r the accusation anyway. It's all in the game. If you've got the
sponduliks you can do anything these days. It's every man for himself
and the devil take the hindmost!"

"There's a lot of truth in what you say, Blatch. Well, let's get down
to business and get it over with," sighed the Honorable Milton Waring.

Abruptly he sat down at his desk and reached for the papers.

CHAPTER XXVI

NIP AND TUCK

Engine No. 810 was running free through the night with a big string of
box-cars and gondolas tossing along behind her, dim shadows in the
dark. Her powerful electric headlight threw a beam, long and bright,
that burrowed into the black void far in front. But for this and the
few red-glowing chinks in her firebox and the thunder of the wheels,
the freight might have been some phantom reptile rushing through the
land with two red eyes in its tail.

Evans, the fireman, kicked impatiently at the slash-bar and hooked the
fire. The lurid glare from the white fires that curled and writhed
under the crown-sheet flung wide upon flying right-of-way and the woods
on either side, and played with the swirling ribbon of steam that was
hissing back from the dome. Bathed in the blinding light, the fireman
stood for a space, swinging his scoop with pendulum precision from
fire-box to coal-tank and back again; then the whole scene went out
suddenly.

Engineer Macdonald, leaning out over his armrest, chafed at the delay
as he choked her head for the Spruce Valley grade. The line was clear
as far as Indian Creek; but up there somewhere they would have to take
the siding for the first section of the Limited, eastbound.

With a glance at the indicator and the guages, the fireman jerked a
blackened thumb over his shoulder towards the coal-tank. Macdonald
shook his head.

"We'll fill her at Number Seven," he shouted.

They were bearing down upon the switch lights opposite Thorlakson. But
Macdonald was in a hurry and too anxious to take advantage of the grade
to stop for water there. The few scattered lights flicked by and they
were off again into the blackness ahead.

On the time-card No. 7 was a "blind" water tank farther on up the line,
the loneliest tank on the division. The surrounding country was wild
and uninhabited save for the isolated groups of loyal track-men who
stuck to their lonely but important posts during the blizzard months
with the same persistence that carried them through the fly season.
Engine 81