without a scrap of an affidavit to support it.

The moment came, and still there was no encouraging whistle shriek from
the dun plain beyond the open windows. Hawk was visibly disgusted, and
Judge MacFarlane was growing justly impatient. Hunnicott began again, and
the judge reproved him mildly.

"Much of what you are saying is entirely irrelevant, Mr. Hunnicott. This
hearing is on the plaintiff's amended petition."

No one knew better than the local attorney that he was wholly at the
court's mercy; that he had been so from the moment the judge began to
consider his purely formal defense, entirely unsupported by affidavits or
evidence of any kind. None the less, he strung his denials out by every
amplification he could devise, and, having fired his last shot, sat down
in despairing breathlessness to hear the judge's summing-up and decision.

Judge MacFarlane was mercifully brief. On the part of the plaintiff there
was an amended petition fully fortified by uncontroverted affidavits. On
the part of the defendant company there was nothing but a formal denial of
the allegations. The duty of the court in the premises was clear. The
prayer of the plaintiff was granted, the temporary relief asked for was
given, and the order of the court would issue accordingly.

The judge was rising when the still, hot air of the room began to vibrate
with the tremulous thunder of the sound for which Hunnicott had been so
long straining his ears. He was the first of the three to hear it, and he
hurried out ahead of the others. At the foot of the stair he ran blindly
against Kent, dusty, travel-worn and haggard.

"You're too late!" he blurted out. "We're done up. Hawk's petition has
been granted and the road is in the hands of a receiver."

Kent dashed his fist upon the stair-rail.

"Who is the man?" he demanded.

"Major Jim Guilford," said Hunnicott. Then, as footfalls coming stairward
were heard in the upper corridor, he locked arms with Kent, faced him
about and thrust him out over the door-stone. "Let's get out of this. You
look as if you might kill somebody."

XI

THE LAST DITCH

It was a mark of the later and larger development of David Kent that he
was able to keep his head in the moment of catastrophes. In boyhood his
hair had been a brick-dust red, and having the temperament which belongs
of right to the auburn-hued, his first impulse was to face about and make
a personal matter of the legal robbery with Judge Ma