e-out will be a fact accomplished."

Miss Van Brock drew a long breath that was more than half a sigh.

"You spoke the simple truth, David, when you said that his Excellency is a
great man. It seems utterly hopeless now that we have cleared up all the
little mysteries."

Kent rose to take his leave.

"No; that is where they all go out and I stay in," he said cheerfully.
"The shrewder he is, the more credit there will be in making him let go.
And you mark my words: I am going to make him let go. Good night."

She had gone with him to the door; was in the act of closing it behind
him, when he turned back for a belated question.

"By the way, what did you tell Mrs. Brentwood to do?"

"I told her not to do anything until she had consulted you and Mr. Loring
and Brookes Ormsby. Was that right?"

"Quite right. If it comes up again, rub it in some more. We'll save her
alive yet, if she will let us. Did you say I might come to dinner
to-morrow evening? Thank you: you grow sweeter and more truly
compassionate day by day. Good night again."

XV

THE JUNKETERS

When Receiver Guilford took possession of the properties, appurtenances
and appendages of the sequestered Trans-Western Railway, one of the
luxuries to which he fell heir was private car "Naught-seven," a
commodious hotel on wheels originally used as the directors' car of the
Western Pacific, and later taken over by Loring to be put in commission as
the general manager's special.

In the hands of a friendly receiver this car became a boon to the capitol
contingent; its observation platform served as a shifting rostrum from
which a deep-chested executive or a mellifluous Hawk often addressed
admiring crowds at way stations, and its dining saloon was the moving
scene of many little relaxative feasts, at which _Veuve Cliquot_ flowed
freely, priceless cigars were burned, and the members of the organization
unbent, each after his kind.

But to the men of the throttle and oil-can, car Naught-seven, in the gift
of a hospitable receiver, shortly became a nightmare. Like most private
cars, it was heavier than the heaviest Pullman; and the engineer who was
constrained to haul it like a dragging anchor at the tail end of a fast
train was prone to say words not to be found in any vocabulary known to
respectable philologists.

It was in the evening of a wind-blown day, a week after Kent's visit to
Gaston, that Engineer "Red" Callahan, oiling around for the all-n