“Won’t it?” said Lidgerwood.  “That’s where you are mistaken.  It will pick up anything we have on the two divisions.  It’s the biggest and best there is made.  How did you come to get a tool like that on the Red Butte Western?”

McCloskey grinned.

“You don’t know Gridley yet.  He’s a crank on good machinery.  That crane was a clean steal.”

“What?”

“I mean it.  It was ordered for one of the South American railroads, and was on its way to the Coast over the P. S-W.  About the time it got as far as Copah, we happened to have a mix-up in our Copah yards, with a ditched engine that Gridley couldn’t pick up with the 60-ton crane we had on the ground.  So he borrowed this one out of the P. S-W. yards, used it, liked it, and kept it, sending our 60-ton machine on to the South Americans in its place.”

“What rank piracy!” Lidgerwood exclaimed.  “I don’t wonder they call us buccaneers over here.  How could he do it without being found out?”

“That puzzled more than two or three of us; but one of the men told me some time afterward how it was done.  Gridley had a painter go down in the night and change the lettering—­on our old crane and on this new one.  It happened that they were both made by the same manufacturing company, and were of substantially the same general pattern.  I suppose the P. S-W. yard crew didn’t notice particularly that the crane they had lent us out of the through westbound freight had shrunk somewhat in the using.  But I’ll bet those South Americans are saying pleasant things to the manufacturers yet.”

“Doubtless,” Lidgerwood agreed, and now he was not smiling.  The little side-light on the former Red-Butte-Western methods—­and upon Gridley—­was sobering.

By this time Dawson had got his big lifter in position, with its huge steel arm overreaching the fallen engine, and was giving his orders quietly, but with clean-cut precision.

“Man that hand-fall and take slack!  Pay off, Darby,” to the hoister engineer.  “That’s right; more slack!”

The great tackling-hook, as big around as a man’s thigh, settled accurately over the 195.

“There you are!” snapped Dawson.  “Now make your hitch, boys, and be lively about it.  You’ve got just about one minute to do it in!”

“Heavens to Betsey!” said McCloskey.  “He’s going to pick it up at one hitch—­and without blocking!”

“Hands off, Mac,” said Lidgerwood good-naturedly.  “If Fred didn’t know this trade before, he’s learning it pretty rapidly now.”

“That’s all right, but if he doesn’t break something before he gets through——­”

But Dawson was breaking nothing.  Having designed locomotives, he knew to the fraction of an inch where the balancing hitch should be made for lifting one.  Also machinery, and the breaking strains of it, were as his daily bread.  While McCloskey was still prophesying failure, he was giving the word to Darby, the hoister engineer.