Thirty-two boxes, gondolas, and flats, racing down the Crosswater grades in the heart of a flawless, crystalline summer afternoon at the heels of Clay’s big ten-wheeler, suddenly left the steel as a unit to heap themselves in chaotic confusion upon the right-of-way, and to round out the disaster at the moment of impact by exploding a shipment of giant powder somewhere in the midst of the debris.

Lidgerwood was on the western division inspecting, with Benson, one of the several tentative routes for a future extension of the Red Butte line to a connection with the Transcontinental at Lemphi beyond the Hophras, when the news of the wreck reached Angels.  Wherefore, it was not until the following morning that he was able to leave the head-quarters station, on the second wrecking-train, bringing the big 100-ton crane to reinforce McCloskey, who had been on the ground with the lighter clearing tackle for the better part of the night.

With a slowly smouldering fire to fight, and no water to be had nearer than the tank-cars at La Guayra, the trainmaster had wrought miracles.  By ten o’clock the main line was cleared, a temporary siding for a working base had been laid, and McCloskey’s men were hard at work picking up what the fire had spared when Lidgerwood arrived.

“Pretty clean sweep this time, eh, Mac?” was the superintendent’s greeting, when he had penetrated to the thick of things where McCloskey was toiling and sweating with his men.

“So clean that we get nothing much but scrap-iron out of what’s left,” growled McCloskey, climbing out of the tangle of crushed cars and bent and twisted iron-work to stand beside Lidgerwood on the main-line embankment.  Then to the men who were making the snatch-hitch for the next pull:  “A little farther back, boys; farther yet, so she won’t overbalance on you; that’s about it.  Now, wig it!”

“You seem to be getting along all right with the outfit you’ve got,” was Lidgerwood’s comment.  “If you can keep this up we may as well go back to Angels.”

“No, don’t!” protested the trainmaster.  “We can snake out these scrap-heaps after a fashion, but when it comes to resurrecting the 195—­did you notice her as you came along?  We kept the fire from getting to her, but she’s dug herself into the ground like a dog after a woodchuck!”

Lidgerwood nodded.  “I looked her over,” he said.  “If she’d had a little more time and another wheel-turn or two to spare, she might have disappeared entirely—­like that switching-engine you can’t find.  I’m taking it for granted that you haven’t found it yet—­or have you?”

“No, I haven’t!” grated McCloskey, and he said it like a man with a grievance.  Then he added:  “I gave you all the pointers I could find two weeks ago.  Whenever you get ready to put Hallock under the hydraulic press, you’ll squeeze what you want to know out of him.”