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Then up and spoke a small, newish switching-engine, with a little step in front of his bumper-timber, and his wheels so close together that he looked like a broncho getting ready to buck. "Something's wrong with the road when a Pennsylvania gravel-pusher tells us anything about our stock, I think. That kid's all right. Eustis designed him, and Eustis designed me. Ain't that good enough?"
"If she'd had a little more time and another wheel-turn or two to spare, she might have disappeared entirely like that switching-engine you can't find. I'm taking it for granted that you haven't found it yet or have you?" "No, I haven't!" grated McCloskey, and he said it like a man with a grievance. Then he added: "I gave you all the pointers I could find two weeks ago.
There is another matter that I want to take up with you, and to-day is as good a time as any." The trainmaster nodded and went out, muttering curses to the tilted hat brim. "This switching-engine mystery opens up a field that I've been trying to get into for some little time, Mac," the superintendent began, after the half-hour had elapsed and the trainmaster had returned to the private office.
After the mysterious disappearance of the switching-engine, mystery still unsolved and apparently unsolvable, he struck fast and hard, searching painstakingly for the leaders in the rebellion, reprimanding, suspending, and discharging until McCloskey warned him that, in addition to the evil of short-handing the road, he was filling Angels with a growing army of ex-employees, desperate and ripe for anything.
"No; that is, I guess not. Wait a minute." A touch of the bell-push brought Hallock to the door of the inner office. The green shade was pulled low over his eyes, and he held the pen he had been using as if it were a dagger. "Hallock, have you reported the disappearance of that switching-engine to Mr. Frisbie?" asked the superintendent.
Lidgerwood waited until the switching-engine, with its pop-valve open and screaming like a liberated devil of the noise pit, had passed.
The little switching-engine ran past with much noise and bustle, the engineer blowing the ludicrous whistle in salute to the distinguished visitors. Lincoln referred to the recollections of the scene, where old "Pottowatomie" thrilled the natives with panic lest he raised the negroes to revolt, and remarked, as the engine flew away: "You call that 'The Flying Dutchman' do you?
Carteret added plaintively: "It's too bad! I think they might let him have one little vacation in peace." "Who talks of peace?" queried Virginia, driven in from her post of vantage on the observation platform by the smoke from the switching-engine. "Didn't I see Uncle Somerville charging across to the telegraph office with war written out large in every line of him?"
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!
The noisy switching-engine had gone clattering and shrieking down the yard again before he said, "You mean that you are still giving me the chance to make good over yonder in the Red Desert after what I have told you?" "I do; only I'll make it more binding. It was optional with you before; it's a sheer necessity now. You've got to go."
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