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And it was Lidgerwood's wholly groundless prepossession for Hallock that was still keeping him from turning the matter over to the company's legal department this in spite of the growing accumulation of evidence all pointing to Hallock's treason.
The two men in the lead could be no others than Flemister and the chief clerk, presumably on their way to the carrying out of whatever plot they had agreed upon, with Lidgerwood for the potential victim. But since this plot evidently turned upon the nearing approach of Lidgerwood's special train, why were they plunging on blindly into the labyrinthine depths of the Wire-Silver mine?
Lidgerwood?" inquired the reformed cattle-herder, looking stiff and uncomfortable in his new service uniform one of Lidgerwood's earliest requirements for men on duty in the train service. "Yes. Run without stop to Little Butte, unless the despatcher calls you down. Time yourself to make Little Butte by eleven o'clock, or a little later. Who is on the engine?" "Williams." "Williams?
Whereupon she immediately wrenched the conversation aside into a new channel by asking how far it was to the canyon portal. "Only a mile or two now," was Lidgerwood's rejoinder. "Williams has been making good time."
Number One said no, that things were moving along all right, and it wasn't worth while to rush. Then something was said about a woman; I didn't catch her name or just what the hurry man said about her, only it was something about Mr. Lidgerwood's bein' in shape to mix up in it. At that Number One flopped over. 'Pull it off whenever you like! says he, savage-like."
If there are any of Seventy-one's crew left alive, you ought to give them thirty days for calling you out before you could shake hands with yourself." Being by nature deliberate in forming friendships, and proportionally tenacious of them when they were formed, Lidgerwood's impulse was to hold all men at arm's length until he was reasonably assured of sincerity and a common ground.
The vice-president's heavy eyebrows slanted in questioning surprise. "You knew in advance that you were going to turn me down? Yet you came a thousand miles to meet me here; and you admit that you have gone the length of looking the ground over." Lidgerwood's smile was mirthless. "A regular recurring phase of the disease.
"Your scheme, as you outlined it to me in your cipher wire this afternoon, was built on this same weakness of Lidgerwood's, and I agreed to it. As I understood it, you were to toll him up here with some lie about meeting Grofield, and then one of us was to put a pistol in his face and bluff him into throwing up his job. As I say, I agreed to it.
In Lidgerwood's calendar, time-killing on regular trains stood next to an infringement of the rules providing for the safety of life and property. His hand was on the signal-cord when, chancing to look back, he saw that the passenger-train had made only the momentary time-card stop at the summit station, and was coming on.
There was something approaching the abandonment of the shameless in Lidgerwood's manner when he went on. "It was in the Montana mountains. I was going in to do a bit of expert engineering for her father. Incidentally, I was escorting her and her mother from the railroad terminus to the summer camp in the hills, where they were to join a coaching party of their friends for the Yellowstone tour.
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