n spite of their dollar-ante and the roof of
the observation car for the limit, began to lose interest in their game.

"What is this new toy we've bought?" inquired one of them plaintively.
"A funeral procession?"

Even H. Herrington Campbell began to show emotion--he shifted his cigar
stub at intervals from one corner of his mouth to the other. Regan was
hot--both ways--inside and out; hotter a whole lot than the hot box he
took his coat off to, and helped old Pete Chartrand and the train crew
slosh buckets of water over every time the Directors' Special stopped,
which was frequently.

It wasn't old Pete's fault. It wasn't anybody's fault. It was just
blamed hard luck, and it lasted through the whole blamed afternoon.
And by the time they pulled into Elk River, where Regan had wired for
another car, and had transferred the baggage, the Directors' Special,
as far as temper went, was as touchy as a man with a bad case of gout.
As they coupled on the new car, Regan spoke to old Dan in the
cab--spoke from his heart.

"We're two hours late, Dan--h'm? For the love of Mike, let her out and
do something. That bunch back there's getting so damned polite to me
you'd think the words would melt in their mouths--what?"

Old Dan puckered his face into a reassuring smile under the peak of his
greasy cap.

"I guess we're all right now we've got rid of that car," he said. "You
leave it to me. You leave it to me, Regan."

Pete Chartrand, savage as though the whole matter were a personal and
direct affront, reached up with a new tissue to the cab window.

"Two hours and ten minutes late!" he snapped out. "Nice, ain't it!
Directors' Special, all the swells, we're doing ourselves proud! Oh,
hell!"

"Keep your shirt on, Pete," said Regan, somewhat inconsistently.
"Losing your hair over it won't do any good. You're not to blame, are
you? Well then, forget it!"

Two hours and ten minutes late! Bad enough; but, in itself, nothing
disastrous. It wasn't the first time in railroading that schedules had
gone aglimmering. Only there was more to it than that. There were not
a few other trains, fast freights, passengers, locals and work trains,
whose movements and the movements of the Directors' Special were
intimately connected one with the other. Two hours and ten minutes was
sufficient, a whole lot more than sufficient, to play havoc with a
despatcher's carefully planned meeting points over a hundred miles of
right of