man arrangement."

The trackman was a person accustomed to the reality and not the theory
of things.

"I don't see how the accident would have been any different," he said,
"if somebody had put that tree in the right spot to catch the coach; or
timed the minute with a stop-watch to kill that brakeman; or piled that
wreck on the man so it wouldn't hurt him. The result would have been
just the same."

"The result would have been the same," replied Marion, "but the
arrangement of events would have been different."

"Just what way different, Miss Warfield?" said the man.

"We cannot formulate an iron rule about that," replied Marion, "but as
a general thing catastrophes in nature seem to lack a motive, and their
contributing events are not forced."

The big trackman was a person of sound practical sense. He knew what
Marion was after, but he was confused by the unfamiliar terms in which
the idea was stated.

"It's mighty hard to figure out," he said. "Of course, when you find an
obstruction on the track or a crowbar under a rail, or some plain thing,
you know."

Then he added:

"You've got to figure out a wreck from what seems likely."

"There you have it exactly," said Marion. "You must begin your
investigation from what your common experience indicates is likely
to happen. Now, your experience indicates that the rails of a track
sometimes spread under these heavy engines."

"Yes, Miss Warfield."

"And your experience indicates that this is more likely to happen at
the first rise of the synclinal on a grade than anywhere on a straight
track."

"Yes, Miss Warfield."

"Good!" said Marion, "so far. But does not your experience also indicate
that such an accident usually happens when the train is running at a
high rate of speed?"

"Yes, Miss Warfield," said the man. "It's far more likely to happen
then, because the engine strikes the rails at the first rise of the
grade with more force. Naturally a thing hits harder when it's going...
But it might happen with a slow train."

Marion made a gesture as of one rejecting the man's final sentence.

"When you turn that way," she said, "you at once leave the lines of
greatest probability. Why should you follow the preponderance of common
experience on two features here, and turn aside from it on the third
feature?"

"Because the thing happened," replied the man, with the directness of
those practical persons who drive through to the fact.

"That is to say an