e and reported to Baxter, who had returned ahead of
him and was elated at Bucks's success. Before the young substitute
took up his train-sheet, he told the chief despatcher of how strangely
the conductor, Dave Hawk, had talked to him.

"He has a reason for it," responded Baxter briefly.

"What reason?"

"There is as good a railroad man as ever lived," said Baxter,
referring to the black-bearded conductor. "He is the master of us all
in the handling of trains. He could be anything anybody is on this
line to-day that he might want to be but for one thing. If he hadn't
ruined his own life, Dave Hawk could be superintendent here. He knows
whereof he speaks, Bucks."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean he is a gambler. Did you hear the shooting after I left
you?"

"No, what was it?"

"It must have been while you were in Perry's. Not five minutes after
we parted, a saloon-keeper shot a woman down right in front of me; I
was standing less than ten feet from her when she fell," said the
despatcher, recounting the incident. "But I was too late to protect
her; and I should probably have been shot myself if I had tried to."

"Was the brute arrested?"

"Arrested! Who arrests anybody in this town?"

"How long is this sort of thing going on?" asked Bucks, sitting down
and signing a transfer.

"How long!" echoed the despatcher, taking up his hat to go to his
room. "I don't know how long. But when their time comes--God help that
crowd up Front Street!"

CHAPTER XVI

Following Collins's return to duty, Bucks was assigned to a new
western station, Point of Rocks. It was in the mountains and where
Casement, now laying five and even six miles of track a day, had just
turned over a hundred and eighty miles to the operating department.
Bucks, the first operator ever sent to the lonely place afterward
famous in railroad story, put his trunk aboard a freight train the
next morning and started for his destination.

The ride through the mountains was an inspiration. A party of army
officers and their wives, preferring to take the day run for the
scenery, were bound for one of the mountain posts, Fort Bridger, and
they helped to make the long day journey in the cabin car, with its
frequent stops and its laborious engine-puffing over the mountain
grades, a pleasant one. The women made coffee on a cabin stove and
Bucks, the only other passenger, was invited to lunch with them.

When the train stopped at Point of Rocks and Buck