"You certainly could not," said Ballard grimly. "There is a chunk about
the size of this shack gone out of it--dropped into the river, I
suppose."

Bromley was frowning reflectively.

"More accidents?" he suggested.

"One more--apparently."

Bromley jumped up, sudden realization grappling him.

"Why, Breckenridge!--you've just come over that path--alone, and in the
dark!"

"Part way over it, and in the dark, yes; but not alone, luckily. The
Craigmiles's dog--the big St. Bernard--was with me, and he stopped on
the edge of the break. Otherwise I might have walked into it--most
probably should have walked into it."

Bromley began to tramp the floor with his hands in his pockets.

"I can't remember," he said; and again, "I can't remember. I was over
there yesterday, or the day before. It was all right then. It was a good
trail. Why, Breckenridge"--with sudden emphasis--"it would have taken a
charge of dynamite to blow it down!"

Ballard dropped lazily into a chair and locked his hands at the back of
his head. "And you say that the hoodoo hasn't got around to using high
explosives yet, eh? By the way, have there been any more visitations
since I went out on the line last Tuesday?"

Bromley was shaking his head in the negative when the door opened with a
jerk and Bessinger, the telegraph operator whose wire was in the
railroad yard office, tumbled in, white faced.

"Hoskins and the Two!" he gasped. "They're piled up under a material
train three miles down the track! Fitzpatrick is turning out a wrecking
crew from the bunk shanties, and he sent me up to call you!"

Bromley's quick glance aside for Ballard was acutely significant.

"I guess I'd better change that 'No' of mine to a qualified 'Yes,'" he
corrected. "The visitation seems to have come." Then to Bessinger: "Get
your breath, Billy, and then chase back to Fitzpatrick. Tell him we'll
be with him as soon as Mr. Ballard can change his clothes."

X

HOSKINS'S GHOST

The wreck in the rocky hills west of the Elbow Canyon railroad yard
proved to be less calamitous than Bessinger's report, handed on from the
excited alarm brought in by a demoralized train flagman, had pictured
it. When Ballard and Bromley, hastening to the rescue on Fitzpatrick's
relief train, reached the scene of the accident, they found Hoskins's
engine and fifteen cars in the ditch, and the second flagman with a
broken arm; but Hoskins himself was unhurt, as were the remaining
m