ey were needed."

"To pay for the buckboards?" asked Adair.

"You may search me," said Leckhard. "Only it could hardly be that--we
have an open account at the Bank of Copah for legitimate expenses. No;
there's a nigger in the woodpile, somewhere. Penfield is only a clerk;
but for some purpose he is given _carte blanche_ to spend money."

Adair was absently stirring his black coffee.

"All of which points to one conclusion, Mr. Leckhard. They are plotting
against Ford--without the president's connivance. But the president is
going to be made to swing the club. I know rather more than you do about
it--which isn't saying very much. My--a relative of mine who is with
the party in the Nadia wired me three days ago from Denver that Ford had
been tried and condemned, and was only waiting to be hanged. That's why
I am here to-night. You've got to get me to the end-of-track before it
comes to blows between Mr. Colbrith and Stuart Ford. I know both men,
Mr. Leckhard. If the iron comes to a certain heat, the past master of
all the peacemakers won't be able to patch things together."

"Ford will resign," said the engineer.

"That is what I'm afraid of; and we can't let him resign. That would
mean Mr. North for everything in sight, and the ultimate ruin of the
Pacific Southwestern. On the other hand, I can't have Ford fighting the
family--or my uncle--which is just what he will do if he gets his blood
up--and doesn't quit in a huff. It's up to you to trundle this car over
to the seat of war, Mr. Leckhard."

The division engineer was thinking hard.

"I can't see how it's to be done, right now, Mr. Adair. But I'll tell
you what I will do. Our empty material trains come back from the front
in the night, as a rule. When they get in, and I can be sure that the
track's clear, I'll double one of the construction engines out with you.
It will be along toward morning, I'm afraid; but, with nothing in the
way, you ought to make the run in four or five hours--say by late
breakfast time."

That was the way it was left when Leckhard went back to his telegraph
den at ten o'clock; and some six hours later, Adair, sleepily conscious
of disturbances, wakened sufficiently to hear the wheels once more
trundling monotonously under the "01."

XX

THE CONSPIRATORS

"How far do we go, and what do we do when we get there?" asked Frisbie
of his chief, when the two buckboards, heaving and lurching over the
rock-strewn talus at the foot