“Try again,” said Gridley, and now the shrewd gray eyes under the brim of the soft-rolled felt hat held the engineer helpless.

“I guess—­I do—­remember it—­now,” said Judson, slowly, trying, still ineffectually, to break Gridley’s masterful eyehold upon him.

[Illustration:  “Bart’s afraid he can’t duck without dying.”]

“I thought you would,” said the master-mechanic, without releasing him.  “And you probably remember, also, that I took you out into the street and started you home.”

“Yes,” said Judson, this time without hesitation.

“Well, keep on remembering it; you went home to Maggie, and she put you to bed.  That is what you are to keep in mind.”

Judson had broken the curious eye-grip at last, and again he said, “Why?”

Gridley hooked his finger absently in the engineer’s buttonhole.

“Because, if you don’t, a man named Rufford says he’ll start a lead mine in you.  I heard him say it last night—­overheard him, I should say.  That’s all.”

The master-mechanic passed on, going out by the great door which opened for the locomotive entering-track.  Judson hung upon his heel for a moment, and then went slowly out through the tool-room and across the yard tracks to the Crow’s Nest.

He found McCloskey in his office above stairs, mouthing and grimacing over the string-board of the new time-table.

“Well?” growled the trainmaster, when he saw who had opened and closed the door.  “Come back to tell me you’ve sworn off?  That won’t go down with Mr. Lidgerwood.  When he fires, he means it.”

“You wait till I ask you for my job back again, won’t you, Jim McCloskey?” said the disgraced one hotly.  “I hain’t asked it yet; and what’s more, I’m sober.”

“Sure you are,” muttered McCloskey.  “You’d be better-natured with a drink or two in you.  What’s doing?”

“That’s what I came over here to find out,” said Judson steadily.  “What is the boss going to do about this flare-up with Bart Rufford?”

The trainmaster shrugged.

“You’ve got just as many guesses as anybody, John.  What you can bet on is that he will do something different.”

Judson had slouched to the window.  When he spoke, it was without turning his head.

“You said something yesterday morning about me feeling for the boss’s throat along with that gang up-town that’s trying to drink itself up to the point of hitting him back.  It don’t strike me that way, Mac.”

“How does it strike you?”

Judson turned slowly, crossed the room, and sat down in the only vacant chair.

“You know what’s due to happen, Mac.  Rufford won’t try it on again the way he tried it night before last.  I heard up-town that he has posted his de-fi:  Mr. Lidgerwood shoots him on sight or he shoots Mr. Lidgerwood on sight.  You can figure that out, can’t you?”

“Not knowing Mr. Lidgerwood much better than you do, John, I’m not sure that I can.”