ors, a shaken, white-lipped
crowd, poured out of the observation car to the track side. There was
no cigar in H. Herrington Campbell's mouth.

It was dark by then, but the wreckage caught fire and flung a yellow
glow far across the canyon, and in a shadowy way lighted up the
immediate surroundings. Train crews and engine crews of both trains
hurried here and there, torches and lanterns began to splutter and
wink, hoarse shouts began to echo back and forth, adding their quota to
a weird medley of escaping steam and crackling flame.

Regan, from a hasty consultation with old Dan MacCaffery and old Pete
Chartrand, that sent the two men on the jump to carry out his orders,
turned--to face H. Herrington Campbell.

"Nobody hurt, sir--thank God!" puffed the fat little master mechanic,
in honest relief.

H. Herrington Campbell's eyes were on the retreating forms of the
engineer and conductor.

"Oh, indeed!" he said coldly. "And the whole affair is hardly worth
mentioning, I take it--quite a common occurrence. You've got some
pretty old men handling your trains out here, haven't you?"

Regan's face went hard.

"They're pretty good men," he said shortly. "And there's no blame
coming to them for this, Mr. Campbell, if that's what you mean."

H. Herrington Campbell's fingers went tentatively to his vest pocket
for a cigar, extracted the broken remains of one--the relic of his own
collision with the back of a car seat where the smash had hurled
him--and threw it away with an icy smile.

"Blame?" expostulated H. Herrington Campbell ironically. "I don't want
to blame any one; I'm looking for some one to congratulate--on the
worst run division and the most pitiful exemplification of
near-railroading I've had any experience with in twenty years--Mr.
Regan."

For a full minute Regan did not speak. He couldn't. And then the
words came away with a roar from the bluff little master mechanic.

"By glory!" he exploded. "We don't take that kind of talk out here
even from general managers--we don't have to! That's straight enough,
ain't it? Well, I'll give you some more of it, now I've started. I
don't like you. I don't like that pained look on your face. I've been
filling up on you all morning, and you don't digest well. We don't
stand for anything as raw as that from any man on earth. And you
needn't hunt around for any greased words, as far as I'm concerned, to
do your firing with--you can have my resignation as