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They boarded a Twentieth Avenue car accordingly, but when they reached the end of the line, which was just across the tracks from the junction in the lower yards, they found the yard limits office and the shops surrounded by a cordon of militia. "By George!" said M'Tosh. "They got quick action, didn't they? I suppose it's on the ground of the strike and possible violence."
The Civic League isn't dead yet." And he took down the numbers of the two officers. There were no arrests made, and when the ousted three were clear of the room and the building, Kent asked an anxious question. "How near can they come to smashing us, M'Tosh?" "That depends on Callahan's nerve.
It was in fulfilment of this promise that Kent bestirred himself after he had sent a wire to Ormsby, and M'Tosh had settled down to the task of smoothing Callahan's way westward over a division already twitching in the preliminary rigor of the strike convulsion. "I am going to set the fuse for the newspaper explosion," he said to his ally.
But before he could mount to the foot-board of the 1010, M'Tosh collared him. "Patsy, I have your orders, at last. Your passengers will be down in a few minutes, and you are to pull out ahead of the express." "Is it to Gaston I'm goin', Misther M'Tosh?" The fireman was standing by with the oil can and torch, ready to Callahan's hand, and the train-master drew the engineer aside.
"Barring accidents, there is no reason why we shouldn't begin to figure definitely upon the result, is there?" M'Tosh was leaning over Despatcher Donohue's shoulder.
Halkett is out of town, and this gentleman, Mr. Hawk, is not in his department. I believe I should investigate a little before sending that, if I were you." Having thus sown the small seed of suspicion, which, by the by, fell on barren soil, Kent lost no time in calling up M'Tosh over the nearest telephone. "Do our agents on the Western Division handle Western Union business?" he asked.
Once safe in his rooms he sent for Loring, stretching himself on the bed in a very ecstasy of relaxation until the ex-manager came up. Then he emptied his mind as an overladen ass spills its panniers. "I'm done, Grantham," he said; "and that is more different kinds of truth than you have heard in a week. Go and reorganize your management, and M'Tosh is the man to put in Halkett's place.
The door opened suddenly and Hawk danced in, followed by a man bareheaded and in his shirt-sleeves, the superintendent's chief clerk, and the two officers. "Now, then, we'll trouble you and your man to get out of here, Mr. M'Tosh," said the captain of the junto forces, vindictively. But the train-master was of those who die hard.
"Shovel needn't hear," he said in explanation. And then: "Are you willing to stand with us, Patsy? You've had time enough to think it over." Callahan stood with his arms folded and his cap drawn down over his eyes. "'Tis not f'r meself I'm thinkin', Misther M'Tosh, as ye well know. But I'm a widdy man; an' there's the bit colleen in the convint."
The red tail-lights of the private-car special were yet within a sprinter's dash of the trackhead, but the train-master lost no time chasing a ten-wheel flyer with "Red" Callahan at the throttle. "Up to my office!" he shouted; and ten seconds later Kent was leaning breathless over the desk in the despatcher's room while M'Tosh called Durgan over the yard limits telephone.
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