he rear picked up the passenger-train storming
around the climbing curves of the eastern approach to the summit. There
was a small problem impending for the division despatcher at Angels, and
the new superintendent held aloof to see how it would be handled.

It was handled rather indifferently. The passenger-train was pulling in
over the summit switches when Bradford, sauntering into the telegraph
office as if haste were the last thing in the world to be considered,
asked for his clearance card, got it, and gave Williams the signal to
go.

Lidgerwood got up and went into the car to consult the time-table
hanging in the office compartment. Train 201 had no dead time at
Crosswater; hence, if the ten-minute interval between trains of the same
class moving in the same direction was to be preserved, the passenger
would have to be held.

The assumption that the passenger-train would be held aroused all the
railroad martinet's fury in the new superintendent. In Lidgerwood's
calendar, time-killing on regular trains stood next to an infringement
of the rules providing for the safety of life and property. His hand was
on the signal-cord when, chancing to look back, he saw that the
passenger-train had made only the momentary time-card stop at the summit
station, and was coming on.

This turned the high crime into a mere breach of discipline, common
enough even on well-managed railroads when the leading train can be
trusted to increase the distance interval. But again the martinet in
Lidgerwood protested. It was his theory that rules were made to be
observed, and his experience had proved that little infractions paved
the way for great ones. In the present instance, however, it was too
late to interfere; so he drew a chair out in line with one of the rear
observation windows and sat down to mark the event.

Pitching over the hilltop summit, within a minute of each other, the two
trains raced down the first few curving inclines almost as one. Mile
after mile was covered, and still the perilous situation remained
unchanged. Down the short tangents and around the constantly recurring
curves the special seemed to be towing the passenger at the end of an
invisible but dangerously short drag-rope.

Lidgerwood began to grow uneasy. On the straight-line stretches the
following train appeared to be rushing onward to an inevitable rear-end
collision with the one-car special; and where the track swerved to right
or left around the hill