in took a fall out of you
one way, even if he did fail in the other; he kept you safely shut up at
Tortoni's while Mr. North and the chief of the MacMorroghs got away on a
special train for New York. Beard, the Union Station operator, told me.
Which means that they'll have a full day with Mr. Colbrith and the
executive committee before you can possibly get there to butt in."

"No, it doesn't; necessarily," Ford contradicted, rising suddenly and
signaling a waiter.

"What are you going to do?" queried Frisbie, dropping his knife and
fork and preparing to second his chief.

"Come and see. I'm going to get out another special train and give Mr.
North a run for his money," was the incisive answer. "Hike down to the
despatcher's office with me and help cut out the minutes."

XII

THE ENTERING WEDGE

Has civilized humanity, in the plenitude of twentieth century
sophistication, fully determined that there is no such thing as
luck?--that all things are ordered, if not by Providence, at least by an
unchangeable sequence of cause and effect?

Stuart Ford was a firm believer in the luck of the energetic; which is
to say that he regarded obstacles only as things to be beaten down and
abolished. But in the dash to overtake and pass the general manager's
one-car special, the belief was shaken almost to its reversal.

He knew the Pacific Southwestern locomotives--and something of the men
who ran them. The 1016 was one of the fast eight-wheelers; and Olson,
the engineer, who had once pulled passenger on the Plug Mountain, was
loyal and efficient. Happily, both the man and the machine were
available; and while Frisbie was calling up the division superintendent
at his house to ask the loan of his private car for the assistant to
the president, Ford was figuring the schedule with the despatcher, and
insisting upon speed--more speed.

"What's come over you big bosses, all at once?" said Darby, to whom
Ford's promotion was no bar to fellowship or free speech. "First Mr.
North wants me to schedule a special that will break the record; and now
you want to string one that will beat his record."

"Never mind my troubles, Julius," was the evasive reply. "Just you
figure to keep things out of my way and give me a clear track. Let's
see--where were we? Cheyenne Crossing at 2 a.m., water at Riddle Creek,
coal at Brockton--"

The schedule was completed when Frisbie came back to say that the 1016,
with the superintendent's car a