to come--" At this point the closing door cut
the sentence of objurgation, and Lidgerwood continued his round of
inspection, trying vainly to recall the identity of the chance-met man
whose face, half hidden under the drooping brim of a worn campaign-hat,
was vaguely familiar. The recollection came at length, with the impact
of a blow. The "chuckle-headed fool" of Gridley's malediction was
Richard Rufford, the "Killer's" younger brother.

Lidgerwood said nothing of this incident to Dawson, whom he found
patrolling the roundhouse. Here, as at the shops and in the yard,
everything was quiet and orderly. The crews for the three sections of
the midnight freight were all out, guarding their trains and engines,
and Dawson had only Bradford and the roundhouse night-men for company.

"Nothing stirring, Fred?" inquired the superintendent.

"Less than nothing; it's almost too quiet," was the sober reply. And
then: "I see you haven't sent the _Nadia_ out; wouldn't it be a good
scheme to get a couple of buckboards and have the women and Judge
Holcombe driven up to our place on the mesa? The trouble, when it comes,
will come this way."

Lidgerwood shook his head.

"My stake in the _Nadia_ is precisely the same size as yours, Fred, and
I don't want to risk the buckboard business. We'll do a better thing
than that, if we have to let the president's party make a run for it.
Get your smartest passenger flyer out on the table, head it east, and
when I send for it, rush it over to couple on to the _Nadia_--with
Williams for engineer. Has Benson had any trouble in the yard?"

"There has been nobody to make any. Tryon came down a few minutes ago,
considerably more than half-seas over, and said he was ready to take
his engine and the first section of the east-bound midnight--which would
have been his regular run. But he went back uptown peaceably when Benson
told him he was down and out."

Lidgerwood did not extend his round to include Benson's post at the yard
office, which was below the coal chutes. Instead, he went over to the
Nadia, thinking pointedly of the two added mysteries: the fact that
Gridley had told a deliberate lie to account for his appearance in
Angels, and the other and more recent fact that the master-mechanic was
conferring, even in terms of profanity, with Rufford's brother, who was
not, and never had been, in his department.

Under the "umbrella roof" of the _Nadia's_ rear platform the young
people of the part