cepting the invitation to dine
with the president's party in the _Nadia_. Being the practical as well
as the nominal head of the Red Butte line, and the only official with
complete authority west of Copah, his daily mail was always heavy, and
during his frequent absences the accumulations stored up work for every
spare hour he could devote to it.

It was this increasing clerical burden which had led him to ask the
general manager for a stenographer, and during one of the later absences
the young man had come--a rapid, capable young fellow with the gift of
knowing how to make himself indispensable to a superior, coupled with
the ability to take care of much of the routine correspondence without
specific instructions, and with a disposition to be loyal to his salt.

Climbing the stair to his office on the second floor of the Crow's Nest
after the brief exchange of question and answer with Judson, Lidgerwood
found his new helper hard at work grinding through the day's train mail.

"Don't scamp your meals, Grady," was his greeting to the stenographer,
as he opened his own desk. "This is a pretty busy shop, but it is well
to remember that there is always another day coming, and if there isn't,
it won't make any difference how much or how little is left undone."

"Colgan wired that you were on Mr. Brewster's special, and I was waiting
on the chance that you might want to rush something through when you got
in," returned the young Irishman, reaching mechanically for his
note-book.

"I shall want to rush a lot of it through after a while, but you'd
better go and get your supper now and come back fresh for it," said the
superintendent, who was always humane to every one but himself. "Was
there anything special in to-day's mail?"

"Only this," turning up a letter marked "Immediate" and bearing the
cancellation stamp of the postal car which had passed eastward on Train
202.

Lidgerwood read the marked letter twice before he placed it face down
in the "unanswered" basket. It was from Flemister, and it called for a
decision which the superintendent was willing to postpone for the
moment. After he had read thoughtfully through everything else on the
waiting list, he took up the mine-owner's letter again. All things
considered, it was a little puzzling. He had not seen Flemister since
the day of the rather spiteful conversation, with the building-and-loan
theft for a topic, and on that occasion the mine-owner had gone away
wit