d the boss machinist, Lidgerwood?"

"I don't know. Why?"

Benson looked at McCloskey.

"Just as we came in, he was standing over you with a look in his eyes as
if he were about to murder you, and couldn't quite make up his mind as
to the simplest way of doing it. Then the look changed to his usual
cast-iron smile in the flirt of a flea's hind leg--at some joke you were
telling, I took it."

Being careful and troubled about many things, Lidgerwood missed the
point of Benson's remark; could not remember, when he tried, just what
it was that he had been saying to Gridley when the interruption came.
But the matter was easily dismissed. Having his two chief lieutenants
before him, the superintendent seized the opportunity to outline the
plan of campaign for the night. McCloskey was to stay by the wires, with
Callahan to share his watch. Dawson, when he should come down, was to
pick up a few of the loyal enginemen and guard the roundhouse. Benson
was to take charge of the yards, keeping his eye on the _Nadia_. At the
first indication of an outbreak, he was to pass the word to Van Lew, who
would immediately transfer the private-car party to the second-floor
offices in the head-quarters building.

"That is all," was Lidgerwood's summing up, when he had made his
dispositions like a careful commander-in-chief; "all but one thing. Mac,
have you seen anything of Hallock?"

"Not since the middle of the afternoon," was the prompt reply.

"And Judson has not yet reported?"

"No."

"Well--this is for you, Benson--Mac already knows it: Judson is out
looking for Hallock. He has a warrant for Hallock's arrest."

Benson's eyes narrowed.

"Then you have found the ringleader at last, have you?" he asked.

"I am sorry to say that there doesn't seem to be any doubt of Hallock's
guilt. The arrest will be made quietly. Judson understands that. There
is another man that we've got to have, and there is no time just now to
go after him."

"Who is the other man?" asked Benson.

"It is Flemister; the man who has the stolen switching-engine boxed up
in a power-house built out of planks sawed from your Gloria
bridge-timbers."

"I told you so!" exclaimed the young engineer. "By Jove! I'll never
forgive you if you don't send him to the rock-pile for that,
Lidgerwood!"

"I have promised to hang him," said the superintendent soberly--"him and
the man who has been working with him."

"And that's Rankin Hallock!" cut in the trainmaster