time-worn aphorism that capital can never afford to be otherwise than
strictly law-abiding.

In the reorganization of the Western Pacific, David Kent developed at once
and heartily into that rare and much-sought-for quantity, a man for an
emergency. Loring, also, was a busy man in this transition period, yet he
found time to keep an appreciative eye on Kent, and, true to his implied
promise, pushed him vigorously for the first place in the legal department
of the localized company. Since the resident manager stood high in the
Boston counsels of the company, the pushing was not without results; and
while David Kent was still up to his eyes in the work of flogging the
affairs of the newly named Trans-Western into conformity with the law, his
appointment as general counsel came from the Advisory Board.

At one time, when success in his chosen vocation meant more to him than he
thought it could ever mean again, the promoted subordinate would have had
an attack of jubilance little in keeping with the grave responsibilities
of his office. As it fell out, he was too busy to celebrate, and too sore
on the sentimental side to rejoice. Hence, his recognition of the
promotion was merely a deeper plunge into the flood of legalities and the
adding of two more stenographers to his office force.

Now there is this to be said of such submersive battlings in a sea of
work: while the fierce toil of the buffeting may be good for the swimmer's
soul, it necessarily narrows his horizon, inasmuch as a man with his head
in the sea-smother lacks the view-point of the captain who fights his ship
from the conning tower.

So it befell that while the newly appointed general counsel of the
reorganized Western Pacific was bolting his meals and clipping the nights
at both ends in a strenuous endeavor to clear the decks for a possible
battle-royal at the capital, events of a minatory nature were shaping
themselves elsewhere.

To bring these events down to their focusing point in the period of
transition, it is needful to go back a little; to a term of the circuit
court held in the third year of Gaston the prosperous.

Who Mrs. Melissa Varnum was; how she came to be traveling from Midland
City to the end of the track on a scalper's ticket; and in what manner she
was given her choice of paying fare to the conductor or leaving the train
at Gaston--these are details with which we need not concern ourselves.
Suffice it to say that Kent, then local att