Out in the yard the yellings and shoutings had taken on a new note, and the windows of the upper room were jarring with the thunder of incoming trains.  Eleanor Brewster heard the new sounds vaguely:  the jangle and clank of the trains, the quick, steady tramp of disciplined men, snapped-out words of command, the sudden cessation of the riot clamor, and now a shuffling of feet on the stairway behind her.

Still she could not move; still she was speechless and spell-bound, but no longer from terror.  Her cousin—­her lover—­how she had misjudged him!  He a coward?  This man who was holding his two executioners at bay, quelling them, cowing them, by the sheer force of the stronger will, and of a courage that was infinitely greater than theirs?

The shuffling footsteps came nearer, and once again Lidgerwood straightened himself in his chair, this time with a mighty struggle that broke the knotted cords and freed him.

“I said I could name you, and I will!” he cried, springing to his feet.  “You,” pointing to the smaller man, “you are Pennington Flemister; and you,” wheeling upon the tall man and lowering his voice, “you are Rankin Hallock!”

The light of the fire in the shop yard had died down until its red glow no longer drove the shadows from the corners of the room.  Eleanor shrank aside when a dozen men pushed their way into the private office.  Then, suddenly the electric lights went on, and a gruff voice said, “Drop them guns, you two.  The show’s over.”

It was McCloskey who gave the order, and it was obeyed sullenly.  With the clatter of the weapons on the floor, the door of the outer office opened with a jerk, and Judson thrust a hand-cuffed prisoner of his own capturing into the lighted room.

“There he is, Mr. Lidgerwood,” snarled the engineer-constable.  “I nabbed him over yonder at the fire, workin’ to put it out, just as if he hadn’t told his gang to go and set it!”

“Hallock!” exclaimed the superintendent, starting as if he had seen a ghost.  “How is this?  Are there two of you?”

Hallock looked down moodily.  “There were two of us who wanted your job, and the other one needed it badly enough to wreck trains and to kill people, and to lead a lot of pig-headed trainmen and mechanics into a riot to cover his tracks.”

Lidgerwood turned quickly.  “Unmask those men, McCloskey.”

It was the signal for a tumult.  The tall man fought desperately to preserve his disguise, but Flemister’s mask was torn off in the first rush.  Then came a diversion, sudden and fiercely tragic.  With a cry of rage that was like the yell of a madman, Hallock flung himself upon the mine-owner, beating him down with his manacled hands, choking him, grinding him into the dust of the floor.  And when the avenger of wrongs was pulled off and dragged to his feet, Lidgerwood, looking past the death grapple, saw the figure of a woman swaying at the corridor door; saw the awful horror in her eyes.  In the turning of a leaf he had fought his way to her.