They had reached the station and the east-bound train was whistling for Gaston.  Kent’s patience was nearly gone, and the auburn-hued temperament was clamoring hotly for its innings.

“This vacation of yours, Judge MacFarlane:  how long is it likely to last?” he inquired, muzzling his wrath yet another moment.

“I can not say; if I could I might be able to give you a more definite answer as to the hearing on the merits.  But my health is very miserable, as I have said.  If I am able to return shortly, I shall give you the hearing at chambers at an early date.”

“And if not?”

“If not, I am afraid it will have to go over to the next term of court.”

“Six months,” said Kent; and then his temper broke loose.  “Judge MacFarlane, it is my opinion, speaking as man to man, that you are a scoundrel.  I know what you have done, and why you have done it.  Also, I know why you are running away, now that it is done.  So help me God, I’ll bring you to book for it if I have to make a lifetime job of it!  It’s all right for your political backers; they are thieves and bushwhackers, and they make no secret of it.  But there is one thing worse than a trickster, and that is a trickster’s tool!”

For the moment while the train was hammering in over the switches they stood facing each other fiercely, all masks flung aside, each after his kind; the younger man flushed and battle-mad; the elder white, haggard, tremulous.  Kent did not guess, then or ever, how near he came to death.  Two years earlier a judge had been shot and maimed on a western circuit and since then, MacFarlane had taken a coward’s precaution.  Here was a man that knew, and while he lived the cup of trembling might never be put aside.

It was the conductor’s cry of “All aboard!” that broke the homicidal spell.  Judge MacFarlane started guiltily, shook off the angry eye-grip of his accuser, and went to take his place in the Pullman.  One minute later the east-bound train was threading its way out among the switches of the lower yard, and Kent had burst into the telegraph office to wire the volcanic news to his chief.

XII

THE MAN IN POSSESSION

Appraised at its value in the current coin of street gossip, the legal seizure of the Trans-Western figured mainly as an example of the failure of modern business methods when applied to the concealment of a working corporation’s true financial condition.

This unsympathetic point of view was sufficiently defined in a bit of shop-talk between Harnwicke, the cold-blooded, and his traffic manager in the office of the Overland Short Line the morning after the newspaper announcement of the receivership.

“I told you they were in deep water,” said the lawyer, confidently.  “They haven’t been making any earnings—­net earnings—­since the Y.S.& F. cut into them at Rio Verde, and the dividends were only a bluff for stock-bracing purposes.  I surmised that an empty treasury was what was the matter when they refused to join us in the veto affair.”