ne it before."

"Whom is she trying to find?" asked Lidgerwood, wishing to have his
suspicion either denied or confirmed.

"Didn't she call him by name?--she usually does. It's your chief clerk,
Hallock. She is--or was--his wife. Haven't you heard the ghastly story
yet?"

"No; and, Leckhard, I don't know that I care to hear it. It can't
possibly concern me."

"It's just as well, I guess," said the main-line superintendent
carelessly. "I probably shouldn't get it straight anyway. It's a rather
horrible affair, though, I believe. There is another man mixed up in
it--the man whom she is always asking if Hallock has killed. Curiously
enough, she never names the other man, and there have been a good many
guesses. I believe your head boiler-maker, Gridley, has the most votes.
He's been seen with her here, now and then--when he's on one of his
'periodicals.' By Jove! Lidgerwood, I don't envy you your job over
yonder in the Red Desert a little bit.... But about the consolidation of
the yards here: I got a telegram after I wired you, making it necessary
for me to go west on main-line Twenty-seven early in the morning, so I
stayed up to talk this yard business over with you to-night."

It was well along in the small hours when the roll of blue-print maps
was finally laid aside, and Leckhard rose yawning. "We'll carry it out
as you propose, and divide the expense between the two divisions," he
said in conclusion. "Frisbie has left it to us, and he will approve
whatever we agree upon. Will you go up to the hotel with me, or bunk
down here?"

Lidgerwood said he would stay with his car; or, better still, now that
the business for which he had come to Copah was despatched, he would
have the roundhouse night foreman call a Red Butte Western crew and go
back to his desert.

"We are in the thick of things over on the jerk-water just now," he
explained, "and I don't like to stay away any longer than I have to."

"Having a good bit of trouble with the sure-shots?" asked Leckhard.
"What was that story I heard about somebody swiping one of your
switching-engines?"

"It was true," said Lidgerwood, adding, "But I think we shall recover
the engine--and some other things--presently." He liked Leckhard well
enough, but he wished he would go. There are exigencies in which even
the comments of a friend and well-wisher are superfluous.

"You have a pretty tough gang to handle over these," the well-wisher
went on. "I wouldn't touch a job