orders properly."

"Hold on a minute. How did the enemy get wind of your plot so quickly? You
can tell me that, can't you?"

"Oh, yes; I told you Hawk was one of the party in the private car. He fell
off at the yard limits station and came back to town."

The night editor stood up and confronted his visitor.

"David, you are either the coolest plunger that ever drew breath--or the
bub-biggest fool. I wouldn't be standing in your shoes to-night for two
such railroads as the T-W."

Kent laughed again and opened the door.

"I suppose not. But you know there is no accounting for the difference in
tastes. I feel as if I had never really lived before this night; the only
thing that troubles me is the fear that somebody or something will get in
the way of my demented engineer."

He went out into the hall, but as Hildreth was closing the door he turned
back.

"There is one other thing that I meant to say: when you get your two
columns of sensation, you've got to be decent and share with the
Associated Press."

"I'm dud-dashed if I do!" said Hildreth, fiercely.

"Oh, yes, you will; just the bare facts, you know. You'll have all the
exciting details for an 'exclusive,' to say nothing of the batch of
affidavits in the oil scandal. And it is of the last importance to me that
the facts shall be known to-morrow morning wherever the Associated has a
wire."

"Go away!" said the editor, "and dud-don't come back here till you can
uncork yourself like a man and a Cuc-Christian! Go off, I say!"

It wanted but a few minutes of eleven when Kent mounted the stair to the
despatcher's room in the Union Station. He found M'Tosh sitting at
Donohue's elbow, and the sounders on the glass-topped table were crackling
like overladen wires in an electric storm.

"Strike talk," said the train-master. "Every man on both divisions wants
to know what's doing. Got your newspaper string tied up all right?"

Kent made a sign of assent.

"We are waiting for Mr. Patrick Callahan. Any news from him?"

"Plenty of it. Patsy would have a story to tell, all right, if he could
stop to put it on the wires. Durgan ought to have caught that blamed
right-of-way man and chloroformed him."

"I found him messing, as I 'phoned you. Anything come of it?"

"Nothing fatal, I guess, since Patsy is still humping along. But Hawk's
next biff was more to the purpose. He came down here with Halkett's chief
clerk, whom he had hauled out of bed, and two policemen