the Wildcat's car was cut into a train whose trail led
northward through Idaho and Oregon.

Lady Luck meanwhile had a hard time keeping up. Exhausted finally with
her efforts, she set the stage a few hundred miles ahead and lay down
and went to sleep. While she was sleeping a pair of hard boiled actors
in the drama rummaged around in the woodshed back of a log house near
the banks of the Columbia river.

Pete, a skinny character with ears like a loving cup, raked three wheat
sacks out of a pile of lumber.

Into two of these sacks he cut a pair of holes two inches in diameter
and about four inches apart. The third sack he left intact. He handed
one of the sacks to his partner.

"Here she is; see if it fits you."

A fat bad actor by the name of Bill slipped the sack over his head.
"Little narrow between the eyes."

Three hours later these two agents of Lady Luck engaged in a little
hard work in their search for easy money. The product of their energy
took shape in the form of a pyramid of old ties piled between the rails
of the line over which the Wildcat was approaching in his
twelve-wheeled cage.

Ten minutes before the train was due and while her crossing whistles
could be heard in the dusk five miles up-stream, the two bad actors
scrambled up the south bank of the Columbia. The skinny one poured a
quart bottle of coal oil on the pile of ties and lighted it. The fat
man lighted a cigarette.

Both of them drew the wheat sacks over their heads. The fat man carried
the third wheat sack slung at his waist on a string which went around
his shoulder.

The stillness of evening was broken by the roar of a locomotive
whistle, and an instant later the wheels of the train smoked and
screeched against the chattering brake shoes. In the cab ahead the
handle of the air valve was slammed into the big notch.

The flagman swung down from the rear end of the train and ambled back
along the track for half the regulation distance. He set his lantern in
the middle of the track and rolled a cigarette. Three lanterns flashed
along the train, where the train countered a locked door. Inside the
car, on a seat to see what was going on.

Presently they found out and took their places beside the fireman and
engineer, hands raised.

With his wheat sack dangling more heavily on his hip as he progressed
through the train, the fat bad actor skimmed the Pullman cream on his
way forward to the plated jewelry in the day coach.

On the