hy did you take this long chance?" I demanded. "You say you
knew I had spotted you; you might have known that I'd be ready for you."

"I kind o' hoped you would," he said, drawling the words. "Yes; I sure
did hope ye would--not but what I'm thinkin' I could 'a' done it alone."

"Done what alone? What are you driv----"

The interruption was imperative; a fierce "Hist!" from the corner
beside the safe, and at the same instant a blurring of the gray patch
of the window, a sash rising almost noiselessly, and two men, following
each other like substance and shadow, legging themselves into the
office over the window-sill. At first I thought Dorgan had set a trap
for me; but before that unworthy suspicion could draw its second
breath, the track foreman had hurled himself upon the two intruders,
calling to me to come on and help him.

The battle, such as it was, was short, sharp and decisive, as the
darkness and the contracted fighting space constrained it to be.
Though I dared not shoot, I contrived to use the rifle as a club on the
man who was trying to choke Dorgan from behind, and after a
hard-breathing minute or two we had them both down, one of them half
stunned by the blow on his head from the gun-barrel, and the other with
an arm twisted and temporarily useless. Under Dorgan's directions I
cut a couple of lengths from a rope coil in the commissary with which
we tied the pair hand and foot, dragging them afterward to the freer
floor space beyond the pay-office partition.

"They'll be stayin' put till mornin', I'm thinkin'," was Dorgan's
comment as we retreated to the scene of the battle. Then, as he edged
toward the open window: "Ye won't be needin' me any more to-night . . .
I'll duck whilst the duckin's good."

"Not just yet," I interposed, and pulled him to a seat on the cot
beside me. "I want to know a few things first. You knew about the
raid these fellows were planning?"

"Sure, I did."

"Tell me about it."

"I piped 'em off about a week ago--when Kenniston 'd gone. They talked
too much, and too loud, d'ye see? The lay was f'r to chase in to the
Creek wit' you--an' they did--an' get you on the road, if they could;
if that didn't work, they was to crack the safe"--this with the
contempt of the real craftsman for a pair of amateurs. "D'ye see, the
boss 'd been dippy enough to write the combination on a piece o' paper
when Kenniston ducked out--f'r fear he'd be forgettin' it, maybe, and
these dub