hts on the river, but they had always been
clean fights, where muscles and fists counted for the victory.

Craig had claimed that the bluff of the guns would be sufficient.
Latisan was not agreeing, and on that account he was finding the outlook
a dark one.

The train on which he was riding was an express headed for Canada, and
was due to pass the junction with the Adonia narrow-gauge at about two
o'clock in the morning. There was no scheduled stop at the junction; the
afternoon train connected and served the passengers from downcountry.

Latisan had bought a ticket to the nearest regular stopping place of the
express. He began to wonder whether Craig, with the influence of the
Comas to aid him and his fifteen fellow passengers in an argument, had
been able to secure special favors.

To the conductor, plucking out the hat check before the regular stop the
hither side of the junction, he said, "By any chance, does this train
ever stop at the Adonia narrow-gauge station?"

"It happens that it stops to-night by special orders."

Latisan paid a cash fare and rode on.

The coach in which he sat was the last car on the train; the smoker and
sleeping cars were ahead.

When the train made its unscheduled stop, Latisan stepped down and was
immediately hidden in the darkness. He saw Craig and his crew on the
station platform; the headlight of a narrow-gauge locomotive threw a
radiance which revealed them. Therefore, it was plain, Craig had wired
for a special on the Adonia line.

Only one car was attached to the narrow-gauge engine; Latisan went as
close as he dared. There was no room for concealment on that miniature
train. It puffed away promptly, its big neighbor on the standard-gauge
roared off into the night, and Latisan was left alone in the blackness
before the dawn. And he felt peculiarly and helplessly alone! In spite
of his best efforts to keep up his courage, the single-handed crusader
was depressed by Craig's command of resources; there was a sort of
insolent swagger in the Comas man's ability to have what he wanted.

Latisan knew fairly well the lay of the land at the junction, but he was
obliged to light matches, one after the other, in order to find the lane
which led to the stables of the mill company whose men had been drafted
by him on one occasion to load his dynamite. The night was stiflingly
black, there were no stars and not a light glimmered anywhere in the
settlement.

He stumbled over the rou