e'd
cut the express car off, he made the engineer run her up the track about
half a mile to a road crossing, WHERE HE HAD A HORSE TIED. What do you
think of that? Didn't he have it all figured out close? And when he got
there, he dynamited the safe and got the Wells-Fargo box. He took five
thousand in gold coin; the messenger says it was railroad money that the
company were sending down to Bakersfield to pay off with. It was in a
bag. He never touched the registered mail, nor a whole wad of greenbacks
that were in the safe, but just took the coin, got on his horse, and lit
out. The engineer says he went to the east'ard."

"He got away, did he?"

"Yes, but they think they'll get him. He wore a kind of mask, but the
brakeman recognised him positively. We got his ante-mortem statement.
The brakeman said the fellow had a grudge against the road. He was a
discharged employee, and lives near Bonneville."

"Dyke, by the Lord!" exclaimed Annixter.

"That's the name," said the young doctor.

When the train arrived at Bonneville, forty minutes behind time, it
landed Annixter and Hilma in the midst of the very thing they most
wished to avoid--an enormous crowd. The news that the Overland had been
held up thirty miles south of Fresno, a brakeman killed and the safe
looted, and that Dyke alone was responsible for the night's work,
had been wired on ahead from Fowler, the train conductor throwing the
despatch to the station agent from the flying train.

Before the train had come to a standstill under the arched roof of the
Bonneville depot, it was all but taken by assault. Annixter, with Hilma
on his arm, had almost to fight his way out of the car. The depot was
black with people. S. Behrman was there, Delaney, Cyrus Ruggles, the
town marshal, the mayor. Genslinger, his hat on the back of his
head, ranged the train from cab to rear-lights, note-book in hand,
interviewing, questioning, collecting facts for his extra. As Annixter
descended finally to the platform, the editor, alert as a black-and-tan
terrier, his thin, osseous hands quivering with eagerness, his brown,
dry face working with excitement, caught his elbow.

"Can I have your version of the affair, Mr. Annixter?"

Annixter turned on him abruptly.

"Yes!" he exclaimed fiercely. "You and your gang drove Dyke from his job
because he wouldn't work for starvation wages. Then you raised freight
rates on him and robbed him of all he had. You ruined him and drove him
to