t, either in or near the
Temple Court Building. That was enough to make him dress hurriedly and
hasten to the street, where he found a handful of policemen trying
ineffectually to keep a clear pavement for the racing fire-trucks.
Watching his chance, Blount darted out to make the crossing. He was
half-way to the opposite curb when an unwieldy hook-and-ladder truck,
drawn by a pair of magnificent grays, came lurching and plunging down
the side street upon which the hotel cornered.

In front of the horses, and leaping and barking at their heads in a
frenzy of excitement, was a spotted coach-dog--the truck squad's mascot.
Blount was within a few feet of the farther sidewalk, and was well out
of danger when the long truck slewed into the avenue. But at the passing
instant the mascot dog, leaping and whirling like a four-footed dervish,
sprang backward. Blount felt the catapulting shock of a yielding body
between his shoulders, heard a yell from the truck-driver on his high
seat, and went plunging headlong to the curb. After which he felt and
heard no more.

XXIV

FIELD HEADQUARTERS

In the great world-battles of yesterday, or the day before, the
commanding general rode, with a few chosen officers of his staff, to
some near-by hill-top, shell-swept and perilous, and with the help of a
pair of field-glasses and a corps of hard-riding aides kept in touch as
he could with the shifting fortunes of his divisions and brigades. It
would be small credit to an up-to-date day of progress and
invention if this were not all changed. The present-moment
commander-in-chief--warring, industrial, or political--may sit, thanks
to the Morses and the Edisons, comfortably in office-coat and slippers,
far removed from the battle turmoil, directing his forces with the
pressure of a finger upon the appropriate electric button, or in a few
words dictated to the human ear of a clicking telegraph-instrument.

By all these adventitious aids Vice-President McVickar was profiting on
the Saturday morning following the mysterious disappearance on the
Friday of the gasolene unit-car somewhere between Bald Butte and the
capital. The small resort hotel at the head of Shonoho Canyon had been
transformed into a field headquarters. The hotel manager's desk,
wheeled out in front of a crackling wood-fire in the ornate little
lobby, was studded with its row of electric call-buttons; a railroad
dining-car crew had taken possession of the kitchen; and t