ver you get ready to put Hallock under the hydraulic
press, you'll squeeze what you want to know out of him."

This was coming to be an old subject and a sore one. The trainmaster
still insisted that Hallock was the man who was planning the robberies
and plotting the downfall of the Lidgerwood management, and he wanted
to have the chief clerk systematically shadowed. And it was Lidgerwood's
wholly groundless prepossession for Hallock that was still keeping him
from turning the matter over to the company's legal department--this in
spite of the growing accumulation of evidence all pointing to Hallock's
treason. Subjected to a rigid cross-examination, Judson had insisted
that a part, at least, of his drunken recollection was real--that part
identifying the voices of the two plotters in Cat Biggs's back room as
those of Rufford and Hallock. Moreover, it was no longer deniable that
the chief clerk was keeping in close touch with the discharged
employees, for some purpose best known to himself; and latterly he had
been dropping out of his office without notice, disappearing, sometimes,
for a day at a time.

Lidgerwood was recalling the last of these disappearances when the
second wrecking-train, having backed to the nearest siding to admit of a
reversal of its make-up order and the placing of the crane in the lead,
came up to go into action. McCloskey shaded his eyes from the sun's
glare and looked down the line.

"Hello!" he exclaimed. "Got a new wrecking-boss?"

The superintendent nodded. "I have one in the making. Dawson wanted to
come along and try his hand."

"Did Gridley send him?"

"No; Gridley is away somewhere."

"So Fred's your understudy, is he? Well, I've got one, too. I'll show
him to you after a while."

They were walking back over the ties toward the half-buried 195. The
ten-wheeler was on its side in the ditch, nuzzling the opposite bank of
a low cutting. Dawson had already divided his men: half of them to place
the huge jack-beams and outriggers of the self-contained steam lifting
machine to insure its stability, and the other half to trench under the
fallen engine and to adjust the chain slings for the hitch.

"It's a pretty long reach, Fred," said the superintendent. "Going to try
it from here?"

"Best place," said the reticent one shortly.

Lidgerwood was looking at his watch.

"Williams will be due here before long with a special from Copah. I
don't want to hold him up," he remarked.

"T