“Hallock, have you reported the disappearance of that switching-engine to Mr. Frisbie?” asked the superintendent.

The answer seemed reluctant, and it was given in the single word of assent.

“When?” asked Lidgerwood.

“In the weekly summary for last week; you signed it,” said the chief clerk.

“Did I tell you to include that particular item in the report?” Lidgerwood did not mean to give the inquiry the tang of an implied reproof, but the fight with the outlaws was beginning to make his manner incisive.

“You didn’t need to tell me; I know my business,” said Hallock, and his tone matched his superior’s.

Lidgerwood looked at McCloskey, and, at the trainmaster’s almost imperceptible nod, said, “That’s all,” and Hallock disappeared and closed the door.

“Well?” queried Lidgerwood sharply, when they had privacy again.

McCloskey was shifting uneasily from one foot to the other.

“My name’s Scotch, and they tell me I’ve got Scotch blood in me,” he began.  “I don’t like to shoot my mouth off till I know what I’m doing.  I suppose I quarrelled with Hallock once a day, regular, before you came on the job, Mr. Lidgerwood, and I’ll say again that I don’t like him—­never did.  That’s what makes me careful about throwing it into him now.”

“Go on,” said Lidgerwood.

“Well, you know he wanted to be superintendent of this road.  He kept the wires to New York hot for a week after he found out that the P. S-W. was in control.  He missed it, and you naturally took it over his head—­at least, maybe that’s the way he looks at it.”

“Take it for granted and get to the point,” urged Lidgerwood, always impatient of preliminary bush-beating.

“There isn’t any point, if you don’t see any,” said McCloskey stubbornly.  “But I can tell you how it would strike me, if I had to be wearing your shoes just now.  You’ve got a man for your chief clerk who has kept this whole town guessing for two years.  Some say he isn’t all to the bad; some say he is a woman-killer; but they all agree that he’s as spiteful as an Indian.  He wanted your job:  supposing he still wants it.”

“Stick to the facts, Mac,” said the superintendent.  “You’re theorizing now, you know.”

“Well, by gravels, I will!” rasped McCloskey, pushed over the cautionary edge by Lidgerwood’s indifference to the main question at issue.  “What I know don’t amount to much yet, but it all leans one way.  Hallock puts in his daytime scratching away at his desk out there, and you’d think he didn’t know it was this year.  But when that desk is shut up, you’ll find him at the roundhouse, over in the freight yard, round the switch shanties, or up at Biggs’s—­anywhere he can get half a dozen of the men together.  I haven’t found a man yet that I could trust to keep tab on him, and I don’t know what he’s doing; but I can guess.”

“Is that all?” said Lidgerwood quietly.