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Updated: June 1, 2025
His hands were no longer trembling when he once more wound the crank of the telephone and held the receiver to his ear. There was an answering skirl of the bell, and then a voice said: "Hello! This is Goodloe: what's wanted?" Judson wasted no time in explanations. "This is Judson John Judson. Get Timanyoni on your wire, quick, and catch Mr. Lidgerwood's special.
At the tar-paper-covered, iron-roofed Celestial, where he took his meals, Lidgerwood had a table to himself, which he shared at times with McCloskey, and at other times with breezy Jack Benson, the young engineer whom Vice-President Ford had sent, upon Lidgerwood's request and recommendation, to put new life into the track force, and to make the preliminary surveys for a possible western extension of the road.
There was the beginning of a frenzied outburst of despairing curses upbubbling to Judson's lips when he realized his utter helplessness and the consequences menacing the superintendent's special. True, he did not know what the consequences were to be, but he had overheard enough to be sure that Lidgerwood's life was threatened.
Dawson examined it carefully before he rose up to say: "Why didn't they spring it the other way, if they wanted to make a thorough job of it? That would have put the train into the river." Lidgerwood's reply was as laconic as the query. "Because the trap was set for my car, going west; not for the passenger, going east."
The baggage-car, riding high upon the crushed tender, was body-whole, but the smoker, day-coach, and sleeper were all more or less shattered, with the smoking-car already beginning to blaze from the broken lamps. It was a crisis to call out the best in any gift of leadership, and Lidgerwood's genius for swift and effective organization came out strong under the hammer-blow of the occasion.
"Look it up in Callahan's office," he said. "If any message has gone to Leckhard to-day, I didn't write it." When he closed the door of his private office behind him, Lidgerwood's purpose was to go immediately to the Nadia to warn the members of the pleasure-party, and to convince them, if possible, of the advisability of a prompt retreat to Copah.
With reason assuring him that the gambler was merely making a grand-stand play for the benefit of the bar-room crowd wedging itself in Biggs's doorway, Lidgerwood's lips went dry, and he knew that the haunting terror was slipping its humiliating mask over his face. But before he could say or do any fear-prompted thing a diversion came.
With the breakfast thought came the thing itself, or the invitation to it. As a parting kindness the night before, Ford had transferred one of the cooks from his own private car to Lidgerwood's service, and the little man, Tadasu Matsuwari by name, and a subject of the Mikado by race and birth, came to the car door to call his new employer to the table.
Lidgerwood answered in person, crossing to the railing to hear Judson's latest report, which was given in hoarse whispers. Miss Brewster could distinguish no word of it, but she heard Lidgerwood's reply. "Tell Benson and Dawson, and say that the engine I ordered had better be sent up at once."
Three doors below, in front of Biggs's, a bunch of saddled cow-ponies gave notice of a fresh accession to the bar-room crowd which was now overflowing upon the steps and the plank sidewalk. Lidgerwood's thoughts shuttled swiftly.
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