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"So far as our station records show, Flemister has had no material, save coal, shipped in over either the eastern or the western spur for several months." "Then you believe that he took your bridge-timbers and sawed them up into lumber?" "I do as firmly as I believe that the sun will rise to-morrow. And that isn't all of it, Lidgerwood. He is the man who has your switch-engine.
But I am confident that there is one, and that the thieves, whoever they were, lost no time in sawing my bridge-timbers up into board-lumber, and I'll bet a hen worth fifty dollars against a no-account yellow dog that I have seen those boards a dozen times within the last twenty-four hours, without knowing it."
"You'll go your own way and do as you please, and probably get yourself comfortably shot up before you get through. But I didn't come up here to wrangle with you about your theoretical notions of law and order. I came to tell you that I have been hunting for those bridge-timbers of mine." "Well?" queried Lidgerwood; "have you found them?" "No, and I don't believe anybody will ever find them.
He says that about two o'clock in the morning of Saturday, two weeks ago, an engine and a single car backed down from the west to the Gloria bridge, and a crowd of men swarmed off the train, loaded those bridge-timbers, and ran away with them, going back up the line to the west.
"There was one little thing that I forgot to put in the report: when you get ready to take that missing switch-engine back, you'll find it choo-chooin' away up yonder in Flemister's new power-house that he's built out of boards made from Mr. Benson's bridge-timbers." "Is that so? Did you see the engine?" queried the superintendent quickly. "No, but I might as well have.
"Sullivan is a thief, all right, but he does it openly and brags about it; carries off a set of bridge-timbers, now and then, for house-sills, and makes a joke of it with anybody who will listen." Lidgerwood dismissed Sullivan abruptly. "It is an organized gang, and it must have its members pretty well scattered through the departments and have a good many members, too," he said conclusively.
The arrest will be made quietly. Judson understands that. There is another man that we've got to have, and there is no time just now to go after him." "Who is the other man?" asked Benson. "It is Flemister; the man who has the stolen switching-engine boxed up in a power-house built out of planks sawed from your Gloria bridge-timbers." "I told you so!" exclaimed the young engineer. "By Jove!
"Didn't see anything of our switch-engine while you were looking for your bridge-timbers and saw-mills and other things, did you?" queried Lidgerwood. "No," was the quick reply, "no, but I have a think coming on that, too. My old prospector says he couldn't make out very well in the dark, but it seemed to him as if the engine which hauled away our bridge-timbers didn't have any tender.
I wanted to check him up see if he had forgotten any of the little frills and details. He hadn't. On the contrary, he was able to add what seems to me a very important detail. About an hour after the disappearance of the one-car train with my bridge-timbers, he heard something that he had heard many times before. He says it was the high-pitched song of a circular saw. I asked him if he was sure.
"Do you happen to know what the business was?" "Yes, I do. He went at my request." "H'm," said Benson, "another string broken. Never mind; I've got to catch that train." "Still after those bridge-timbers?" "Still after the boards they have probably been sawed into. And before I get back I am going to know what's at the upper end of that old Silver Switch 'Y' spur."
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