:--

"I've suspected that there was something in the wind, but I've been too
busy with other things to tend to it, so I turned it over to Dennis.
Perhaps he's done as well as I could I don't know much about G.&M. these
days. For a long time they were at me to take a big block of treasury
stock, but the road seemed to me in bad shape, so I wouldn't go in. Lately
they've reorganized--have got a lot of new money in there--I don't know
whose, but they've let me alone. There's been no row, you understand. That
ain't the reason they've tied us up, but I haven't known much about what
was going on inside."

"Would they be likely to tell you if you asked? I mean if you took it to
headquarters?"

"I couldn't get any more out of them than you could--that is, not by
asking."

"I guess I'll go look 'em up myself. Where can I find anybody that knows
anything?"

"The division offices are at Blake City. That's only about twenty miles.
You could save time by talking over the 'phone."

"Not me," said Bannon. "In a case like this I couldn't express myself
properly unless I saw the fellow I was talking to."

Sloan laughed. "I guess you're right. But I'll call up the division
superintendent and tell him you're coming. Then you'll be sure of finding
him."

Bannon shook his head. "I'd find him with his little speech all learned.
No, I'll take my chances on his being there. When's the train?"

"Nine-forty-six."

"That gives me fifteen minutes. Can I make it?"

"Not afoot, and you ain't likely to catch a car. I'll drive you down. I've
got the fastest mare in Pottawatomie County."

The fact that the G.&M. had been rescued from its poverty and was about to
be "developed" was made manifest in Blake City by the modern building
which the railroad was erecting on the main street. Eventually the
division officials were to be installed in office suites of mahogany
veneer, with ground glass doors lettered in gold leaf. For the present, as
from the beginning, they occupied an upper floor of a freight warehouse.
Bannon came in about eleven o'clock, looked briefly about, and seeing that
one corner was partitioned off into a private office, he ducked under the
hand rail intended to pen up ordinary visitors, and made for it. A
telegraph operator just outside the door asked what his business was, but
he answered merely that it was with the superintendent, and went in.

He expected rather rough work. The superintendent of a railroad, or of a
d