tain contented himself with asking a single question.

"Do you know how much you lost, Mr. Blount?"

"Nothing of any great consequence, I imagine," said Blount, remembering,
with an inward thrill of thankfulness, the morning impulse which had
prompted him to transfer the one thing of inestimable consequence to the
security of the bank safe-deposit box. Then he added: "There was a
little money in the box, and some papers of no especial value to
anybody. Just the same, captain, I want that man caught."

"We'll catch him, come morning," was the assurance, and then Blount went
away and carried out his original intention of going to the
Inter-Mountain and to bed.

To bed; but, for a long hour after the post-midnight quiet had settled
down upon the great hostelry, not to sleep. If he had asked himself why
he could not close his eyes and take the needed rest, the exciting
incident in which he had lately been an actor would have offered a
sufficient answer. But in reality the sharpened spur of wakefulness
penetrated much more deeply. Beyond all doubt or shadow of doubt, it was
the sinister, many-armed machine which had reached out to seize and
destroy the evidence against its allies and fellow conspirators, the
lawbreaking railroad company and the vote-selling corporations.

And, again beyond doubt, he made sure, it was his own boast made to his
father which had been passed on to tell the sham burglar where to look
and what to look for.

XVII

ON THE KNEES OF THE HIGH GODS

In the evening of the day following the safe-blowing in Blount's office,
a one-car train, running as second section of the Overland, slipped
unostentatiously into the capital railroad yard. With as little stir as
it had made in its arrival, the single-car train took a siding below the
freight station, where it would be concealed from the prying eyes of any
chance prowler from the newspaper offices.

Coincident with the side-tracking O'Brien, the vice-president's
stenographer, dropped from the step of the car and went in search of a
telephone. When O'Brien was safely out of the way, a small man,
clean-shaven and alert in his movements, whipped out of the shadows of
the nearest string of box-cars, pushed brusquely past the guarding
porter, and presented himself at the desk in the roomy office
compartment of the private car.

The vice-president looked up and nodded. "How are you, Gibbert?" he
said, and then: "You may condense your report. I