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"You didn't need to tell me; I know my business," said Hallock, and his tone matched his superior's. Lidgerwood looked at McCloskey, and, at the trainmaster's almost imperceptible nod, said, "That's all," and Hallock disappeared and closed the door. "Well?" queried Lidgerwood sharply, when they had privacy again. McCloskey was shifting uneasily from one foot to the other.
The master-mechanic excused himself abruptly when he saw who the trainmaster's follower was. "I'll go and get something to eat," he said hurriedly; "after which I'll pick up a few men whom we can depend upon and garrison the shops. Send over for me if you need me." Benson looked hard at the door which was still quivering under Gridley's outgoing slam.
In the trainmaster's room of the weather-beaten headquarters building, nicknamed by railroad men "The Wickiup," early comers sleepy-faced, keen-eyed trainmen lounged on the tables and in chairs discussing the reports from Point of Rocks, and among them crew-callers and messengers moved in and out.
Together they left the shelter of the trainmaster's room, and passed down the dark stair and out upon the platform, where the cavalrymen were mounting guard.
The trainmaster's rejoinder was outspokenly blunt. "I've nowhere to run to, Mr. Lidgerwood, and that's no joke. Some of the backcappers will be telling you presently that I was a train despatcher over in God's country, and that I put two trains together. It's your right to know that it's true." "Thank you, Mr. McCloskey," said Lidgerwood simply; "that sounds good to me.
But the combinations which at eleven o'clock had gone fast refused now to work. The Lalla Rookh curtains intruded continually into his problems and his calculations dissolved helplessly into an idle stare at a jumble of figures. He got up at last, restless, walked through the trainmaster's room, into the despatcher's office, and stumbled on the tragedy of the night.
The contortions of the trainmaster's homely features indicated an inward struggle of the last-resort nature. When he had reached a conclusion he spat it out. "You haven't asked my advice, Mr. Lidgerwood, but here it is anyway. Flemister, the owner of the Wire-Silver mine over in Timanyoni Park, was the president of that building and loan outfit.
It's too horrible!" There was a bull-bellow of rage from the room they had just left, and Lidgerwood hurried his companion into the first refuge that offered, which chanced to be the trainmaster's room.
The door leading into the room beyond the trainmaster's office opened squeakily on dry hinges, and a chattering of telegraph instruments heralded the incoming of a disreputable-looking office-man, with a green patch over one eye and a blackened cob-pipe between his teeth. Seeing Lidgerwood, he ducked and turned to McCloskey.
Not to leave anything undone, Lidgerwood summoned McCloskey by a touch of the buzzer-push connecting with the trainmaster's office. "No word from Judson yet?" he asked, when McCloskey's homely face appeared in the doorway. "No, not yet," was the reply. "Let me know when you hear from him; and in the meantime I wish you would go downstairs and see if Gridley came in on 203.
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