ad-boys mean to run that stock train through the Bitter Creek
bridge. As you know, it's a good big trestle, and it is scarcely likely we
would get a head of stock out of the wreck alive."

There were angry ejaculations and the faces round the table grew set and
stern. Some of the men had seen what happens when a heavy train goes
through a railroad trestle.

"It's devilish!" said Allonby. "Larry is in the thing?"

"Well," said Clavering drily, "it appears the boys can't do anything
unless they have an order from their executive, and the man who told me
declared he had seen one signed by him. Still, one has to be fair to
Larry, and it is quite likely some of the foreign Reds drove him into it.
Any way, if we could get that paper--and I think I can--it would fix the
affair on him."

Torrance nodded. "Now we have the cavalry here, it would be enough to have
him shot," he said. "Well, this is going to suit us. But there must be no
fooling. We want to lay hands upon them when they are at work on the
trestle."

The other men seemed doubtful, and Allonby made a protest. "It is by no
means plain how it's going to suit me to have my steers run through the
bridge," he said. "I can't afford it."

Clavering laughed. "You will not lose one of them," he said. "Now, don't
ask any questions, but listen to me."

There were objections to the scheme he suggested, but he won over the men
who raised them, and when all had been arranged and Allonby had gone back
to his other guests, Clavering appeared satisfied and Torrance very grim.
Unfortunately, however, they had not bound Christopher Allonby to silence,
and when he contrived to find a place near Miss Schuyler and Hetty he
could not refrain from mentioning what he had heard. This was, however,
the less astonishing since the cattle-barons' wives and daughters shared
their anxieties and were conversant with most of what happened.

"You have a kind of belief in the homestead-boys, Hetty?" he said.

"Yes, but everybody knows who I belong to."

"Of course! Well, I guess you are not going to have any kind of belief in
them now. They're planning to run our big stock train through the Bitter
Creek bridge."

Hetty turned white. "They would never do that. Their leaders would not let
them."

"No?" said Allonby. "I'm sorry to mention it, but it seems they have
Larry's order."

A little flush crept into Flora Schuyler's face, but Hetty's grew still
more colourless and her dark eyes glo