last," said Raymer, passing a newly opened letter
of the morning delivery over to Griswold. "The railroad people are
taking their work away from us. I've been looking for that in every
mail."

Griswold glanced at the letter and handed it back. The burden of the
night of horrors was still lying heavily upon him, and his only comment
was a questioning, "Well?"

"I've been thinking," was the reply. "I know Atherton, the new president
of the Pineboro, pretty well; suppose I should run over to St. Paul and
see him--make it a personal plea. We have enough of the hoboes now to
run half-gangs; and perhaps, if I could make Atherton believe that we
are going to win----"

"You couldn't," Griswold interrupted, shortly. "And, besides, you have
told me yourself that Atherton is only a figurehead. Grierson's the
man."

At this, Raymer let go again.

"What's the use?" he said dejectedly. "We're down, and everything we do
merely prolongs the agony. Do you know that they tried to burn the plant
last night?"

"No; I hadn't heard."

"They did. It was just before the thunder storm. They had everything
fixed; a pile of kindlings laid in the corner back of the machine-shop
annex and the whole thing saturated with kerosene."

"Well, why didn't they do it?" queried Griswold, half-heartedly. After
the heavens have fallen, no mere terrestrial cataclysm can evoke a
thrill.

"That's a mystery. Something happened; just what, the watchman who had
the machine-shop beat couldn't tell. He says there was a flash of light
bright enough to blind him, and then a scrap of some kind. When he got
out of the shop and around to the place, there was no one there; nothing
but the pile of kindlings."

Griswold took up the letter from the railway people and read it again.
When he faced it down on Raymer's desk, he had closed with the
conclusion which had been thrusting itself upon him since the early
morning hour when he had picked his way among the sidewalk pools from
Mereside to upper Shawnee Street.

"You can still save yourself, Edward," he said, still with the colorless
note in his voice. And he added: "You know the way."

Raymer jerked his head out of his desk and swung around in the
pivot-chair.

"See here, Griswold; the less said about that at this stage of the game,
the better it will be for both of us!" he exploded. "I'm going to do as
I said I should, but not until this fight is settled, one way or the
other!"

Griswold did not retor