; wire your notice there, and
I'll fix to have it 'phoned over. I don't believe it can be worked,
though," added the deputy, doubtfully.

"We can't tell till we try," said Ormsby; and he hurried back to his car
to egg on the machinist with golden promises contingent upon haste.

Miss Brentwood found her companion singularly silent on the five-mile race
to Breezeland; but the lightning speed at which he drove the car put
conversation out of the question. At the hotel he saw her into the lift
with decent deliberation; but the moment she was off his hands he fairly
ran to the telegrapher's alcove in the main hall.

"Have you a Western Union wire to the capital direct?" he inquired.

The young man snapped his key and said he had.

"It has no connection with the Trans-Western railroad offices?"

"None whatever."

Ormsby dashed off a brief message to Kent, giving three or four addresses
at which he might be found.

"Send that, and have them try the Union Station train platform first.
Don't let them spare expense at the other end, and if you can bring proof
of delivery to Room 261 within half an hour, it means a month's pay to
you, individually. Can you do it?"

But the operator was already claiming the wire, writing "deth," "deth,"
"deth," as rapidly as his fingers could shake off the dots and dashes.

XXVII

BY ORDER OF THE COURT

Between the hours of eight-thirty and ten P.M. the Union Passenger Station
at the capital presents a moving and spirited spectacle. Within the hour
and a half, four through and three local trains are due to leave, and the
space within the iron grille that fences off the track platforms from the
public part of the station is filled with hurrying throngs of
train-takers.

Down at the outer end of the train-shed the stuttering pop-valves of the
locomotives, the thunderous trundling of the heavy baggage trucks, and the
shrill, monotonous chant of the express messengers checking in their
cargoes, lift a din harmonious to the seasoned traveler; a medley softened
and distance-diminished for those that crowd upon the gate-keepers at the
iron grille.

It was the evening of the last day in the month; the day when the
Federative Council of Railway Workers had sent its ultimatum to Receiver
Guilford. The reduction in wages was to go into effect at midnight: if, by
midnight, the order had not been rescinded, and the way opened for a joint
conference touching the removal of certain obnox