It was a test question, and the engineer did not answer it off-hand.

“I’d say yes in a holy minute if there wasn’t so blamed much else tied on to it, Mr. Lidgerwood.  I was sure, at the time, that it was Hallock; and besides, I heard him talking to Flemister afterward, and I saw his mug shadowed out on the window curtain, just as I’ve been telling you.  All I can say crosswise, is that I didn’t get to see him face to face anywhere; in the gulch, or in the office, or in the mine, or any place else.”

“Yet you are convinced, in your own mind?”

“I am.”

“You say you saw him and Flemister get on the hand-car and pump themselves down the old spur; of course, you couldn’t identify either of them from the top of the ridge?”

“That’s a guess,” admitted the ex-engineer frankly.  “All I could see was that there were two men on the car.  But it fits in pretty good:  I hear ’em plannin’ what-all they’re going to do; foller ’em a good bit more’n half-way through the mine tunnel; hike back and hump myself over the hill, and get there in time to see two men—­some two men—­rushin’ out the hand-car to go somewhere.  That ain’t court evidence, maybe, but I’ve seen more’n one jury that’d hang both of ’em on it.”

“But the third man, Judson; the man you saw beating with his fists on the bulkhead air-lock:  who was he?” persisted Lidgerwood.

“Now you’ve got me guessin’ again.  If I hadn’t been dead certain that I saw Hallock go on ahead with Flemister—­but I did see him; saw ’em both go through the little door, one after the other, and heard it slam before the other dub turned up.  No,” reading the question in the superintendent’s eye, “not a drop, Mr. Lidgerwood; I ain’t touched not, tasted not, n’r handled not—­’r leastwise, not to drink any,” and here he told the bottle episode which had ended in the smashing of Flemister’s sideboard supply.

Lidgerwood nodded approvingly when the modest narrative reached the bottle-smashing point.

“That was fine, John,” he said, using the ex-engineer’s Christian name for the first time in the long interview.  “If you’ve got it in you to do such a thing as that, at such a time, there is good hope for you.  Let’s settle this question once for all:  all I ask is that you prove up on your good intentions.  Show me that you have quit, not for a day or a week, but for all time, and I shall be only too glad to see you pulling passenger-trains again.  But to get back to this crime of to-night:  when you left Flemister’s office, after telephoning Goodloe, you walked down to Little Butte station?”

“Yes; walked and run.  There was nobody there but the bridge watchman.  Goodloe had come on up the track to find out what had happened.”

“And you didn’t see Flemister or Hallock again?”

“No.”

“Flemister told us he got the news by ’phone, and when he said it the wreck was no more than an hour old.  He couldn’t have walked down from the mine in that time.  Where could he have got the message, and from whom?”