the ties; the place was chosen to the exactrail-length--just where your engine would begin to hug the outside ofthe curve. Then the rail is sprung aside barely enough to let the wheelflanges through, and not enough to attract an engineer's attentionunless he happened to be looking directly at it, and in a good light. "

The superintendent nodded. "What is your inference?" he asked. 

"Only what I say; that the man knew his business. He is no ordinaryhobo; he is more likely in your class, or mine. "

Lidgerwood ground his heel into the gravel, and with the feeling that hewas wasting precious time of Dawson's which should go into thetrack-clearing, asked another question. 

"Fred, tell me; you've known John Judson longer than I have: do youtrust him--when he's sober?"

"Yes. " The answer was unqualified. 

"I think I do, but he talks too much. He is over here, somewhere, to-night, shadowing the man who may have done this. He--and theman--came down on 205 this evening. I saw them both board the train atAngels as it was pulling out. "

Dawson looked up quickly, and for once the reticence which was hiscustomary shield was dropped. 

"You're trusting me, now, Mr. Lidgerwood: who was the man? Gridley?"

"Gridley? No. Why, Dawson, he is the last man I should suspect!"

"All right; if you think so. "

"Don't you think so?"

It was the draftsman's turn to hesitate. 

"I'm prejudiced, " he confessed at length. "I know Gridley; he is a worseman than a good many people think he is--and not so bad as some othersbelieve him to be. If he thought you, or Benson, were getting in hisway--up at the house, you know----"

Lidgerwood smiled. 

"You don't want him for a brother-in-law; is that it, Fred?"

"I'd cheerfully help to put my sister in her coffin, if that were thealternative, " said Dawson quite calmly. 

"Well, " said the superintendent, "he can easily prove an alibi, so faras this wreck is concerned. He went east on 202 yesterday. You knewthat, didn't you?"

"Yes, I knew it, but----"

"But what?"

"It doesn't count, " said the draftsman, briefly. Then: "Who was theother man, the man who came west on 205?"

"I hate to say it, Fred, but it was Hallock. We saw the wreck, all ofus, from the back platform of my car. Williams had just pulled us out onthe old spur. Just before Cranford shut off and jammed on hisair-brakes, a man ran down the track, swinging his arms like a madman. Of course, there wasn't the time or any chance for me to identify him, and I saw him only for the second or two intervening, and with his backtoward us. But the back looked like Hallock's; I'm afraid it wasHallock's. "

"But why should he weaken at the last moment and try to stop the train?"queried Dawson. 

"You forget that it was the special, and not the passenger, that was tobe wrecked. "

"Sure, " said the draftsman. 

"I've told you this, Fred, because, if the man we saw were Hallock, he'll probably turn up while you are at work; Hallock, with Judson athis heels. You'll know what to do in that event?"

"I guess so: keep a sharp eye on Hallock, and make Judson hold histongue. I'll do both. "

"That's all, " said the superintendent. "Now I'll have Bradford pull usup on the spur to give you room to get your baby crane ahead; then youcan pull down and let us out. "

The shifting took some few minutes, and more than a little skill. Whileit was in progress Lidgerwood was in the service-car, trying topersuade the young women to go to his state-room for a little rest andsleep on the return run. In the midst of the argument, the door openedand Dawson came in. From the instant of his entrance it was plain thathe had expected to find the superintendent alone; that he was visiblyand painfully embarrassed. 

Lidgerwood excused himself and went quickly to the embarrassed one, whowas still anchoring himself to the door-knob. "What is it, Fred?" heasked. 

"Judson: he has just turned up, walking from Little Butte, he says, witha pretty badly bruised ankle. He is loaded to the muzzle with news ofsome sort, and he wants to know if you'll take him with you to An--" Thedraftsman, facing the group under the Pintsch globe at the other end ofthe open compartment, stopped suddenly and his big jaw grew rigid. Thenhe said, in an awed whisper, "God! let me get out of here!"

"Tell Judson to come aboard, " said Lidgerwood; and the draftsman wastwisting at the door-knob when Miriam Holcombe came swiftly down thecompartment. 

"Wait, Fred, " she said gently. "I have come all the way out here to askmy question, and you mustn't try to stop me: are you going to keep onletting it make us both desolate--for always?" She seemed not to see orto care that Lidgerwood made a listening third. 

Dawson's face had grown suddenly haggard, and he, too, ignored thesuperintendent. 

"How can you say that to me, Miriam?" he returned almost gruffly. "Dayand night I am paying, paying, and the debt never grows less. If itwasn't for my mother and Faith . .. But I must go on paying. I killedyour brother----"

"No, " she denied, "that was an accident for which you were no more toblame than he was: but you are killing me. "

Lidgerwood stood by, man-like, because he did not know enough to vanish. But Miss Brewster suddenly swept down the compartment to drag him out ofthe way of those who did not need him. 

"You'd spoil it all, if you could, wouldn't you?" she whispered, in afine feminine rage; "and after I have moved heaven and earth to getMiriam to come out here for this one special blessed moment! Go anddrive the others into a corner, and keep them there. "

Lidgerwood obeyed, quite meekly; and when he looked again, Dawson hadgone, and Miss Holcombe was sobbing comfortably in Eleanor's arms. 

Judson boarded the service-car when it was pulled up to the switch; andafter Lidgerwood had disposed of his passengers for the run back toAngels, he listened to the ex-engineer's report, sitting quietly whileJudson told him of the plot and of the plotters. At the close he saidgravely: "You are sure it was Hallock who got off of the night train atSilver Switch and went up the old spur?"

It was a test question, and the engineer did not answer it off-hand. 

"I'd say yes in a holy minute if there wasn't so blamed much else tiedon to it, Mr. Lidgerwood. I was sure, at the time, that it was Hallock;and besides, I heard him talking to Flemister afterward, and I saw hismug shadowed out on the window curtain, just as I've been telling you. All I can say crosswise, is that I didn't get to see him face to faceanywhere; in the gulch, or in the office, or in the mine, or any placeelse. "

"Yet you are convinced, in your own mind?"

"I am. "

"You say you saw him and Flemister get on the hand-car and pumpthemselves down the old spur; of course, you couldn't identify either ofthem from the top of the ridge?"

"That's a guess, " admitted the ex-engineer frankly. "All I could seewas that there were two men on the car. But it fits in pretty good: Ihear 'em plannin' what-all they're going to do; foller 'em a good bitmore'n half-way through the mine tunnel; hike back and hump myself overthe hill, and get there in time to see two men--_some_ two men--rushin'out the hand-car to go somewhere. That ain't court evidence, maybe, butI've seen more'n one jury that'd hang both of 'em on it. "

"But the third man, Judson; the man you saw beating with his fists onthe bulkhead air-lock: who was he?" persisted Lidgerwood. 

"Now you've got me guessin' again. If I hadn't been dead certain that Isaw Hallock go on ahead with Flemister--but I did see him; saw 'em bothgo through the little door, one after the other, and heard it slambefore the other dub turned up. No, " reading the question in thesuperintendent's eye, "not a drop, Mr. Lidgerwood; I ain't touched not, tasted not, n'r handled not--'r leastwise, not to drink any, " and herehe told the bottle episode which had ended in the smashing ofFlemister's sideboard supply. 

Lidgerwood nodded approvingly when the modest narrative reached thebottle-smashing point. 

"That was fine, John, " he said, using the ex-engineer's Christian namefor the first time in the long interview. "If you've got it in you to dosuch a thing as that, at such a time, there is good hope for you. Let'ssettle this question once for all: all I ask is that you prove up onyour good intentions. Show me that you have quit, not for a day or aweek, but for all time, and I shall be only too glad to see you pullingpassenger-trains again. But to get back to this crime of to-night: whenyou left Flemister's office, after telephoning Goodloe, you walked downto Little Butte station?"

"Yes; walked and run. There was nobody there but the bridge watchman. Goodloe had come on up the track to find out what had happened. "

"And you didn't see Flemister or Hallock again?"

"No. "

"Flemister told us he got the news by 'phone, and when he said it thewreck was no more than an hour old. He couldn't have walked down fromthe mine in that time. Where could he have got the message, and fromwhom?"

Judson was shaking his head. 

"He didn't need any message--and he didn't get any. I'd put it up thisway: after that rail-joint was sprung open, they'd go back up the oldspur on the hand-car, wouldn't they? And on the way they'd be prettysure to hear Cranford when he whistled for Little Butte. That'd let 'emknow what was due to happen, right then and there. After that, it'd beeasy enough. All Flemister had to do was to rout out his miners over hisown telephones, jump onto the hand-car again, and come back in time toshow up to you. "

Lidgerwood was frowning thoughtfully. 

"Then both of them must have come back; or, no--that must have been yourthird man who tried to flag Cranford down. Judson, I've got to know whothat third man is. He has complicated things so that I don't dare move, even against Flemister, until I know more. We are not at the ultimatebottom of this thing yet. "

"We're far enough to put the handcuffs onto Mr. Pennington Flemister anytime you say, " asserted Judson. "There was one little thing that Iforgot to put in the report: when you get ready to take that missingswitch-engine back, you'll find it _choo-chooin'_ away up yonder inFlemister's new power-house that he's built out of boards made from Mr. Benson's bridge-timbers. "

"Is that so? Did you see the engine?" queried the superintendentquickly. 

"No, but I might as well have. She's there, all right, and they didn'tcare enough to even muffle her exhaust. "

Lidgerwood took a slender gold-banded cigar from his desk-box, andpassed the box to the ex-engineer. 

"We'll get Mr. Pennington Flemister--and before he is very many hoursolder, " he said definitely. And then: "I wish we were a little morecertain of the other man. "

Judson bit the end from his cigar, but he forbore to light it. The RedDesert had not entirely effaced his sense of the respect due to asuperintendent riding in his own private car. 

"It's a queer sort of a mix-up, Mr. Lidgerwood, " he said, fingering thecigar tenderly. "Knowin' what's what, as some of us do, you'd say themtwo'd never get together, unless it was to cut each other's throats. "

Lidgerwood nodded. "I've heard there was bad blood between them: it wasabout that building-and-loan business, wasn't it?"

"Shucks! no; that was only a drop in the bucket, " said Judson, surprisedout of his attitude of rank-and-file deference. "Hallock was theoriginal owner of the Wire-Silver. Didn't you know that?"

"No. "

"He was, and Flemister beat him out of it--lock, stock, and barrel: justsimply reached out an' took it. Then, when he'd done that, he reachedout and took Hallock's wife--just to make it a clean sweep, was the wayhe bragged about it. "

"Heavens and earth!" ejaculated the listener. Then some of the hiddenthings began to define themselves in the light of this astoundingrevelation: Hallock's unwillingness to go to Flemister for the proof ofhis innocence in the building-and-loan matter; his veiled warning thatevil, and only evil, would come upon all concerned if Lidgerwood shouldinsist; the invasion of the service-car at Copah by the poor dementedcreature whose cry was still for vengeance upon her betrayer. Truly, Flemister had many crimes to answer for. But the revelation madeHallock's attitude all the more mysterious. It was unaccountable saveupon one hypothesis--that Flemister was able to so play upon the man'sweaknesses as to make him a mere tool in his hands. But Judson was goingon to elucidate. 

"First off, we all thought Hallock'd kill Flemister. Rankin was nevermuch of a bragger or much of a talker, but he let out a few hints, and, accordin' to Red Desert rulin's, Flemister wasn't much better than adead man, right then. But it blew over, some way, and now----"

"Now he is Flemister's accomplice in a hanging matter, you would say. I'm afraid you are right, Judson, " was the superintendent's comment; andwith this the subject was dropped. 

The early dawn of the summer morning was graying over the desert whenthe special drew into the Angels yard. Lidgerwood had the yard crewplace the service-car on the same siding with the _Nadia_, and nearenough so that his guests, upon rising, could pass across the platforms. 

That done, and he saw to the doing of it himself, he climbed the stairin the Crow's Nest, meaning to snatch a little sleep before the laborsand hazards of a new day should claim him. But McCloskey, thedour-faced, was waiting for him in the upper corridor--with news thatwould not wait. 

"The trouble-makers have sent us their ultimatum at last, " he saidgruffly. "We cancel the new 'Book of Rules' and reinstate all the menthat have been discharged, or a strike will be declared and every wheelon the line will stop at midnight to-night. "

Weary to the point of mental stagnation, Lidgerwood still had resilienceenough left to rise to the new grapple. 

"Is the strike authorized by the labor union leaders?" he asked. 

McCloskey shook his head. "I've been burning the wires to find out. Itisn't; the Brotherhoods won't stand for it, and our men are pulling itoff by their lonesome. But it'll materialize, just the same. Thestrikers are in the majority, and they'll scare the well-affectedminority to a standstill. Business will stop at twelve o'clock to-night. "

"Not entirely, " said the superintendent, with anger rising. "The mailswill be carried, and perishable freight will continue moving. Get everyman you can enlist on our side, and buy up all the guns you can find andserve them out; we'll prepare to fight with whatever weapons the otherside may force us to use. Does President Brewster know anything aboutthis?"

"I guess not. They had all gone to bed in the _Nadia_ when the grievancecommittee came up. "

"That's good; he needn't know it. He is going over to the Copperette, and we must arrange to get him and his party out of town at once. Thatwill eliminate the women. See to engaging the buckboards for them, andcall me when the president's party is ready to leave. I'm going to restup a little before we lock horns with these pirates, and you'd betterdo the same after you get things shaped up for to-night's hustle. "

"I'm needing it, all right, " admitted the trainmaster. And then; "Wasthis passenger wreck another of the 'assisted' ones?"

"It was. Two men broke a rail-joint on Little Butte side-cutting for myspecial--and caught the delayed passenger instead. Flemister was one ofthe two. "

"And the other?" said McCloskey. 

Lidgerwood did not name the other. 

"We'll get the other man in good time, and if there is any law in thisGod-forsaken desert we'll hang both of them. Have you unloaded it all?If you have, I'll turn in. "

"All but one little item, and maybe you'll rest better if I don't tellyou that right now. "

"Give it a name, " said Lidgerwood crisply. 

"Bart Rufford has broken jail, and he is here, in Angels. "

McCloskey was watching his chief's face, and he was sorry to see thesudden pallor make it colorless. But the superintendent's voice wasquite steady when he said:

"Find Judson, and tell him to look out for himself. Rufford won'tforgive the episode of the 'S'-wrench. That's all--I'm going to bed. "

XX

STORM SIGNALS

Though Lidgerwood had been up for the better part of two nights, and theday intervening, it was apparent to at least one member of thehead-quarters force that he did not go to bed immediately after thearrival of the service-car from the west; the proof being a freshlytyped telegram which Operator Dix found impaled upon his sending-hookwhen he came on duty in the despatcher's office at seven o'clock in themorning. 

The message was addressed to Leckhard, superintendent of the PannikinDivision of the Pacific Southwestern system, at Copah. It was in cipher, and it contained two uncodified words--"Fort" and "McCook, " which smallcircumstance set Dix to thinking--Fort McCook being the army post, twelve miles as the crow flies, down the Pannikin from Copah. 

Now Dix was not one of the rebels. On the contrary, he was one of thefew loyal telegraphers who had promised McCloskey to stand by theLidgerwood management in case the rebellion grew into an organizedattempt to tie up the road. But the young man had, for his chiefweakness, a prying curiosity which had led him, in times past, toexperiment with the private office code until he had finally discoveredthe key to it. 

Hence, a little while after the sending of the Leckhard message, Callahan, the train despatcher, hearing an emphatic "Gee whiz!" fromDix's' corner, looked up from his train-sheet to say, "What hit you, brother?"

"Nothing, " said Dix shortly, but Callahan observed that he was hastilyfolding and pocketing the top sheet of the pad upon which he had beenwriting. Dix went off duty at eleven, his second trick beginning atthree in the afternoon. It was between three and four when McCloskey, having strengthened his defenses in every way he could devise, rapped atthe door of his chief's sleeping-room. Fifteen minutes later Lidgerwoodjoined the trainmaster in the private office. 

"I couldn't let you sleep any longer, " McCloskey began apologetically, "and I don't know but you'll give me what-for as it is. Things arethickening up pretty fast. "

"Put me in touch, " was the command. 

"All right. I'll begin at the front end. Along about ten o'clock thismorning Davidson, the manager of the Copperette, came down to see Mr. Brewster. He gave the president a long song and dance about the toughtrail and the poor accommodations for a pleasure-party up at the mine, and the upshot of it was that Mr. Brewster went out to the mine with himalone, leaving the party in the _Nadia_ here. "

Lidgerwood said "Damn!" and let it go at that for the moment. The thingwas done, and it could not be undone. McCloskey went on with his report, his hat tilted to the bridge of his nose. 

"Taking it for granted that you mean to fight this thing to a coldfinish, I've done everything I could think of. Thanks to Williams andBradford, and a few others like them, we can count on a good third ofthe trainmen; and I've got about the same proportion of the operators inline for us. Taking advantage of the twenty-four-hour notice thestrikers gave us, I've scattered these men of ours east and west on theday trains to the points where the trouble will hit us at twelve o'clockto-night. "

"Good!" said Lidgerwood briefly. "How will you handle it?"

"It will handle itself, barring too many broken heads. At midnight, inevery important office where a striker throws down his pen and groundshis wire, one of our men will walk in and keep the ball rolling. And onevery train in transit at that time, manned by men we're not sure of, there will be a relief crew of some sort, deadheading over the road andready to fall in line and keep it coming when the other fellows fallout. "

Again the superintendent nodded his approval. The trainmaster wasshowing himself at his loyal best. 

"That brings us down to Angels and the present, Mac. How do we standhere?"

"That's what I'd give all my old shoes to know, " said McCloskey, hishomely face emphasizing his perplexity. "They say the shopmen areagainst us, and if that's so we're outnumbered here, six to one. I can'tfind out anything for certain. Gridley is still away, and Dawson hasn'tgot back, and nobody else knows anything about the shop force. "

"You say Dawson isn't in? He didn't have more than five or six hours'work on that wreck. What is the matter?"

"He had a bit of bad luck. He got the main line cleared early thismorning, but in shifting his train and the 'cripples' on the abandonedspur, a culvert broke and let the big crane off. He has been all daygetting it on again, but he'll be in before dark--so Goodloe says. "

"And how about Benson?" queried Lidgerwood. 

"He's on 203. I caught him on the other side of Crosswater, and took theliberty of signing your name to a wire calling him in. "

"That was right. With this private-car party on our hands, we may needevery man we can depend upon. I wish Gridley were here. He could handlethe shop outfit. I'm rather surprised that he should be away. He musthave known that the volcano was about ready to spout. "

"Gridley's a law to himself, " said the trainmaster. "Sometimes I thinkhe's all right, and at other times I catch myself wondering if hewouldn't tread on me like I was a cockroach, if I happened to be in hisway. "

Having had exactly the same feeling, and quite without reason, Lidgerwood generously defended the absent master-mechanic. 

"That is prejudice, Mac, and you mustn't give it room. Gridley's allright. We mustn't forget that his department, thus far, is the only onethat hasn't given us trouble and doesn't seem likely to give us trouble. I wish I could say as much for the force here in the Crows' Nest. "

"With a single exception, you can--to-day, " said McCloskey quickly. "I've cleaned house. There is only one man under this roof at thisminute who won't fight for you at the drop of the hat. "

"And that one is----?"

The trainmaster jerked his head toward the outer office. "It's the manout there--or who was out there when I came through; the one you and Ihaven't been agreeing on. "

"Hallock? Is he here?"

"Sure; he's been here since early this morning. "

"But how--" Lidgerwood's thought went swiftly backward over the eventsof the preceding night. Judson's story had left Hallock somewhere in thevicinity of the Wire-Silver mine and the wreck at some time aboutmidnight, or a little past, and there had been no train in from thattime on until the regular passenger, reaching Angels at noon. It wasMcCloskey who relieved the strain of bewilderment. 

"How did he get here? you were going to say. You brought him fromsomewhere down the road on your special. He rode on the engine withWilliams. "

Lidgerwood pushed his chair back and got up. It was high time for areckoning of some sort with the chief clerk. 

"Is there anything else, Mac?" he asked, closing his desk. 

"Yes; one more thing. The grievance committee is in session up at theCelestial. Tryon, who is heading it, sent word down a little while agothat the men would wreck every dollar's worth of company property inAngels if you didn't countermand your wire of this morning toSuperintendent Leckhard. "

"I haven't wired Leckhard. "

"They say you did; and when I asked 'em what about it, they said you'dknow. "

The superintendent's hand was on the knob of the corridor door. 

"Look it up in Callahan's office, " he said. "If any message has gone toLeckhard to-day, I didn't write it. "

When he closed the door of his private office behind him, Lidgerwood'spurpose was to go immediately to the _Nadia_ to warn the members of thepleasure-party, and to convince them, if possible, of the advisabilityof a prompt retreat to Copah. But there was another matter which waseven more urgent. After the events of the night, it had not beenunreasonable to suppose that Hallock would scarcely be foolhardy enoughto come back and take his place as if nothing had happened. Since hehad come back, there was only one thing to be done, and the safety ofall demanded it. 

Lidgerwood left the Crow's Nest and walked quickly uptown. Contrary tohis expectations, he found the avenue quiet and almost deserted, thoughthere was a little knot of loungers on the porch of the Celestial, andBiggs's bar-room, and Red-Light Sammy's, were full to overflowing. Crossing to the corner opposite the hotel, the superintendent enteredthe open door of Schleisinger's "Emporium. " At the moment there was adearth of trade, and the round-faced little German who had weathered allthe Angelic storms was discovered shaving himself before a triangularbit of looking-glass, stuck up on the packing-box which served him byturns as a desk and a dressing-case. 

"How you vas, Mr. Litchervood?" was his greeting, offered while therazor was on the upward sweep. "Don'd tell me you vas come aboud somemore of dose chustice businesses. Me, I make oud no more of demwarrants, _nichts_. Dot _teufel_ Rufford iss come back again, alretty, and----"

Lidgerwood broke the refusal in the midst. 

"You are an officer of the law, Schleisinger--more is the pity, both foryou and the law--and you must do your duty. I have come to swear outanother warrant. Get your blank and fill it in. "

The German shopkeeper put down his razor with only one side of his faceshaven. "Oh, _mein Gott!_" was his protest; but he rummaged in thecatch-all packing-box and found the pad of blank warrants. Lidgerwooddictated slowly, in charity for the trembling fingers that held the pen. Knowing his own weakness, he could sympathize with others. When it cameto the filling in of Hallock's name, Schleisinger stopped, open-mouthed. 

"_Donnerwetter!_" he gasped, "you don'd mean dot, Mr. Litchervood; youdon'd neffer mean dot?"

"I am sorry to say that I do; sorrier than you or any one else canpossibly be. "

"Bud--bud----"

"I know what you would say, " interrupted Lidgerwood hastily. "You areafraid of Hallock's friends--as you were afraid of Rufford and hisfriends. But you must do your sworn duty. "

"_Nein, nein_, dot ain'd it, " was the earnest denial. "Bud--bud nobodyvould serve a warrant on Mr. Hallock, Mr. Litchervood! I----"

"I'll find some one to serve it, " said the complainant curtly, andSchleisinger made no further objections. 

With the warrant in his pocket, a magistrate's order calling for thearrest and detention of Rankin Hallock on the double charge oftrain-wrecking and murder, Lidgerwood left Schleisinger's, meaning to goback to the Crow's Nest and have McCloskey put the warrant in Judson'shands. But there was a thing to come between; a thing not whollyunlooked for, but none the less destructive of whatever small hope ofregeneration the victim of unreadiness had been cherishing. 

When the superintendent recrossed to the Celestial corner, Mesa Avenuewas still practically deserted, though the group on the hotel porch hadincreased its numbers. Three doors below, in front of Biggs's, a bunchof saddled cow-ponies gave notice of a fresh accession to the bar-roomcrowd which was now overflowing upon the steps and the plank sidewalk. Lidgerwood's thoughts shuttled swiftly. He argued that a brave man wouldneither hurry nor loiter in passing the danger nucleus, and he strovewith what determination there was in him to keep even step with thereasoned-out resolution. 

But once more his weakness tricked him. When the determined stride hadbrought him fairly opposite Biggs's door, a man stepped out of thesidewalk group and calmly pushed him to a stand with the flat of hishand. It was Rufford, and he was saying quite coolly: "Hold up aminute, pardner; I'm going to cut your heart out and feed it to that pupo Schleisinger's that's follerin' you. He looks mighty hungry. "

With reason assuring him that the gambler was merely making agrand-stand play for the benefit of the bar-room crowd wedging itself inBiggs's doorway, Lidgerwood's lips went dry, and he knew that thehaunting terror was slipping its humiliating mask over his face. Butbefore he could say or do any fear-prompted thing a diversion came. Atthe halting moment a small man, red-haired, and with his cap pulled downover his eyes, had separated himself from the group of loungers on theCelestial porch to make a swift détour through the hotel bar, around therear of Biggs's, and so to the street and the sidewalk in front. As oncebefore, and under somewhat less hazardous conditions, he came up behindRufford, and again the gambler felt the pressure of cold metal againsthis spine. 

"It ain't an S-wrench this time, Bart, " he said gently, and the crowd onBiggs's doorstep roared its appreciation of the joke. Then: "Keep yourhands right where they are, and side-step out o' Mr. Lidgerwood'sway--that's business. " And when the superintendent had gone on: "That'sall for the present, Bart. After I get a little more time and ain't sodanged busy I'll borrow another pair o' clamps from Hepburn and take youback to Copah. So long. "

By all the laws of Angelic procedure, Judson should have been promptlyshot in the back when he turned and walked swiftly down the avenue toovertake the superintendent. But for once the onlookers weredisappointed. Rufford was calmly relighting his cigar, and when he hadsufficiently cursed the bar-room audience for not being game enough tostop the interference, he kicked Schleisinger's dog, and turned his backupon Biggs's and its company. 

It was a bit of common human perverseness that kept Lidgerwood fromthanking Judson when the engineer overtook him at the corner of theplaza. Uppermost in his thoughts at the moment was the keen sense ofhumiliation arising upon the conviction that the plucky little man hadsurprised his secret and would despise him accordingly. Hence his firstword to Judson was the word of authority. 

"Go back to Schleisinger and have him swear you in as a deputyconstable, " he directed tersely. "When you are sworn in, come down hereand serve this, " and he gave Judson the warrant for Hallock's arrest. 

The engineer glanced at the name in the body of the warrant and nodded. 

"So you've made up your mind?" he said. 

Lidgerwood was frowning abstractedly up at the windows of Hallock'soffice in the head-quarters building. 

"I don't know, " he said, half hesitantly. "But he is implicated in thatmurderous business of last night--that we both know--and now he is backhere. McCloskey told you that, didn't he?"

Judson nodded again, and Lidgerwood went on, irresistibly impelled tojustify his own action. 

"It would be something worse than folly to leave him at liberty when weare on the ragged edge of a fight. Arrest him wherever you can find him, and take him over to Copah on the first train that serves. He'll have toclear himself, if he can; that's all. "

When Judson, with his huge cow-boy pistol sagging at his hip, had turnedback to do the first part of his errand, Lidgerwood went on around theCrow's Nest and presented himself at the door of the _Nadia_. Happily, for his purpose, he found only Mrs. Brewster and Judge Holcombe inpossession, the young people having gone to climb one of the bare mesahills behind the town for an unobstructed view of the Timanyonis. 

The superintendent left Judge Holcombe out of the proposal which heurged earnestly upon Mrs. Brewster. Telling her briefly of thethreatened strike and its promise of violence and rioting, he tried toshow her that the presence of the private-car party was a menace, aliketo its own members and to him. The run to Copah could be made on aspecial schedule and the party might be well outside of the danger zonebefore the armistice expired. Would she not defer to his judgment andlet him send the _Nadia_ back to safety while there was yet time?

Mrs. Brewster, the placid, let him say his say without interruption. Butwhen he finished, the placidity became active opposition. Thepresident's wife would not listen for a moment to an expedient which didnot--could not--include the president himself. 

"I know, Howard, you're nervous--you can't help being nervous, " shesaid, cutting him to the quick when nothing was farther from herintention. "But you haven't stopped to think what you're asking. Ifthere is any real danger for us--which I can't believe--that is all themore reason why we shouldn't run away and leave your cousin Ned behind. I wouldn't think of it for an instant, and neither would any of theothers. "

Being hurt again in his tenderest part by the quite unconscious gibe, Lidgerwood did not press his proposal further. 

"I merely wished to state the case and to give you a chance to get outand away from the trouble while we could get you out, " he said, a littlestiffly. Then: "It is barely possible that the others may agree with meinstead of with you: will you tell them about it when they come back tothe car, and send word to my office after you have decided in opencouncil what you wish to do? Only don't let it be very late; a delay oftwo or three hours may make it impossible for us to get the _Nadia_ overthe Desert Division. "

Mrs. Brewster promised, and the superintendent went upstairs to hisoffice. A glance into Hallock's room in passing showed him the chiefclerk's box-like desk untenanted, and he wondered if Judson would findhis man somewhere in the town. He hoped so. It would be better for allconcerned if the arrest could be made without too many witnesses. True, Hallock had few friends in the railroad service, at least among thosewho professed loyalty to the management, but with explosives lying abouteverywhere underfoot, one could not be too careful of matches and fire. 

The superintendent had scarcely closed the door upon his entrance intohis own room when it was opened again with McCloskey's hand on thelatch. The trainmaster came to report that a careful search ofCallahan's files had not disclosed any message to Leckhard. Also, headded that Dix, who should have come on duty at three o'clock, was stillabsent. 

"What do you make out of that?" queried Lidgerwood. 

McCloskey's scowl was grotesquely horrible. 

"Bullying or bribery, " he said shortly. "They've got Dix hid away uptownsomewhere. But there was a message, all right, and with your name signedto it. Callahan saw it on Dix's hook this morning before the boy camedown. It was in code, your private code. "

"Call up the Copah offices and have it repeated back, " ordered thesuperintendent. "Let's find out what somebody has been signing my nameto. "

McCloskey shook his grizzled head. "You won't mind if I say that I beatyou to it, this time, will you? I got Orton, a little while ago, on theCopah wire and pumped him. He says there was a code message, and thatDix sent it. But when I asked him to repeat it back here, he said hecouldn't--that Mr. Leckhard had taken it with him somewhere down themain line. "

Lidgerwood's exclamation was profane. The perversity of things, animateand inanimate, was beginning to wear upon him. 

"Go and tell Callahan to keep after Orton until he gets word that Mr. Leckhard has returned. Then have him get Leckhard himself at the otherend of the wire and call me, " he directed. "Since there is only one manbesides myself in Angels who knows the private-office code, I'd like toknow what that message said. "

McCloskey nodded. "You mean Hallock?"

"Yes. "

The trainmaster was half-way to the door when he turned suddenly to say:"You can fire me if you want to, Mr. Lidgerwood, but I've got to say mysay. You're going to let that yellow dog run loose until he bites you. "

"No, I am not. "

"By gravies! I'd have him safe under lock and key before the shindybegins to-night, if it was my job. "

Lidgerwood had turned to his desk and was opening it. 

"He will be, " he announced quietly. "I have sworn out a warrant for hisarrest, and Judson has it and is looking for his man. "

McCloskey smote fist into palm and gritted out an oath ofcongratulation. "That's where you hit the proper nail on the head!" heexclaimed. "He's the king-pin of the whole machine, and if you can pullhim out, the machine will fall to pieces. What charge did you put in thewarrant? I only hope it's big enough to hold him. "

"Train-wrecking and murder, " said Lidgerwood, without looking around;and a moment later McCloskey went out, treading softly as one who findshimself a trespasser on forbidden ground. 

The afternoon sun was poising for its plunge behind the western barrierrange and Lidgerwood had sent Grady, the stenographer, up to the cottageon the second mesa to tell Mrs. Dawson that he would not be up fordinner, when the door opened to admit Miss Brewster. 

"'And the way into my parlor is up a winding stair, '" she quotedblithely and quite as if the air were not thick with threateningpossibilities. "So this is where you live, is it? What a dreary, bleak, blank place!"

"It was, a moment ago; but it isn't, now, " he said, and his sobernessmade the saying something more than a bit of commonplace gallantry. Thenhe gave her his swing-chair as the only comfortable one in the bareroom, adding, "I hope you have come to tell me that your mother haschanged her mind. "

"Indeed I haven't! What do you take us for, Howard?"

"For an exceedingly rash party of pleasure-hunters--if you have decidedto stay here through what is likely to happen before to-morrow morning. Besides, you are making it desperately hard for me. "

She laughed lightly. "If you can't be afraid for yourself, you'll beafraid for other people, won't you? It seems to be one of yournecessities. "

He let the taunt go unanswered. 

"I can't believe that you know what you are facing, any of you, Eleanor. I'll tell you what I told your mother: there will be battle, murder, andsudden death let loose here in Angels before to-morrow morning. And it isso utterly unnecessary for any of you to be involved. "

She rose and stood before him, putting a comradely hand on his shoulder, and looking him fairly in the eyes. 

"There was a ring of sincerity in that, Howard. Do you really mean thatthere is likely to be violence?"

"I do; it is almost certain to come. The trouble has been brewing for along time--ever since I came here, in fact. And there is nothing we cando to prevent it. All we can do is to meet it when it does come, andfight it out. "

"'We, ' you say; who else besides yourself, Howard?" she asked. 

"A little handful of loyal ones. "

"Then you will be outnumbered?"

"Six to one here in town if the shopmen go out. They have alreadythreatened to burn the company's buildings if I don't comply with theirdemands, and I know the temper of the outfit well enough to give it fullcredit for any violence it promises. Won't you go and persuade theothers to consent to run for it, Eleanor? It is simply the height offolly for you to hold the _Nadia_ here. If I could have had ten wordswith your father this morning before he went out to the mine, you wouldall have been in Copah, long ago. Even now, if I could get word to him, I'm sure he would order the car out at once. "

She nodded. 

"Perhaps he would; quite likely he would--and he would stay herehimself. " Then, suddenly: "You may send the _Nadia_ back to Copah on onecondition--that you go with it. "

At first he thought it was a deliberate insult; the cruelest indignityshe had ever put upon him. Knowing his weakness, she was good-naturedenough, or solicitous enough, to try to get him out of harm's way. Thenthe steadfast look in her eyes made him uncertain. 

"If I thought you could say that, realizing what it means--" he began, and then he looked away. 

"Well?" she prompted, and the hand slipped from his shoulder. 

His eyes were coming back to hers. "If I thought you meant that, " herepeated; "if I believed that you could despise me so utterly as tothink for a moment that I would deliberately turn my back upon myresponsibilities here--go away and hunt safety for myself, leaving themen who have stood by me to whatever----"

"You are making it a matter of duty, " she interrupted quite gravely. "Isuppose that is right and proper. But isn't your first duty to yourselfand to those who--" She paused, and then went on in the same steadytone: "I have been hearing some things to-day--some of the things yousaid I would hear. You are well hated in the Red Desert, Howard--hatedso fiercely that this quarrel with your men will be almost a personalone. "

"I know, " he said. 

"They will kill you, if you stay here and let them do it. "

"Quite possibly. "

"Howard! Do you tell me you can stay here and face all this withoutflinching?"

"Oh, no; I didn't say that. "

"But you are facing it!"

He smiled. 

"As I told you yesterday--that is one of the things for which I draw mysalary. Don't mistake me; there is nothing heroic about it--the heroicsare due to come to-night. That is another thing, Eleanor--another reasonwhy I want you to go away. When the real pinch comes, I shall probablydisgrace myself and everybody remotely connected with me. I'd a good bitrather be torn into little pieces, privately, than have you here to bemade ashamed--again. "

She turned away. 

"Tell me, in so many words, what you think will be done to-night--whatare you expecting?"

"I told you a few moments ago, in the words of the Prayer Book: battle, and murder, and sudden death. A strike has been planned, and it willfail. Five minutes after the first strike-abandoned train arrives, thetown will go mad. "

She had come close to him again. 

"Mother won't go and leave father; that is settled. You must do the bestyou can, with us for a handicap. What will you do with us, Howard?"

"I have been thinking about that. The farther you can get away from theshops and the yard, which will be the storm-centre, the safer you willbe. I can have the _Nadia_ set out on the Copperette switch, which is agood half-mile below the town, with Van Lew and Jefferis to standguard----"

"They will both be here, with you, " she interrupted. 

"Then the alternative is to place the car as near as possible to thisbuilding, which will be defended. If there is a riot, you can all comeup here and be out of the way of chance pistol-shots, at least. "

"Ugh!" she shivered. "Is this really civilized America?"

"It's America--without much of the civilization. Now, will you go andtell the others what to expect, and send Van Lew to me? I want to tellhim just what to do and how to do it, while there is time and anundisturbed chance. "

XXI

THE BOSS MACHINIST

Miss Brewster evidently obeyed her instructions precisely, since Van Lewcame almost immediately to tap on the door of the superintendent'sprivate room. 

"Miss Eleanor said you wanted to see me, " he began, when Lidgerwood hadadmitted him; adding: "I was just about to chase out to see what hadbecome of her. "

The frank confession of solicitude was not thrown away upon Lidgerwood, and it cost him an effort to put the athlete on a plane of brotherlyequality as a comrade in arms. But he compassed it. 

"Yes, I asked her to send you up, " he replied. Then: "I suppose you knowwhat we are confronting, Mr. Van Lew?"

"Mrs. Brewster told us as soon as we came back from the hills. Is itlikely to be serious?"

"Yes. I wish I could have persuaded Mrs. Brewster to order the _Nadia_out of it. But she has refused to go and leave Mr. Brewster behind. "

"I know, " said Van Lew; "we have all refused. "

"So Miss Brewster has just told me, " frowned Lidgerwood. "That being thecase, we must make the best of it. How are you fixed for arms in thepresident's car?"

"I have a hunting rifle--a forty-four magazine; and Jefferis has a smallarmory of revolvers--boy-like. "

"Good! The defense of the car, if a riot materializes, will fall uponyou two. Judge Holcombe can't be counted in. I'll give you all the helpI can spare, but you'll have to furnish the brains. I suppose I don'tneed to tell you not to take any chances?"

Van Lew shook his head and smiled. 

"Not while the dear girl whom, God willing, I'm going to marry, is amember of our car-party. I'm more likely to be over-cautious thanreckless, Mr. Lidgerwood. "

Here, in terms unmistakable, was a deep grave in which to bury any poorphantom of hope which might have survived, but Lidgerwood did notadvertise the funeral. 

"She is altogether worthy of the most that you can do for her, and thebest that you can give her, Mr. Van Lew, " he said gravely. Then hepassed quickly to the more vital matter. "The _Nadia_ will be placed onthe short spur track at this end of the building, close in, where youcan step from the rear platform of the car to the station platform. I'lltry to keep watch for you, but you must also keep watch for yourself. Ifany firing begins, get your people out quietly and bring them up here. Of course, none of you will have anything worse than a stray bullet tofear, but the side walls of the _Nadia_ would offer no protectionagainst that. "

Van Lew nodded understandingly. 

"Call it settled, " he said. "Shall I use my own judgment as to theproper moment to make the break, or will you pass us the word?"

Lidgerwood took time to consider. Conditions might arise under which theCrow's Nest would be the most unsafe place in Angels to which to fleefor shelter. 

"Perhaps you would better sit tight until I give the word, " he directed, after the reflective pause. Then, in a lighter vein: "All of thesecareful prefigurings may be entirely beside the mark, Mr. Van Lew; Ihope the event may prove that they were. And until the thing actuallyhits us, we may as well keep up appearances. Don't let the women worryany more than they have to. "

"You can trust me for that, " laughed the athlete, and he went his wayto begin the keeping up of appearances. 

At seven o'clock, just as Lidgerwood was finishing the luncheon whichhad been sent up to his office from the station kitchen, Train 203pulled in from the east; and a little later Dawson's belatedwrecking-train trailed up from the west, bringing the "cripples" fromthe Little Butte disaster. Not to leave anything undone, Lidgerwoodsummoned McCloskey by a touch of the buzzer-push connecting with thetrainmaster's office. 

"No word from Judson yet?" he asked, when McCloskey's homely faceappeared in the doorway. 

"No, not yet, " was the reply. 

"Let me know when you hear from him; and in the meantime I wish youwould go downstairs and see if Gridley came in on 203. If he did, bringhim and Benson up here and we'll hold a council of war. If you seeDawson, send him home to his mother and sister. He can report to melater, if he finds it safe to leave his womankind. "

The door of the outer office had barely closed behind McCloskey whenthat opening into the corridor swung upon its hinges to admit themaster-mechanic. He was dusty and travel-stained, but nothing seemed tostale his genial good-humor. 

"Well, well, Mr. Lidgerwood! so the hoboes have asked to see your hand, at last, have they?" he began sympathetically. "I heard of it over inCopah, just in good time to let me catch 203. You're not going to letthem make you show down, are you?"

"No, " said Lidgerwood. 

"That's right; that's precisely the way to stack it up. Of course, youknow you can count on me. I've got a beautiful lot of pirates over inthe shops, but we'll try to hold them level. " Then, in the same eventone: "They tell me we went into the hole again last night, over atLittle Butte. Pretty bad?"

"Very bad; six killed outright, and as many more to bury later on, I amtold by the Red Butte doctors. "

"Heavens and earth! The men are calling it a broken rail; was it?"

"A loosened rail, " corrected Lidgerwood. 

The master-mechanic's eyes narrowed. 

"Natural?" he asked. 

"No, artificial. "

Gridley swore savagely. 

"This thing's got to stop, Lidgerwood! Sift it, sift it to the bottom!Whom do you suspect?"

It was a plain truth, though an unintentionally misleading one, that thesuperintendent put into his reply. 

"I don't suspect any one, Gridley, " he began, and he was going on to saythat suspicion had grown to certainty, when the latch of the dooropening from the outer office clicked again and McCloskey came in withBenson. The master-mechanic excused himself abruptly when he saw who thetrainmaster's follower was. 

"I'll go and get something to eat, " he said hurriedly; "after which I'llpick up a few men whom we can depend upon and garrison the shops. Sendover for me if you need me. "

Benson looked hard at the door which was still quivering under Gridley'soutgoing slam. And when the master-mechanic's tread was no longeraudible in the upper corridor, the young engineer turned to the man atthe desk to say: "What tickled the boss machinist, Lidgerwood?"

"I don't know. Why?"

Benson looked at McCloskey. 

"Just as we came in, he was standing over you with a look in his eyes asif he were about to murder you, and couldn't quite make up his mind asto the simplest way of doing it. Then the look changed to his usualcast-iron smile in the flirt of a flea's hind leg--at some joke you weretelling, I took it. "

Being careful and troubled about many things, Lidgerwood missed thepoint of Benson's remark; could not remember, when he tried, just whatit was that he had been saying to Gridley when the interruption came. But the matter was easily dismissed. Having his two chief lieutenantsbefore him, the superintendent seized the opportunity to outline theplan of campaign for the night. McCloskey was to stay by the wires, withCallahan to share his watch. Dawson, when he should come down, was topick up a few of the loyal enginemen and guard the roundhouse. Bensonwas to take charge of the yards, keeping his eye on the _Nadia_. At thefirst indication of an outbreak, he was to pass the word to Van Lew, whowould immediately transfer the private-car party to the second-flooroffices in the head-quarters building. 

"That is all, " was Lidgerwood's summing up, when he had made hisdispositions like a careful commander-in-chief; "all but one thing. Mac, have you seen anything of Hallock?"

"Not since the middle of the afternoon, " was the prompt reply. 

"And Judson has not yet reported?"

"No. "

"Well--this is for you, Benson--Mac already knows it: Judson is outlooking for Hallock. He has a warrant for Hallock's arrest. "

Benson's eyes narrowed. 

"Then you have found the ringleader at last, have you?" he asked. 

"I am sorry to say that there doesn't seem to be any doubt of Hallock'sguilt. The arrest will be made quietly. Judson understands that. Thereis another man that we've got to have, and there is no time just now togo after him. "

"Who is the other man?" asked Benson. 

"It is Flemister; the man who has the stolen switching-engine boxed upin a power-house built out of planks sawed from your Gloriabridge-timbers. "

"I told you so!" exclaimed the young engineer. "By Jove! I'll neverforgive you if you don't send him to the rock-pile for that, Lidgerwood!"

"I have promised to hang him, " said the superintendent soberly--"him andthe man who has been working with him. "

"And that's Rankin Hallock!" cut in the trainmaster vindictively, andhis scowl was grotesquely hideous. "Can you hang them, Mr. Lidgerwood?"

"Yes. Flemister, and a man whom Judson has identified as Hallock, werethe two who ditched 204 at Silver Switch last night. The charge inJudson's warrant reads, 'train-wrecking and murder. '"

The trainmaster smote the desk with his fist. 

"I'll add one more strand to the rope--Hallock's rope, " he grittedferociously. "You remember what I told you about that loosened rail thatcaused the wreck in the Crosswater Hills? You said Hallock had gone toNavajo to see Cruikshanks; he did go to Navajo, but he got there justexactly four hours after 202 had gone on past Navajo, and he came onfoot, walking down the track from the Hills!"

"Where did you get that?" asked Lidgerwood quickly. 

"From the agent at Navajo. I wasn't satisfied with the way it shaped up, and I did a little investigating on my own hook. "

"Pass him up, " said Benson briefly, "and let's go over this lay-out forto-night again. I shall be out of touch down in the yards, and I want toget it straight in my head. "

Lidgerwood went carefully over the details again, and again cautionedBenson about the _Nadia_ and its party. From that the talk ran upon theill luck which had projected the pleasure-party into the thick ofthings; upon Mrs. Brewster's obstinacy--which Lidgerwood mostinconsistently defended--and upon the probability of the president'sreturn from the Copperette--also in the thick of things, and it wasclose upon eight o'clock when the two lieutenants went to theirrespective posts. 

It was fully an hour farther along, and the tense strain of suspense wasbeginning to tell upon the man who sat thoughtful and alone in thesecond-floor office of the Crow's Nest, when Benson ran up to report thesituation in the yards. 

"Everything quiet so far, " was the news he brought. "We've got the Nadiaon the east spur, where the folks can slip out and make their get-away, if they have to. There are several little squads of the discharged menhanging around, but not many more than usual. The east and west yardsare clear, and the three sections of the mid-night freight are crewedand ready to pull out when the time comes. The folkses are playing dummywhist in the Nadia; and Gridley is holding the fort at the shops withthe toughest-looking lot of myrmidons you ever laid your eyes on. "

Once again Lidgerwood was making tiny squares on his desk blotter. 

"I'm thankful that the news of the strike got to Copah in time to bringGridley over on 203, " he said. 

Benson's boyish eyes opened to their widest angle. 

"Did he say he came in on Two-three?" he asked. 

"He did. "

"Well, that's odd--devilish odd! I was on that train, and I rambled itfrom one end to the other--which is a bad habit I have when I'm tryingto kill travel-time. Gridley isn't a man to be easily overlooked. Reckonhe was riding on the brake-beams? He was dirty enough to make the guessgood. Hello, Fred"--this to Dawson, who had at that moment let himselfin through the deserted outer office--"we were just talking about yourboss, and wondering how he got here from Copah on Two-three without myseeing him. "

"He didn't come from Copah, " said the draftsman briefly. "He came inwith me from the west, on the wrecking-train. He was in Red Butte, andhe had an engine bring him down to Silver Switch, where he caught usjust as we were pulling out. "

XXII

THE TERROR

Engineer John Judson, disappearing at the moment when the superintendenthad sent him back to bully Schleisinger into appointing him constable, from the ken of those who were most anxious to hear from him, was latein reporting. But when he finally climbed the stair of the Crow's Nestto tap at Lidgerwood's door, he brought the first authentic news fromthe camp of the enemy. 

When McCloskey had come at a push of the call-button, Lidgerwood snappedthe night-latch on the corridor door. 

"Let us have it, Judson, " he said, when the trainmaster had dragged hischair into the circle of light described by the green cone shade of thedesk lamp. "We have been wondering what had become of you. "

Summarized, Judson's story was the report of an intelligent scout. Sincehe was classed with the discharged men, he had been able to find outsome of the enemy's moves in the game of coercion. The strikers hadtransferred their head-quarters from the Celestial to Cat Biggs's place, where the committees, jealously safeguarded, were now sitting "inpermanence" in the back room. Judson had not been admitted to thecommittee-room; but the thronged bar-room was public, and the liquorwhich was flowing freely had loosened many tongues. 

From the bar-room talk Judson had gathered that the strikers knewnothing as yet of McCloskey's plan to keep the trains moving and thewires alive. Hence--unless the free-flowing whiskey should precipitatematters--there would probably be no open outbreak before midnight. As anoffset to this, however, the engineer had overheard enough to convincehim that the Copah wire had been tapped; that Dix, the day operator, hadbeen either bribed or intimidated, and was now under guard at thestrikers' head-quarters, and that some important message had beenintercepted which was, in Judson's phrase, "raising sand" in the camp ofthe disaffected. This recurrence of the mysterious message, of which notrace could be found in the head-quarters record, opened a fresh fieldof discussion, and it was McCloskey who put his finger upon the onlyplausible conclusion. 

"It is Hallock again, " he rasped. "He is the only man who could haveused the private code. Dix probably picked out the cipher; he's got aweakness for such things. Hallock's carrying double. He has fixed upsome trouble-making message, or faked one, and signed your name to it, and then schemed to let it leak out through Dix. "

"It's making the trouble, all right, " was Judson's comment. "When I leftBiggs's a few minutes ago, Tryon was calling for volunteers to come downhere and steal an engine. From what he said, I took it they were aimin'to go over into the desert to tear up the track and stop somebody orsomething coming this way from Copah--all on account of thatmake-believe message that you didn't send. "

Thus far Judson's report had dealt with facts. But there were otherthings deducible. He insisted that the strength of the insurrection didnot lie in the dissatisfied employees of the Red Butte Western, or evenin the ex-employees; it was rather in the lawless element of the townwhich lived and fattened upon the earnings of the railroad men--thesaloon-keepers, the gamblers, the "tin-horns" of every stripe. Moreover, it was certain that some one high in authority in the railroad servicewas furnishing the brains. There was a chief to whom all the malcontentsdeferred, and who figured in the bar-room talk as the "boss, " or "thebig boss. "

"And that same 'big boss' is sitting up yonder in Cat Biggs's back room, right now, givin' his orders and tellin' 'em what to do, " was Judson'scrowning guess, and since Hallock had not been visible since the earlyafternoon, for the three men sitting under the superintendent's desklamp, Judson's inference stood as a fact assured. It was Hallock who hadfomented the trouble; it was Hallock who was now directing it. 

"I suppose you didn't see anything of Grady, my stenographer?" inquiredLidgerwood, when Judson had made an end. 

The engineer shook his head. "Reckon they've got him cooped up alongwith Dix?"

"I hope not. But he has disappeared. I sent him up to Mrs. Dawson's witha message late this afternoon, and he hasn't shown up since. "

"Of course, they've got him, " said McCloskey, sourly. "Does he knowanything that he can tell?"

"Nothing that can make any difference now. They are probably holding himto hamper me. The boy's loyal. "

"Yes, " growled McCloskey, "and he's Irish. "

"Well, my old mother is Irish, too, for the matter of that, " snappedJudson. "If you don't like the Irish, you'll be finding a chip on myshoulder any day in the week, except to-day, Jim McCloskey!"

Lidgerwood smiled. It brought a small relaxing of strains to hear thesetwo resurrecting the ancient race feud in the midst of the troublestorm. And when the trainmaster returned to his post in the wire office, and Judson had been sent back to Biggs's to renew his search for thehidden ring-leader, it was the memory of the little race tiff thatcleared the superintendent's brain for the grapple with the newlydefined situation. 

Judson's report was grave enough, but it brought a good hope that thecrucial moment might be postponed until many of the men would be too fargone in liquor to take any active part. Lidgerwood took the precautionsmade advisable by Tryon's threat to steal an engine, sending word toBenson to double his guards on the locomotives in the yard, and toDawson to block the turn-table so that none might be taken from theroundhouse. 

Afterward he went out to look over the field in person. Everything wasquiet; almost suspiciously so. Gridley was found alone in his office atthe shops, smoking a cigar, with his chair tilted to a comfortableangle and his feet on the desk. His guards, he said, were posted in andaround the shops, and he hoped they were not asleep. Thus far, there hadbeen little enough to keep them awake. 

Lidgerwood, passing out through the door opening upon theelectric-lighted yard, surprised a man in the act of turning the knob toenter. It was the merest incident, and he would not have remarked it ifthe door, closing behind Gridley's visitor, had not bisected a violentoutburst of profanity, vocalizing itself in the harsh tones of themaster-mechanic, as thus: "You ---- ---- chuckle-headed fool! Haven'tyou any better sense than to come--" At this point the closing door cutthe sentence of objurgation, and Lidgerwood continued his round ofinspection, trying vainly to recall the identity of the chance-met manwhose face, half hidden under the drooping brim of a worn campaign-hat, was vaguely familiar. The recollection came at length, with the impactof a blow. The "chuckle-headed fool" of Gridley's malediction wasRichard Rufford, the "Killer's" younger brother. 

Lidgerwood said nothing of this incident to Dawson, whom he foundpatrolling the roundhouse. Here, as at the shops and in the yard, everything was quiet and orderly. The crews for the three sections ofthe midnight freight were all out, guarding their trains and engines, and Dawson had only Bradford and the roundhouse night-men for company. 

"Nothing stirring, Fred?" inquired the superintendent. 

"Less than nothing; it's almost too quiet, " was the sober reply. Andthen: "I see you haven't sent the _Nadia_ out; wouldn't it be a goodscheme to get a couple of buckboards and have the women and JudgeHolcombe driven up to our place on the mesa? The trouble, when it comes, will come this way. "

Lidgerwood shook his head. 

"My stake in the _Nadia_ is precisely the same size as yours, Fred, andI don't want to risk the buckboard business. We'll do a better thingthan that, if we have to let the president's party make a run for it. Get your smartest passenger flyer out on the table, head it east, andwhen I send for it, rush it over to couple on to the _Nadia_--withWilliams for engineer. Has Benson had any trouble in the yard?"

"There has been nobody to make any. Tryon came down a few minutes ago, considerably more than half-seas over, and said he was ready to takehis engine and the first section of the east-bound midnight--which wouldhave been his regular run. But he went back uptown peaceably when Bensontold him he was down and out. "

Lidgerwood did not extend his round to include Benson's post at the yardoffice, which was below the coal chutes. Instead, he went over to theNadia, thinking pointedly of the two added mysteries: the fact thatGridley had told a deliberate lie to account for his appearance inAngels, and the other and more recent fact that the master-mechanic wasconferring, even in terms of profanity, with Rufford's brother, who wasnot, and never had been, in his department. 

Under the "umbrella roof" of the _Nadia's_ rear platform the youngpeople of the party were sitting out the early half of the perfectsummer night, the card-tables having been abandoned when Benson hadbrought word of the tacit armistice. There was an unoccupied camp-chair, and Miss Brewster pointed it out to the superintendent. 

"Climb over and sit with us, Howard, " she said, hospitably. "You knowyou haven't a thing in the world to do. "

Lidgerwood swung himself over the railing, and took the proffered chair. 

"You are right; I haven't very much to do just now, " he admitted. 

"Has your strike materialized yet?" she asked. 

"No; it isn't due until midnight. "

"I don't believe there is going to be any. "

"Don't you? I wish I might share your incredulity--with reason. "

Miss Doty and the others were talking about the curious blending of themoonlight with the masthead electrics, and the two in the shadowedcorner of the deep platform were temporarily ignored. Miss Brewster tookadvantage of the momentary isolation to say, "Confess that you were alittle bit over-wrought this afternoon when you wanted to send us away:weren't you?"

"I only hope that the outcome will prove that I was, " he rejoinedpatiently. 

"You still believe there will be trouble?"

"Yes. "

"Then I'm afraid you are still overwrought, " she countered lightly. "Why, the very atmosphere of this beautiful night breathes peace. "

Before he could reply, a man came up to the platform railing, touchedhis cap, and said, "Is Mr. Lidgerwood here?"

Lidgerwood answered in person, crossing to the railing to hear Judson'slatest report, which was given in hoarse whispers. Miss Brewster coulddistinguish no word of it, but she heard Lidgerwood's reply. "TellBenson and Dawson, and say that the engine I ordered had better be sentup at once. "

When Lidgerwood had resumed his chair he was promptly put upon thequestion rack of Miss Eleanor's curiosity. 

"Was that one of your scouts?" she asked. 

"Yes. "

"Did he come to tell you that there wasn't going to be any strike?"

"No. "

"How lucidly communicative you are! Can't you see that I am fairlystifling with curiosity?"

"I'm sorry, but you shall not have the chance to say that I wasoverwrought twice in the same half-day. "

"Howard! Don't be little and spiteful. I'll eat humble pie and callmyself hard names, if you insist; only--gracious goodness! is thatengine going to smash into our car?"

The anxious query hinged itself upon the approach of a big, eight-wheeled passenger flyer which was thundering down the yard on thetrack occupied by the _Nadia_. Within half a car-length of collision, the air-brake hissed, the siderods clanked and chattered, and theshuddering monster rolled gently backward to a touch coupling with thepresident's car. 

Eleanor's hand was on her cousin's arm. "Howard, what does this mean?"she demanded. 

"Nothing, just at present; it is merely a precaution. "

"You are not going to take us away from Angels?"

"Not now; not at all, unless your safety demands it. " Then he rose andspoke to the others. "I'm sorry to have to shut off your moon-vista withthat noisy beast, but it may be necessary to move the car, later on. Don't get out of touch with the _Nadia_, any of you, please. "

He had vaulted the hand-rail and was saying good-night, when Eleanorleft her chair and entered the car. He was not greatly surprised to findher waiting for him at the steps of the forward vestibule when he hadgone so far on his way to his office. 

"One moment, " she pleaded. "I'll be good, Howard; and I know that there_is_ danger. Be very careful of yourself, won't you, for my sake. "

He stopped short, and his arms went out to her. Then his self-controlreturned and his rejoinder was almost bitter. 

"Eleanor, you must not! you tempt me past endurance! Go back to Van--tothe others, and, whatever happens, don't let any one leave the car. "

"I'll do anything you say, only you _must_ tell me where you are going, "she insisted. 

"Certainly; I am going up to my office--where you found me thisafternoon. I shall be there from this on, if you wish to send any word. I'll see that you have a messenger. Good-by. "

He left her before her sympathetic mood should unman him, his soulcrying out at the kindness which cut so much more deeply than hermockery. At the top of the corridor stair McCloskey was waiting for him. 

"Judson has told you what's due to happen?" queried the trainmaster. 

"He told me to look for swift trouble; that somebody had betrayed yourstrike-breaking scheme. "

"He says they'll try to keep the east-bound freights from going out. "

"That would be a small matter. But we mustn't lose the moral effect oftaking the first trick in the game. Are the sections all in line on thelong siding?"

"Yes. "

"Good. We'll start them a little ahead of time; and let them kill backto schedule after they get out on the road. Send Bogard down with theirclearance orders, and 'phone Benson at the yard office to couple them upinto one train, engine to the caboose in front, and send them out solid. When they have cleared the danger limit, they can split up and take theproper time intervals--ten minutes apart. "

"Call it done, " said the trainmaster, and he went to carry out theorder. Two minutes later Bogard, the night-relief operator off duty, darted out of the despatcher's room with the clearance-cards for thethree sections. Lidgerwood stopped him in mid-flight. 

"One second, Robert: when you have done your errand, come back to thepresident's car, ask for Miss Brewster, and say that I sent you. Thenstay within call and be ready to do whatever she wants you to do. "

Bogard did the first part of his errand swiftly, and he was taking theduplicate signatures of the engineer and conductor of the third and lastsection when Benson came up to put the solid-train order into effect. The couplings were made deftly and without unnecessary stir. Then Bensonstepped back and gave the starting signal, twirling his lantern in rapidcircles. Synchronized as perfectly as if a single throttle-levercontrolled them all, the three heavy freight-pullers hissed, strained, belched fire, and the long train began to move out. 

It was Lidgerwood's challenge to the outlaws, and as if the blasts ofthe three tearing exhausts had been the signal it was awaiting, thestrike storm broke with the suddenness and fury of a tropical hurricane. From a hundred hiding-places in the car-strewn yard, men came running, some to swarm thickly upon the moving engines and cabooses, othersswinging by the drawheads to cut the air-brake hose. 

Benson was swept aside and overpowered before he could strike a blow. Bogard, speeding across to take his post beside the _Nadia_, was struckdown before he could get clear of the pouring hornet swarm. Shots werefired; shrill yells arose. Into the midst of the clamor the great sirenwhistle at the shops boomed out the fire alarm, and almost at the thesame instant a red glow, capped by a rolling nimbus of sooty oil smoke, rose to beacon the destruction already begun in the shop yards. Andwhile the roar of the siren was still jarring upon the windless nightair, the electric-light circuits were cut out, leaving the yards and theCrow's Nest in darkness, and the frantic battle for the trains to belighted only by the moon and the lurid glow of destruction spreadingslowly under its black canopy of smoke. 

In the Crow's Nest the sudden coup of the strikers had the effect whichits originator had doubtless counted upon. It was some minutes after thelights were cut off, and the irruption had swept past the captured anddisabled trains to the shops, before Lidgerwood could get his smallgarrison together and send it, with McCloskey for its leader, toreinforce the shop guard, which was presumably fighting desperately forthe control of the power plant and the fire pumps. 

Only McCloskey's protest and his own anxiety for the safety of the_Nadia's_ company, kept Lidgerwood from leading the little relief columnof loyal trainmen and head-quarters clerks in person. The lust of battlewas in his blood, and for the time the shrinking palsy of physical fearheld aloof. 

When the sally of the trainmaster and his forlorn-hope squad had leftthe office-story of the head-quarters building almost deserted, it wasthe force of mere mechanical habit that sent Lidgerwood back to his roomto close his desk before going down to order the _Nadia_ out of the zoneof immediate danger. There was a chair in his way, and in the darknessand in his haste he stumbled over it. When he recovered himself, twomen, with handkerchief masks over their faces, were entering from thecorridor, and as he turned at the sound of their footsteps, they sprangupon him. 

For the first rememberable time in his life, Howard Lidgerwood met thechallenge of violence joyfully, with every muscle and nerve singing thebattle-song, and a huge willingness to slay or be slain arming him forthe hand-to-hand struggle. Twice he drove the lighter of the two to thewall with well-planted blows, and once he got a deadly wrestler's holdon the tall man and would have killed him if the free accomplice had nottorn his locked fingers apart by main strength. But it was two againstone; and when it was over, the conflagration light reddening thesouthern windows sufficed for the knotting of the piece of hemp lashingwith which the two masked garroters were binding their victim in hischair. 

Meanwhile, the pandemonium raging at the shops was beginning to surgebackward into the railway yard. Some one had fired a box-car, and theupblaze centred a fresh fury of destruction. Up at the head of thethree-sectioned freight train a mad mob was cutting the leadinglocomotive free. 

Dawson, crouching in the roundhouse door directly opposite, knew allthat Judson could tell him, and he instantly divined the purpose of theengine thieves. They were preparing to send the freight engine eastwardon the Desert Division main line to collide with and wreck whatevercoming thing it was that they feared. 

The threatened deed wrought itself out before the draftsman could evenattempt to prevent it. A man sprang to the footboard of the freedlocomotive, jerked the throttle open, stayed at the levers long enoughto hook up to the most effective cut-off for speed, and jumped for hislife. 

Dawson was deliberate, but not slow-witted. While the abandoned enginewas, as yet, only gathering speed for the eastward dash, he was dodgingthe straggling rioters in the yard, racing purposefully for the onlyavailable locomotive, ready and headed to chase the runaway--namely, thebig eight-wheeler coupled to the president's car. He set the switch tothe main line as he passed it, but there was no time to uncouple theengine from the private car, even if he had been willing to leave thewoman he loved, and those with her, helpless in the midst of therioting. 

So there was no more than a gasped-out word to Williams as he climbed tothe cab before the eight-wheeler, with the _Nadia_ in tow, shot awayfrom the Crow's Nest platform. And it was not until the car wasgrowling angrily over the yard-limit switches that Van Lew burst intothe central compartment like a man demented, to demand excitedly of thethree women who were clinging, terror-stricken, to Judge Holcombe:

"Who has seen Miss Eleanor? Where is Miss Eleanor?"

XXIII

THE CRUCIBLE

Only Miss Brewster herself could have answered the question of herwhereabouts at the exact moment of Van Lew's asking. She was leftbehind, standing aghast in the midst of tumults, on the platform of theCrow's Nest. Terrified, like the others, at the sudden outburst ofviolence, she had ventured from the car to look for Lidgerwood'smessenger, and in the moment of frightened bewilderment the _Nadia_ hadbeen whisked away. 

Naturally, her first impulse was to fly, and the only refuge thatoffered was the superintendent's office on the second floor. Thestairway door was only a little distance down the platform, and she waspresently groping her way up the stair, praying that she might not findthe offices as dark and deserted as the lower story of the buildingseemed to be. 

The light of the shop-yard fire, and that of the burning box-car nearerat hand, shone redly through the upper corridor windows, enabling herto go directly to the open door of the superintendent's office. But whenshe reached the door and looked within, the trembling terror returnedand held her spell-bound, speechless, unable to move or even to cry out. 

What she saw fitted itself to nothing real; it was more like a sceneclipped from a play. Two masked men were covering with revolvers athird, who was tied helpless in a chair. The captive's face was ghastlyand blood-stained, and at first she thought he was dead. Then she sawhis lips move in curious twitchings that showed his teeth. He seemed tobe trying to speak, but the ruffian at his right would not give himleave. 

"This is where you pass out, Mr. Lidgerwood, " the man was sayingthreateningly. "You give us your word that you will resign and leave theRed Butte Western for keeps, or you'll sit in that chair till somebodycomes to take you out and bury you. "

The twitching lips were controlled with what appeared to be an almostsuperhuman effort, but the words came jerkily. 

"What would my word, extorted--under such conditions--be worth to you?"

Eleanor could hear, in spite of the terror that would not let her cryout or run for help. He was yielding to them, bargaining for his life!

"We'll take it, " said the spokesman coolly. "If you break faith with usthere are more than two of us who will see to it that you don't livelong enough to brag about it. You've had your day, and you've got togo. "

"And if I refuse?" Eleanor made sure that the voice was steadier now. 

"It's this, here and now, " grated the taller man who had hitherto keptsilence, and he cocked his revolver and jammed the muzzle of it againstthe bleeding temple of the man in the chair. 

The captive straightened himself as well as his bonds would let him. 

"You--you've let the psychological moment go by, gentlemen: I--I've gotmy second wind. You may burn and destroy and shoot as you please, butwhile I'm alive I'll stay with you. Blaze away, if that's what you wantto do. "

The horror-stricken watcher at the door covered her face with her handsto shut out the sight of the murder. It was not until Lidgerwood'svoice, calm and even-toned and taunting, broke the silence that sheventured to look again. 

[Illustration: "Well, gentlemen, I'm waiting. Why don't you shoot?"]

"Well, gentlemen, I'm waiting. Why don't you shoot? You are greatercowards than I have ever been, with all my shiverings andteeth-chatterings. Isn't the stake big enough to warrant your lastdesperate play? I'll make it bigger. You are the two men who broke therail-joint at Silver Switch. Ah, that hits you, doesn't it?"

"Shut up!" growled the tall man, with a frightful imprecation. But thesmaller of the two was silent. 

Lidgerwood's grin was ghastly, but it was nevertheless a teeth-baring ofdefiance. 

"You curs!" he scoffed. "You haven't even the courage of your ownnecessities! Why don't you pluck up the nerve to shoot, and be done withit? I'll make it still more binding upon you: if you don't kill me now, while you have the chance, as God is my witness I'll hang you both forthose murders last night at Silver Switch. I know you, in spite of yourflimsy disguise: _I can call you both by name_!"

Out in the yard the yellings and shoutings had taken on a new note, andthe windows of the upper room were jarring with the thunder of incomingtrains. Eleanor Brewster heard the new sounds vaguely: the jangle andclank of the trains, the quick, steady tramp of disciplined men, snapped-out words of command, the sudden cessation of the riot clamor, and now a shuffling of feet on the stairway behind her. 

Still she could not move; still she was speechless and spell-bound, butno longer from terror. Her cousin--her lover--how she had misjudged him!He a coward? This man who was holding his two executioners at bay, quelling them, cowing them, by the sheer force of the stronger will, andof a courage that was infinitely greater than theirs?

The shuffling footsteps came nearer, and once again Lidgerwoodstraightened himself in his chair, this time with a mighty struggle thatbroke the knotted cords and freed him. 

"I said I could name you, and I will!" he cried, springing to his feet. "You, " pointing to the smaller man, "you are Pennington Flemister; andyou, " wheeling upon the tall man and lowering his voice, "you are RankinHallock!"

The light of the fire in the shop yard had died down until its red glowno longer drove the shadows from the corners of the room. Eleanor shrankaside when a dozen men pushed their way into the private office. Then, suddenly the electric lights went on, and a gruff voice said, "Drop themguns, you two. The show's over. "

It was McCloskey who gave the order, and it was obeyed sullenly. Withthe clatter of the weapons on the floor, the door of the outer officeopened with a jerk, and Judson thrust a hand-cuffed prisoner of his owncapturing into the lighted room. 

"There he is, Mr. Lidgerwood, " snarled the engineer-constable. "I nabbedhim over yonder at the fire, workin' to put it out, just as if he hadn'ttold his gang to go and set it!"

"Hallock!" exclaimed the superintendent, starting as if he had seen aghost. "How is this? Are there two of you?"

Hallock looked down moodily. "There were two of us who wanted your job, and the other one needed it badly enough to wreck trains and to killpeople, and to lead a lot of pig-headed trainmen and mechanics into ariot to cover his tracks. "

Lidgerwood turned quickly. "Unmask those men, McCloskey. "

It was the signal for a tumult. The tall man fought desperately topreserve his disguise, but Flemister's mask was torn off in the firstrush. Then came a diversion, sudden and fiercely tragic. With a cry ofrage that was like the yell of a madman, Hallock flung himself upon themine-owner, beating him down with his manacled hands, choking him, grinding him into the dust of the floor. And when the avenger of wrongswas pulled off and dragged to his feet, Lidgerwood, looking past thedeath grapple, saw the figure of a woman swaying at the corridor door;saw the awful horror in her eyes. In the turning of a leaf he had foughthis way to her. 

"Good heavens, Eleanor!" he gasped. "What are you doing here?" and hefaced her about quickly and led her into the corridor lest she shouldsee the distorted features of the victim of Hallock's vengeance. 

"I came--they took the car away, and I--I was left behind, " shefaltered. And then: "Oh, Howard! take me away; hide me somewhere! It'stoo horrible!"

There was a bull-bellow of rage from the room they had just left, andLidgerwood hurried his companion into the first refuge that offered, which chanced to be the trainmaster's room. Out of the private officeand into the corridor came the taller of the two garroters, holding hismask in place as he ran, with McCloskey, Judson, and all but one or twoof the others in hot pursuit. 

Notwithstanding, the fugitive gained the stair and fell, rather thanran, to the bottom. There was the crash of a bursting door, a soldierlycommand of "Halt!" the crack of a cavalry rifle, and McCloskey cameback, wiping his homely face with a bandanna. 

"They got him, " he said; and then, seeing Eleanor for the first time, his jaw dropped and he tried to apologize. "Excuse me, Miss Brewster; Ididn't have the least idea you were up here. "

"Nothing matters now, " said Eleanor, pale to the lips. "Come in here andtell us about it. And--and--is mamma safe?"

"She's down-stairs in the _Nadia_, with the others--where I supposed youwere, " McCloskey began; but Lidgerwood heard the feet of those who werecarrying Flemister's body from the chamber of horrors, and quicklyshutting the door on sight and sounds, started the trainmaster on thestory which must be made to last until the way was clear of things awoman should not see. 

"Who was the tall man?" he asked. "I thought he was Hallock--I calledhim Hallock. "

The trainmaster shook his head. "They're about the same build; but wewere all off wrong, Mr. Lidgerwood--'way off. It's been Gridley: Gridleyand his side-partner, Flemister, all along. Gridley was the man whojumped the passenger at Crosswater Hills, and took up the rail to ditchClay's freight--with Hallock chasing him and trying to prevent it. Gridley was the man who helped Flemister last night at SilverSwitch--with Hallock trying again to stop him, and Judson trying tokeep tab on Hallock, and getting him mixed up with Gridley at everyturn, even to mistaking Gridley's voice and his shadow on thewindow-curtain for Hallock's. Gridley was the man who stole theswitch-engine and ran it over the old Wire-Silver spur to the mine tosell it to Flemister for his mine power-plant--they've got it boxed upand running there, right now. Gridley is the man who has made all thisstrike trouble, bossing the job to get you out and to get himself in, sohe could cover up his thieveries. Gridley was the man who put up the jobwith Bart Rufford to kill you, and Judson mistook his voice forHallock's that time, too. Gridley was----"

"Hold on, Mac, " interrupted the superintendent; "how did you learn allthis?"

"Part of it through some of his men, who have been coming over to us inthe last half-hour and giving him away; part of it through Dick Rufford, who was keeping tab on him for the money he could squeeze out of himafterward. "

"How did Rufford come to tell you?"

"Why, Bradford--that is--er--the two Ruffords started a little shootingmatch with Andy, and--m-m--well, Bart passed out for keeps, this time, but Dick lived long enough to tell Bradford a few things--for oldcow-boy times' sake, I suppose. I'll never put it all over any man, again, as long as I live, Mr. Lidgerwood, after rubbing it into Hallockthe way I did, when he was doing his level best to help us out. But it'spartly his own fault. He wanted to play a lone hand, and he was schemingto get them both into the same frying-pan--Gridley and Flemister. "

Lidgerwood nodded. "He had a pretty bitter grudge against Flemister. "

"The worst a man could have, " said McCloskey soberly. Then he added:"I've got a few thousand dollars saved up that says that Rankin Hallockisn't going to hang for what he did in the other room a few minutes ago. I knew it would come to that if the time ever ripened right suddenly, and I tried to find Judson to choke him off. But John got in ahead ofme. "

Lidgerwood switched the subject abruptly in deference to Eleanor's deepbreathing. 

"I must take Miss Brewster to her friends. You say the _Nadia_ is back?Who moved it without orders?"

"Yes, she's back, all right, and Dawson is the man who comes in for theblessing. He wanted an engine--needed one right bad--and he couldn'twait to uncouple the car. It was Hallock who sent that message to Mr. Leckhard that we've been hearing so much about, and it was a beg forthe loan of a few of Uncle Sam's boys from Fort McCook. Gridley got onto it through Dix, and he also cut us out of Mr. Leckhard's answertelling us that the cavalry boys were on 73. By Gridley's orders, thetwo Ruffords and some others turned an engine loose to run down the roadfor a head-ender with the freight that was bringing the soldiers. Dawsonchased the runaway engine with the coupled-up _Nadia_ outfit, caught itjust in the nick of time to prevent a collision with 73, and brought itback. He's down in the car now, with one of the young women crying onhis neck, and----"

Miss Brewster got up out of her chair, found she could stand withouttottering, and said: "Howard, I _must_ go back to mamma. She will beperfectly frantic if some one hasn't told her that I am safe. We can gonow, can't we, Mr. McCloskey? The trouble is all over, isn't it?"

The trainmaster nodded gravely. 

"It's over, all but the paying of the bills. That rifle-shot we heard alittle spell ago settled it. No, he isn't dead"--this in answer toLidgerwood's unspoken question--"but it will be a heap better for allconcerned if he don't get over it. You can go down. Lieutenant Baldwinhas posted his men around the shops and the Crow's Nest. "

Together they left the shelter of the trainmaster's room, and passeddown the dark stair and out upon the platform, where the cavalrymen weremounting guard. There was no word spoken by either until they reachedthe _Nadia's_ forward vestibule, and then it was Lidgerwood who brokethe silence to say: "I have discovered something to-night, Eleanor: I'mnot quite all the different kinds of a coward I thought I was. "

"Don't tell me!" she said, in keen self-reproach, and her voice thrilledhim like the subtle melody of a passion song. "Howard, dear, I--I'msitting in sackcloth and ashes. I saw it all--with my own eyes, and Icould neither run nor scream. Oh, it was splendid! I never dreamed thatany man could rise by the sheer power of his will to such a pinnacle ofcourage. Does that make amends--just a little? And won't you come tobreakfast with us in the morning, and let me tell you afterward howmiserable I've been--how I fairly _nagged_ father into bringing thisparty out here so that I might have an excuse to--to----"

He forgot the fierce strife so lately ended; forgot the double victoryhe had won. 

"But--but Van Lew, " he stammered--"he told me that you--that he--" andthen he took her in his arms and kissed her, while a young man with abandaged head--a man who answered to the name of Jack Benson, and whowas hastening up to get permission to go home to Faith Dawson--turnedhis back considerately and walked away. 

"What were you going to say about Herbert?" she murmured, when he lether have breath enough to speak with. 

"I was merely going to remark that he can't have you now, not if he wereten thousand times your accepted lover. "

She escaped from his arms and ran lightly up the steps of the privatecar. And from the safe vantage-ground of the half-opened door she turnedand mocked him. 

"Silly boy, " she said softly. "Can't you read print when it's largeenough to shout at all the world? Herbert and Carolyn have been'announced' for more than three months, and they are to be married whenwe get back to New York. That's all; good-night, and don't you dare toforget your breakfast engagement!"