The Grafters

with the general manager on the Union Station track platform

d been wired; divers and sundry friends of the railway company had been interviewed; some few affidavits had been secured; and now they were waiti

" said Kent, dubiously. "Of course, what Boston can send us will be only corroborative; unfort

on't get the ammunition before you have to start, I can wire it to

temporarily. This is merely the preliminary hearing, and nothing permanent can be establi

oking at his watch, and he

dingly difficult for us to prove anything." Then, as the telegraph office watcher came to the door and shook his head as a sign that Boston was stil

he footplate of the

e engineer, a big-boned, blue-eyed Norwegian, dropp

' you' hair on. Ve bane gone to maig dat time, als' ve preak somedings, ja!" and he

les hurtling like great side-flung projectiles past the cab windows; of now and then a lonely prairie station with waving semaphore arms, sighted, passed and left behind in a whirling sand-cloud in one and the same heart-bea

brown desert. Kent got down stiffly from his cramped seat on the fire

e it, Jarl

eer wagge

all right iff dey haf ba

other train

dis vay; ant Nummer S

re propitious. The two trains to be met were found snugly withdrawn on the sidings at Mavero and Agriculta, and the station semaphores beckoned the flying special

having ample time to make Lesterville, the next station east, before the light engine could possibly overtake it. But Lesterville had not yet report

it until the delayed Number 17 was heard from; and Kent's first care w

w in anticipation the nicely calculated scheme of the junto crumbling into small dust in the precise moment of fruition, and had a sharp attack of ante-triumph which he had to

n a general manager's order? Oleson would obey orders if the heavens fell; and Kent flew to the wire again. Hunnicott, at Gaston, was besought to gain time in the hearing by any and all

mmunication from headquarters. Loring was providing for the last contingency by sending Kent the authority to requisition Number

r darting down the line toward Lesterville at the rate of a mile a minute. The mystery of the delay was solved at a poin

gain. But in the twenty-mile run to Gaston more time was lost by the lumbering freight locomotive, and it was twenty minutes past

hile 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 hav

riences of a decade crowded into a corresponding number of hours. Early in the morning he had begun besieging the headquarters wire o

ness there was in him to meet his chief. But as the time for the hearing drew near he grew nervous again; and all the keen pains of utter helplessness returne

e the less, he ran to the baggage-room end of the building and, cap

hands of the clock on the wall opposite the judge's desk pointed to five minutes of the hour, and for five min

three the judge tapped upo

rief as possible. I have an appointment at four which can not be postp

no jury present to be swayed by oratorical effort. When he came to the summarizing of the allegations in the amended petition, he did it wholly without heat, piling up the accusations one upon another with the car

ed in. It was Kent's wire from Juniberg, beseeching him to gain time at all hazards, and he settled himself to the task. For thirty dragging minutes he rang the changes on the various

ain beyond the open windows. Hawk was visibly disgusted, and Judge MacFarlane was

irrelevant, Mr. Hunnicott. This hearing

ider his purely formal defense, entirely unsupported by affidavits or evidence of any kind. None the less, he strung his denials out by every a

ts. On the part of the defendant company there was nothing but a formal denial of the allegations. The duty of the court in the premises was

d for which Hunnicott had been so long straining his ears. He was the first of the three to hear it, and he hurr

done up. Hawk's petition has been granted

is fist upon

e man?" he

in the upper corridor, he locked arms with Kent, faced him about and thrust him out