fectual. Do
you?"

The eccentric man was shrewd enough now to keep behind the jamb of the
cab door. For some of these fellows, he realized, might be armed with
more deadly weapons than his own.

"Hey, Mr. Lewis!" cried one big fellow, "d'you want we should get that
fellow for you?"

"I want to know how badly that blamed thing is smashed," replied the
big man with the dyed mustache savagely. "Where's O'Malley?"

"O'Malley's lit out, Boss, like I told you. That giant and them other
fellows is after him."

"Break into that cab! Oh! My eyes! I'll kill that old fool! Break a
way in there--What's that?"

In pain as he was, his other senses were alert. He was first to hear
the screeching whistle of the on-coming freight.

"Think they got wind of this so quick?" demanded Montagne Lewis, for it
was he. "Are they sending help from Cliff City?"

"It's a regular freight," returned one of his men.

"She's comm' a-whizzin'," added another. "Right down the eastbound
track. If the crew see us--"

"Wait!" commanded Lewis. "Isn't that switch open?"

"You bet it is, Boss."

"Let it be, then," cried the chief plotter. "Let 'em run into it. That
freight will smash up this electric locomotive more completely than we
could possibly do it. Stand away, men, and let her go!"

A sharp curve in the right of way hid the siding, as well as the open
switch into it, from the gaze of the engineer who held the throttle of
the coming freight. His locomotive drew a string of empties, eastbound,
and having had a heavy pull of it coming up the grade to Cliff City, as
soon as he had got the highball from the yardmaster there, he had "let
her out," and was now coming to the head of the down grade to Hammon at
high speed.

As it chanced, the wireless receiving station of Tom's new telephone
system was not yet completed at Cliff City. The news of the wreck of
the Hercules 0001 and her position had not been relayed to the master
of the Cliff City yards.

That employee of the H. & P. A. had taken a chance in letting the
string of empties through his block. He knew the electric locomotive
was somewhere ahead, but he thought it would be making its usual time
and would have already passed Half Way.

But the situation was serious. The freight was coming along at top
speed and the switch into the siding was still open. Montagne Lewis and
his crew of ruffians might well stand back and let what seemed sure to
happen, happen! The driving freight mu