“Go and tell Callahan to keep after Orton until he gets word that Mr. Leckhard has returned.  Then have him get Leckhard himself at the other end of the wire and call me,” he directed.  “Since there is only one man besides myself in Angels who knows the private-office code, I’d like to know what that message said.”

McCloskey nodded.  “You mean Hallock?”

“Yes.”

The trainmaster was half-way to the door when he turned suddenly to say:  “You can fire me if you want to, Mr. Lidgerwood, but I’ve got to say my say.  You’re going to let that yellow dog run loose until he bites you.”

“No, I am not.”

“By gravies!  I’d have him safe under lock and key before the shindy begins to-night, if it was my job.”

Lidgerwood had turned to his desk and was opening it.

“He will be,” he announced quietly.  “I have sworn out a warrant for his arrest, and Judson has it and is looking for his man.”

McCloskey smote fist into palm and gritted out an oath of congratulation.  “That’s where you hit the proper nail on the head!” he exclaimed.  “He’s the king-pin of the whole machine, and if you can pull him out, the machine will fall to pieces.  What charge did you put in the warrant?  I only hope it’s big enough to hold him.”

“Train-wrecking and murder,” said Lidgerwood, without looking around; and a moment later McCloskey went out, treading softly as one who finds himself a trespasser on forbidden ground.

The afternoon sun was poising for its plunge behind the western barrier range and Lidgerwood had sent Grady, the stenographer, up to the cottage on the second mesa to tell Mrs. Dawson that he would not be up for dinner, when the door opened to admit Miss Brewster.

“‘And the way into my parlor is up a winding stair,’” she quoted blithely and quite as if the air were not thick with threatening possibilities.  “So this is where you live, is it?  What a dreary, bleak, blank place!”

“It was, a moment ago; but it isn’t, now,” he said, and his soberness made the saying something more than a bit of commonplace gallantry.  Then he gave her his swing-chair as the only comfortable one in the bare room, adding, “I hope you have come to tell me that your mother has changed her mind.”

“Indeed I haven’t!  What do you take us for, Howard?”

“For an exceedingly rash party of pleasure-hunters—­if you have decided to stay here through what is likely to happen before to-morrow morning.  Besides, you are making it desperately hard for me.”

She laughed lightly.  “If you can’t be afraid for yourself, you’ll be afraid for other people, won’t you?  It seems to be one of your necessities.”

He let the taunt go unanswered.

“I can’t believe that you know what you are facing, any of you, Eleanor.  I’ll tell you what I told your mother:  there will be battle, murder, and sudden death let loose here in Angels before to-morrow morning.  And it is so utterly unnecessary for any of you to be involved.”