embers of the train crew.

Turning the work of track clearing over to Bromley and the relief crew,
Ballard began at once to pry irritably into causes; irritably since
wrecks meant delays, and President Pelham's letters were already
cracking the whip for greater expedition.

It was a singular derailment, and at first none of the trainmen seemed
to be able to account for it. The point of disaster was on a sharp curve
where the narrow-gauge track bent like a strained bow around one of the
rocky hills. As the debris lay, the train seemed to have broken in two
on the knuckle of the curve, and here the singularity was emphasised.
The overturned cars were not merely derailed; they were locked and
crushed together, and heaped up and strewn abroad, in a fashion to
indicate a collision rather than a simple jumping of the track.

Ballard used Galliford, the train conductor, for the first heel of his
pry.

"I guess you and Hoskins both need about thirty days," was the way he
opened upon Galliford. "How long had your train been broken in two
before the two sections came in collision?"

"If we was broke in two, nobody knew it. I was in the caboose 'lookout'
myself, and I saw the Two's gauge-light track around the curve. Next I
knew, I was smashin' the glass in the 'lookout' with my head, and the
train was chasin' out on the prairie. I'll take the thirty days, all
right, and I won't sue the company for the cuts on my head. But I'll be
danged if I'll take the blame, Mr. Ballard." The conductor spoke as a
man.

"Somebody's got to take it," snapped the chief. "If you didn't break in
two, what did happen?"

"Now you've got me guessing, and I hain't got any more guesses left. At
first I thought Hoskins had hit something 'round on the far side o' the
curve. That's what it felt like. Then, for a second or two, I could have
sworn he had the Two in the reverse, backing his end of the train up
against my end and out into the sage-brush."

"What does Hoskins say? Where is he?" demanded Ballard; and together
they picked their way around to the other end of the wreck, looking for
the engineman.

Hoskins, however, was not to be found. Fitzpatrick had seen him groping
about in the cab of his overturned engine; and Bromley, when the inquiry
reached him, explained that he had sent Hoskins up to camp on a hand-car
which was going back for tools.

"He was pretty badly shaken up, and I told him he'd better hunt the bunk
shanty and rest his n