you're the
strong man in a sideshow doin' stunts with a rag doll--"

But Conniston did not hear him. Already he was running toward the
wagons. And there was a light in his eyes which had not been there for
many days. A little, youngish man, sandy of hair, with bird-like
brightness of eye and the grin of a sanctified cherub, swung down from
the seat of the foremost wagon, lifted his hand, thereby stopping the
laboring procession, and came forward to meet Conniston.

"I want to talk with the superintendent," he said, as the two men met.
"Where is he?"

"I'm the superintendent. I'm Conniston. You want me?"

"All right, Mr. Conniston. I'm Jimmie Kent."

He put out his hand, which was painfully small, but which gripped
Conniston's larger hand like a vise. "There are your five hundred men.
Or, to be exact, five hundred and five. I started with five hundred
and seven. Lost two on the road."

"But," interrupted Conniston, staring half incredulously at him, "Mr.
Crawford's telegram--"

Jimmie Kent laughed.

"Mr. Crawford kicked like a bay steer over that telegram. And in the
end, when he wouldn't put his name to a lie, I did the trick for him."

"But why?"

"Simply, sir, because I am under contract to deliver five hundred men
into your hands. Simply because the telegraph agent in Crawfordsville
belongs body and soul, bread and butter, to our esteemed friend Mr.
Oliver Swinnerton. Know Oliver personally? Capable man, charming host,
but the very devil to buck when he has his back aloft! And they tell
me that he is playing high this trip. It was just as well, don't you
think, that I sent that wire? Had Oliver known that this consignment
of hands was coming, and when they were coming--well, I don't know how
he would have managed it, but one way or another he would have come
mighty close to taking them off my hands. And now," whipping a big,
fat note-book from his pocket, "will you sign right there?"

Kent removed the cap from a gold-filigreed fountain-pen, handed it
with a bit of paper and the note-book to Conniston, and pointed out
where the signature was wanted. And Conniston set his name down under
a statement acknowledging the receipt from James Kent of five hundred
and five men, "in good and satisfactory shape."

"Thank you, Mr. Conniston," as he blotted and returned the document to
his breast pocket. "Perhaps, however, you would have preferred to have
counted before signing?"

"That's all right. I'll take your