fortune for Regan, by the wreck of the Suburban
car.

"Hold!" Regan's head is bowed and he is listening. "No, I cannot pass
here," he answers in thought, and in a strained, quiet voice tells Tim:
"You trust me too late."

The miracle of Molly's messenger has not been worked in vain.

Light had broken in flashes from the vagabond's countenance since the
great things within him were set free to join this mighty partnership.
Halted now in his tracks he listens too, gloomily, wrathfully hearing in
fact what Regan does not--a quickening footfall, the tug at the latch,
the rumble of the door. Craney comes in.

He is almost as gaunt as Tim and covered with the grime on the road.

"What? Are you not yet swallowed up by the cursed Suburban?" he asks,
astonished. "Then you will give me word of Katy O'Hare, and I am gone by
the through freight. Fortune was not in the direction I took," he adds
by way of explaining; "so I am beating up west and south; 't is a far
search and leaves me little time between trains."

"There is time enough!" Regan has him by the arm. "You are Craney of the
Suburban. Come!"

And so terrible is the grip he is fallen into that Mr. Craney is dragged
out and through the dark with hardly perceptible struggle.

Tim Cannon watches them out with ghastly nonchalance; once more fortune
has declared against him and he takes his loss, biding only Craney's
return to throw up his job and be gone.

The night passes and a faint iron rumor drifts down from the northern
sky where the P. D. construction gangs are breaking camp; then a boom of
dynamite. The campaign is on again; no need of concealment now, the
Suburban has passed safely into Regan's hands.

The red coal in the rusty stove crumbles, the lantern smokes out.

"I was just too late; 't is little I know," thinks Tim Cannon.

A burly battered man enters the door and leads out the horse; the gang
at his heels attack the old building with pick and bar; to a ripping of
shingles the dawn twinkles through; the battle which the outcast had
halted so long is passing over his body.

The battered man shakes the iron bar in his hand, pointing it
significantly at walls and roof tumbling about; Tim looks at him
scornfully, and the gang tear at the flooring with picks and axes.

Why it is so, I cannot say, who make no pretense of sorcery, but 't is
certain that the mice linger and spiders swing low from the rafters with
presentiment of tragedy as Tim Cannon st