out here? Is it money you want?"

Gallagher glanced around. Then with an ugly push of the shoulder he sent
Quest reeling into the shed. His great form blocked the doorway.

"No," he cried fiercely, "it's not money I want this time. Quest, you
brute, you dirty bloodhound! You sent me to the pen for five years--you
with your cursed prying into other people's affairs. Don't you remember
me, eh? Red Gallagher?"

"Of course I do," Quest replied coolly. "You garrotted and robbed an old
man and had the spree of your life. The old man happened to be a friend of
mine, so I took the trouble to see that you paid for it. Well?"

"Five years of hell, that's what I had," the man continued, his eyes
flashing, his face twitching with anger. "Well, you're going to have a
little bit more than five years. This shed's been burnt down twice--sparks
from passing engines. It's going to be burnt down for the third time."

"Going to make a bonfire of me, eh?" Quest remarked.

"You can sneer, my fine friend," the man growled. "You've had a good many
comfortable years of wearing fine clothes and smoking twenty-five-cent
cigars, swaggering about and hunting poor guys that never did you any
harm. This is where we are going to get a bit of our own back. See here!
We are locking this door--like that. It's a lonely bit of the line. The
man in the tower never takes his eyes off the signals and there ain't a
soul in sight. Me and my mate are off to the section house. Two minutes
will see us there and back. We're going to bring a can of oil and an
armful of waste. Can you tell what for, eh? We're going to burn the place
to a cinder in less than three minutes, and if you're alive when the walls
come down, we'll try a little rifle practise at you, see?"

"Sounds remarkably unpleasant," Quest admitted. "You'd better hurry or the
boss will be back."

Gallagher finally slammed the door. Quest heard the heavy footsteps of the
two men as they turned towards the section house. He drew a little case
from his coat pocket.

"Just as well, perhaps," he said softly to himself, "that I perfected this
instrument. It's rather close quarters here."

He opened what seemed to be a little mahogany box, looked at the ball of
black substance inside, closed it up, placed it against the far wall,
untwisted the coil, stood back near the door and pressed the button. The
result was extraordinary. The whole of the far wall was blown out and for
some distance in front th