anything of Grady, my stenographer?" inquired
Lidgerwood, when Judson had made an end.

The engineer shook his head. "Reckon they've got him cooped up along
with Dix?"

"I hope not. But he has disappeared. I sent him up to Mrs. Dawson's with
a message late this afternoon, and he hasn't shown up since."

"Of course, they've got him," said McCloskey, sourly. "Does he know
anything that he can tell?"

"Nothing that can make any difference now. They are probably holding him
to hamper me. The boy's loyal."

"Yes," growled McCloskey, "and he's Irish."

"Well, my old mother is Irish, too, for the matter of that," snapped
Judson. "If you don't like the Irish, you'll be finding a chip on my
shoulder any day in the week, except to-day, Jim McCloskey!"

Lidgerwood smiled. It brought a small relaxing of strains to hear these
two resurrecting the ancient race feud in the midst of the trouble
storm. And when the trainmaster returned to his post in the wire office,
and Judson had been sent back to Biggs's to renew his search for the
hidden ring-leader, it was the memory of the little race tiff that
cleared the superintendent's brain for the grapple with the newly
defined situation.

Judson's report was grave enough, but it brought a good hope that the
crucial moment might be postponed until many of the men would be too far
gone in liquor to take any active part. Lidgerwood took the precautions
made advisable by Tryon's threat to steal an engine, sending word to
Benson to double his guards on the locomotives in the yard, and to
Dawson to block the turn-table so that none might be taken from the
roundhouse.

Afterward he went out to look over the field in person. Everything was
quiet; almost suspiciously so. Gridley was found alone in his office at
the shops, smoking a cigar, with his chair tilted to a comfortable
angle and his feet on the desk. His guards, he said, were posted in and
around the shops, and he hoped they were not asleep. Thus far, there had
been little enough to keep them awake.

Lidgerwood, passing out through the door opening upon the
electric-lighted yard, surprised a man in the act of turning the knob to
enter. It was the merest incident, and he would not have remarked it if
the door, closing behind Gridley's visitor, had not bisected a violent
outburst of profanity, vocalizing itself in the harsh tones of the
master-mechanic, as thus: "You ---- ---- chuckle-headed fool! Haven't
you any better sense than