sen to the exact
rail-length--just where your engine would begin to hug the outside of
the curve. Then the rail is sprung aside barely enough to let the wheel
flanges through, and not enough to attract an engineer's attention
unless he happened to be looking directly at it, and in a good light."

The superintendent nodded. "What is your inference?" he asked.

"Only what I say; that the man knew his business. He is no ordinary
hobo; he is more likely in your class, or mine."

Lidgerwood ground his heel into the gravel, and with the feeling that he
was wasting precious time of Dawson's which should go into the
track-clearing, asked another question.

"Fred, tell me; you've known John Judson longer than I have: do you
trust him--when he's sober?"

"Yes." The answer was unqualified.

"I think I do, but he talks too much. He is over here, somewhere,
to-night, shadowing the man who may have done this. He--and the
man--came down on 205 this evening. I saw them both board the train at
Angels as it was pulling out."

Dawson looked up quickly, and for once the reticence which was his
customary shield was dropped.

"You're trusting me, now, Mr. Lidgerwood: who was the man? Gridley?"

"Gridley? No. Why, Dawson, he is the last man I should suspect!"

"All right; if you think so."

"Don't you think so?"

It was the draftsman's turn to hesitate.

"I'm prejudiced," he confessed at length. "I know Gridley; he is a worse
man than a good many people think he is--and not so bad as some others
believe him to be. If he thought you, or Benson, were getting in his
way--up at the house, you know----"

Lidgerwood smiled.

"You don't want him for a brother-in-law; is that it, Fred?"

"I'd cheerfully help to put my sister in her coffin, if that were the
alternative," said Dawson quite calmly.

"Well," said the superintendent, "he can easily prove an alibi, so far
as this wreck is concerned. He went east on 202 yesterday. You knew
that, didn't you?"

"Yes, I knew it, but----"

"But what?"

"It doesn't count," said the draftsman, briefly. Then: "Who was the
other man, the man who came west on 205?"

"I hate to say it, Fred, but it was Hallock. We saw the wreck, all of
us, from the back platform of my car. Williams had just pulled us out on
the old spur. Just before Cranford shut off and jammed on his
air-brakes, a man ran down the track, swinging his arms like a madman.
Of course, there wasn't the time or any chance for m