you didn't get here sooner."

"So am I--so am I," cried Dick, craning his long neck nervously.

"Where is Mugs?" asked Grant, as the two worked with a beam over a
body--the body of handsome Fred Kollander--lying near the edge of the
litter.

"He's home in bed and asleep--and so's his mother, too, Grant, sound
asleep."

During the first minutes after the explosion, men near by like Grant and
Fenn came running to the scene of the wrecked shaft by the scores, and
as Grant and Dick Bowman spoke the streets grew black with men, workmen,
policemen, soldiers, citizens, men by the hundreds came hurrying up. The
great siren whistles of the water and light plants began to bellow; fire
bells and church bells up in Harvey began to ring, and Grant knew that
the telephone was alarming the town. Ten minutes after the explosion,
while Grant was ordering his men in the crowd to organize for the
rescue, a militia colonel appeared, threw a cordon of men about the
ruins and the police and soldiers took charge, forcing Grant and his men
away. The first few moments after he had been thrust out of the relief
work, Grant spent sending his men in the crowd to summon the members of
the Council; then he turned and hurried to his office in the Vanderbilt
House. For an hour he wrote. Henry Fenn came, and later Laura Van Dorn
appeared, but he waved them both to silence, and without telling them
what he had written he went with them to the hall where the Valley
Council was waiting in a turmoil of excitement. It was after two
o'clock. South Harvey was a military camp. Thousands of citizens from
Harvey were hurrying about. As he passed along the street, the electric
lights showed him little groups about some grief-stricken parent or
brother or sister of a missing militiaman. Automobiles were roaring
through the streets carrying officers, policemen, prominent citizens of
Harvey. Ahab Wright and Joe Calvin and Kyle Perry were in a car with
John Kollander who had come down to South Harvey to claim the body of
his son, Fred. Grant saw the Sands's car with Morty in it supporting a
stricken soldier. The car was halted at the corner by the press of
traffic, and as Grant and Laura and Henry passed, Morty said under the
din: "Grant--Grant, be careful--they are turning Heaven and earth to
find your hand in this; it will be only a matter of days--maybe only
hours, until they will have their witnesses hired!"

Grant nodded. The car moved on and Grant and his