“It’s a put-up job from away back,” he gritted.  “If I’d had the sense of a pack-mule I should have been on the lookout for just such a trap as this.  Look at the date of that message!”

The general manager did look, and shook his head. “’Received, 3:45, P.M.; Forwarded, 9:17, P.M.’  That will cost somebody his job.  What do we do?”

“We get busy at the drop of the hat.  Luckily, we have the news, though I’ll bet high it wasn’t Hawk’s fault that this message came through with no more than eight hours’ delay.  Get into your clothes, man!  The minutes are precious, now!”

Loring began to dress while Kent walked the floor in a hot fit of impatience.

“The mastodonic cheek of the thing!” he kept repeating, until Loring pulled him down with another quiet remark.

“Tell me what we have to do, David.  I am a little lame in law matters.”

“Do?  We have to appear in Judge MacFarlane’s court to-morrow afternoon prepared to show that this thing is only a hold-up with a blank cartridge.  Hawk meant to take a snap judgment.  He counted on throwing the whole thing up against Hunnicott, knowing perfectly well that a little local attorney at a way-station couldn’t begin to secure the necessary affidavits.”

Loring paused with one end of his collar flying loose.

“Let me understand,” he said.  “Do we have to disprove these charges by affidavits?”

“Certainly; that is the proper rejoinder—­the only one, in fact,” said Kent; then, as a great doubt laid hold of him and shook him:  “You don’t mean to say there is any doubt about our ability to do it?”

“Oh, no; I suppose not, if it comes to a show-down.  But I was thinking of your man Hunnicott.  Doesn’t it occur to you that he is in just about as good a fix to secure those affidavits in Gaston as we are here, David?”

“Good Lord!  Do you mean that we have to send to Boston for our ammunition?”

“Haven’t we?  Don’t you see how nicely the thing is timed?  Ten days later our Trans-Western reorganization would be complete, and we could swear our own officers on the spot.  These people know what they are about.”

Kent was walking the floor again, but now the strength of the man was coming uppermost.

“Never mind:  we’ll wire Boston, and then we’ll do what we can here.  Could you get me to Gaston on a special engine in three hours?”

“Yes.”

“Then we have till eleven o’clock to-morrow to prepare.  I’ll be ready by that time.”

“David, you are a brick when it comes to the in-fighting,” said the general manager; and then he finished buttoning his collar.

X

WITHOUT BENEFIT OF CLERGY

At ten forty-eight on the Saturday morning Kent was standing with the general manager on the Union Station track platform beside the engine which was to make the flying run to Gaston.