“That’s just what I do,” he gritted.  “I’ve got him dead to rights this time.  He was in that store-room day before yesterday, or rather night before last.  Callahan saw him coming out of there.”

Lidgerwood sat back in his chair and smiled.  “I don’t blame you much, Mac; this thing is getting to be pretty binding upon all of us.  But I think you are mistaken in your conclusion, I mean.  Hallock has been making an inventory of material on hand for the past week or more, and now that I think of it, I remember having seen your wire and the telephone sets included in his last sheet of telegraph supplies.”

“There it goes again,” said the trainmaster sourly.  “Every time I get a half-hitch on that fellow, something turns up to make it slip.  But if I had my way about twenty minutes I’d go and choke him till he’d tell me what he has done with that wire.”

Lidgerwood was smiling again.

“Try to be as fair to him as you can,” he advised good-naturedly.  “I know you dislike him, and probably you have good reasons.  But have you stopped to ask yourself what possible use he could make of the stolen material?”

Again McCloskey’s hat went to the pugnacious angle.  “I don’t know anything any more; you couldn’t prove it by me what day of the week it is.  But I can tell you one thing, Mr. Lidgerwood”—­shaking an emphatic finger—­“Flemister has just put a complete system of wiring and telephones in his mine, and if he had the stuff for the system shipped in over our railroad, the agent at Little Butte doesn’t know anything about it.  I asked Goodloe, by grapples!”

But even this was unconvincing to the superintendent.

“That proves nothing against Hallock, Mac, as you will see when you cool down a little,” he said.

“I know it doesn’t,” wrathfully; “nothing proves anything any more.  I suppose I’ve got to say it again:  I’m all in, down and out.”  And he went away, growling to his hat-brim.

Late in the evening of the same day, Benson returned from the west, coming in on a light engine that was deadheading from Red Butte to the Angels shops.  He sought out Lidgerwood at once, and flinging himself wearily into a chair at the superintendent’s elbow, made his report of the day’s doings.

“I have, and I haven’t,” he said, beginning in the midst of things, as his habit was.  “You were right about the track connection at Silver Switch.  It is in; Flemister put it in himself a month ago when he had a car-load of coal taken up to the back door of his mine.”

“Did you go up over the spur?”

“Yes; and I had my trouble for my pains.  Before I go any further, Lidgerwood, I’d like to ask you one question:  can we afford to quarrel with Mr. Pennington Flemister?”

“Benson, we sha’n’t hesitate a single moment to quarrel with the biggest mine-owner or freight-shipper this side of the Crosswater Hills if we have the right on our side.  Spread it out.  What did you find?”