g to make me sorry, I am sure," said the
new superintendent, in his evenest tone. And then, as if the matter were
definitely settled: "I'd like to have a word with the trainmaster, Mr.
McCloskey. May I trouble you to tell me which is his office?"

Hallock waved a hand toward the door which Lidgerwood had been about to
open a few minutes earlier.

"You'll find him in there," he said briefly, adding, with his
altogether remarkable disregard for the official proprieties: "If he
gives you the same chance that I did, don't take him up. He is the one
man in this outfit worth more than the powder it would take to blow him
to the devil."

IV

AT THE RIO GLORIA

The matter to be taken up with McCloskey, master of trains and chief of
the telegraph department, was not altogether disciplinary. In the
summarizing conference at Copah, Vice-President Ford had spoken
favorably of the trainmaster, recommending him to mercy in the event of
a general beheading in the Angels head-quarters. "A lame duck, like most
of the desert exiles, and the homeliest man west of the Missouri River,"
was Ford's characterization. "He is as stubborn as a mule, but he is
honest and outspoken. If you can win him over to your side, you will
have at least one lieutenant whom you can trust--and who will, I think,
be duly grateful for small favors. Mac couldn't get a job east of the
Crosswater Hills, I'm afraid."

Lidgerwood had not inquired the reason for the eastern disability. He
had lived in the West long enough to know that it is an ill thing to pry
too curiously into any man's past. So there should be present
efficiency, no man in the service should be called upon to recite in
ancient history, much less one for whom Ford had spoken a good word.

Like all the other offices in the Crow's Nest, that of the trainmaster
was bare and uninviting. Lidgerwood, passing beyond the door of
communication, found himself in a dingy room, with cobwebs festooning
the ceiling and a pair of unwashed windows looking out upon the open
square called, in the past and gone day of the Angelic promoters, the
"railroad plaza." Two chairs, a cheap desk, and a pine table backed by
the "string-board" working model of the current time-table, did duty as
the furnishings, serving rather to emphasize than to relieve the
dreariness of the place.

McCloskey was at his desk at the moment of door-opening, and Lidgerwood
instantly paid tribute to Vice-President Ford's powers of