rize the risk of a
rear-end smash-up. He did it promptly. The light engine was to go on until
it should "pick up" the delayed train between stations.

The Juniberg man gave Oleson his release and the order to proceed with due
care while the sounder was still clicking a further communication from
headquarters. Loring was providing for the last contingency by sending
Kent the authority to requisition Number 17's engine for the completion of
the run in case the track should be blocked, with the freight engine free
beyond the obstruction.

Having his shackles stricken off, the Norwegian proceeded "with due care,"
which is to say that he sent the eight-wheeler darting down the line
toward Lesterville at the rate of a mile a minute. The mystery of the
delay was solved at a point half-way between the two stations. A broken
flange had derailed three cars of the freight, and the block was
impassable.

Armed with the general manager's mandatory wire, Kent ran forward to the
engine of the freight train and was shortly on his way again. But in the
twenty-mile run to Gaston more time was lost by the lumbering freight
locomotive, and it was twenty minutes past three o'clock when the county
seat came in sight and Kent began to oscillate between two sharp-pointed
horns of a cruel dilemma.

By dropping off at the street-crossing nearest the Court House, he might
still be in time to get a hearing with such documentary backing as he had
been able to secure at the capital. By going on to the station he could
pick up the Boston wire which, while it was not strictly evidence, might
create a strong presumption in his favor; but in this case he would
probably be too late to use it. So he counted the rail-lengths, watch in
hand, with a curse to the count for his witlessness in failing to have
Loring repeat the Boston message to him during the long wait at Juniberg;
and when the time for the decision arrived he signaled the engineer to
slow down, jumped from the step at the nearest crossing and hastened up
the street toward the Court House.

In the mean time, to go back a little, during this day of hurryings to and
fro Blashfield Hunnicott had been having the exciting experiences of a
decade crowded into a corresponding number of hours. Early in the morning
he had begun besieging the headquarters wire office for news and
instructions, and, owing to Kent's good intentions to be on the ground in
person, had got little enough of either.

At