r helpers, but
Lidgerwood had an uncomfortable feeling that the man was always at his
elbow; he was certainly there when the last of the wounded had been
carried around the wreck, and the relief-train was ready to back away to
Little Butte, where it could be turned upon the mine-spur "Y." It was
while the conductor of the train was gathering his volunteers for
departure that Flemister said what he had apparently been waiting for a
chance to say.

"I can't help feeling indirectly responsible for this, Mr. Lidgerwood,"
he began, with something like a return of his habitual self-possession.
"If I hadn't asked you to come over here to-night----"

Lidgerwood interrupted sharply: "What possible difference would that
have made, Mr. Flemister?"

It was not a special weakness of Flemister's to say the damaging thing
under pressure of the untoward and unanticipated event; it is rather a
common failing of human nature. In a flash he appeared to realize that
he had admitted too much.

"Why--I understood that it was the unexpected sight of your special
standing on the 'Y' that made the passenger engineer lose his head," he
countered lamely, evidently striving to recover himself and to efface
the damaging admission.

It chanced that they were standing directly opposite the break in the
track where the rail ends were still held apart by the small stone.
Lidgerwood pointed to the loosened rail, plainly visible under the
volleying play of the two opposing headlights.

"There is the cause of the disaster, Mr. Flemister," he said hotly; "a
trap set, not for the passenger-train, but for my special. Somebody set
it; somebody who knew almost to a minute when we should reach it. Mr.
Flemister, let me tell you something: I don't care any more for my own
life than a sane man ought to care, but the murdering devil who pulled
the spikes on that rail reached out, unconsciously perhaps, but none the
less certainly, after a life that I would safe-guard at the price of my
own. Because he did that, I'll spend the last dollar of the fortune my
father left me, if needful, in finding that man and hanging him!"

It was the needed flick of the whip for the shaken nerve of the
mine-owner.

"Ah," said he, "I am sure every one will applaud that determination, Mr.
Lidgerwood; applaud it, and help you to see it through." And then, quite
as calmly: "I suppose you will go back from here with your special,
won't you? You can't get down to Little Butte un