light shows the small station building massed by men, a
score of them poising for a spring to the platforms of the private car
when the slackening speed shall permit. A bullet tears into the woodwork
at Callahan's elbow, and another breaks the glass of the window beside
him, but he makes the stop as steadily as if death were not snapping at
him from behind and roaring in his ears from the belly of the burned
engine.

"Be doomping yer fire lively, now, Jimmy, b'y," he says, dropping from his
box to help. And while they wrestle with the dumping-bar, these two, the
poising figures have swarmed upon the Naught-seven, and a voice is lifted
above the Babel of others in sharp protest.

"Put away that rope, boys! There's law here, and by God, we're going to
maintain it!"

At this a man pushes his way out of the thick of the crowd and climbs to a
seat beside the chauffeur in the waiting automobile.

"They've got him," he says shortly. "To the hotel for all you're worth,
Hudgins; our part is to get this on the wires before one o'clock. Full
speed; and never mind the ruts."

XXX

SUBHI SADIK

The dawn of a new day was graying over the capital city, and the newsboys
were crying lustily in the streets, when David Kent felt his way up the
dark staircases of the Kittleton Building to knock at the door of Judge
Oliver Marston's rooms on the top floor. He was the bearer of tidings, and
he made no more than a formal excuse for the unseemly hour when the door
was opened by the lieutenant-governor.

"I am sorry to disturb you, Judge Marston," he began, when he had the
closed door at his back and was facing the tall thin figure in flannel
dressing gown and slippers, "but I imagine I'm only a few minutes ahead of
the crowd. Have you heard the news of the night?"

The judge pressed the button of the drop-light and waved his visitor to a
chair.

"I have heard nothing, Mr. Kent. Have a cigar?"--passing the box of
unutterable stogies.

"Thank you; not before breakfast," was the hasty reply. Then, without
another word of preface: "Judge Marston, for the time being you are the
governor of the State, and I have come to----"

"One moment," interrupted his listener. "There are some stories that read
better for a foreword, however brief. What has happened?"

"This: last night it was the purpose of Governor Bucks and Receiver
Guilford to go to Gaston by special train. In some manner, which has not
yet been fully explained, ther