" and nodded toward the nearest chairs. "Sit down; I'll be
through in a minute," and he went on reading the file of papers taken up
at the departure of the detective. At the end of the minute he shot a
question at the two who were waiting.

"You got my message?"

Gantry answered for himself and the superintendent. "Yes. Your orders
have been carried out. The yards are posted, and nobody, outside of a
few of our own men, knows that your car is here."

The vice-president took one of the long black cigars from the open box
on the flat-topped desk, and passed the box to his two lieutenants.

"Light up," he said tersely. "I'm due in Twin Canyons City to-morrow
morning, and we've got to thresh this thing out in a hurry. Any change
in the situation since your last report?"

Gantry shook his head. "Nothing very important. Blount's up-town office
was broken into last night and his safe ripped open with dynamite, as I
suppose you have read in the papers. Who did it, or why it was done,
nobody seems to know."

"Well, what came of it?"

"Nothing, so far as I can find out," returned the traffic manager.
"Blount had been to the Gordon dance, and he saw the light in his office
as he was coming down-town. When he went up to find out what was going
on, he caught the safe-blower fairly in the act, but the fellow got
away."

"Did Blount lose anything?"

"That's the queer part of it. Blount won't say much about it; and this
morning he went around to police headquarters and told the chief to drop
the matter, giving as his reason that he was too busy to prosecute the
fellow even if he was caught."

To a disinterested observer it might have seemed a little singular that
the vice-president made no further comment upon the burglary. As a
matter of fact, his next question completely ignored it.

"What has Blount been doing this week?" he asked.

"He has spoken twice; once at Arequipa and once at Hellersville. I
understand he has engagements enough to keep him out of town right up to
election day."

"That is good," was the nodded approval. "He would only be in the way
here at the capital." And then pointedly to Gantry: "Any more of that
nonsense about putting a barrel of powder under us and blowing us all up
if we don't build the freight tariffs over to suit his notion?"

"A good bit more of it," Gantry admitted reluctantly. "The other day he
went so far as to set a time limit; gave me three days of grace in which
to file the pu