help
I can spare, but you'll have to furnish the brains. I suppose I don't
need to tell you not to take any chances?"

Van Lew shook his head and smiled.

"Not while the dear girl whom, God willing, I'm going to marry, is a
member of our car-party. I'm more likely to be over-cautious than
reckless, Mr. Lidgerwood."

Here, in terms unmistakable, was a deep grave in which to bury any poor
phantom of hope which might have survived, but Lidgerwood did not
advertise the funeral.

"She is altogether worthy of the most that you can do for her, and the
best that you can give her, Mr. Van Lew," he said gravely. Then he
passed quickly to the more vital matter. "The _Nadia_ will be placed on
the short spur track at this end of the building, close in, where you
can step from the rear platform of the car to the station platform. I'll
try to keep watch for you, but you must also keep watch for yourself. If
any firing begins, get your people out quietly and bring them up here.
Of course, none of you will have anything worse than a stray bullet to
fear, but the side walls of the _Nadia_ would offer no protection
against that."

Van Lew nodded understandingly.

"Call it settled," he said. "Shall I use my own judgment as to the
proper moment to make the break, or will you pass us the word?"

Lidgerwood took time to consider. Conditions might arise under which the
Crow's Nest would be the most unsafe place in Angels to which to flee
for shelter.

"Perhaps you would better sit tight until I give the word," he directed,
after the reflective pause. Then, in a lighter vein: "All of these
careful prefigurings may be entirely beside the mark, Mr. Van Lew; I
hope the event may prove that they were. And until the thing actually
hits us, we may as well keep up appearances. Don't let the women worry
any more than they have to."

"You can trust me for that," laughed the athlete, and he went his way
to begin the keeping up of appearances.

At seven o'clock, just as Lidgerwood was finishing the luncheon which
had been sent up to his office from the station kitchen, Train 203
pulled in from the east; and a little later Dawson's belated
wrecking-train trailed up from the west, bringing the "cripples" from
the Little Butte disaster. Not to leave anything undone, Lidgerwood
summoned McCloskey by a touch of the buzzer-push connecting with the
trainmaster's office.

"No word from Judson yet?" he asked, when McCloskey's homely face
appeared