“We’ll catch him, come morning,” was the assurance, and then Blount went away and carried out his original intention of going to the Inter-Mountain and to bed.

To bed; but, for a long hour after the post-midnight quiet had settled down upon the great hostelry, not to sleep.  If he had asked himself why he could not close his eyes and take the needed rest, the exciting incident in which he had lately been an actor would have offered a sufficient answer.  But in reality the sharpened spur of wakefulness penetrated much more deeply.  Beyond all doubt or shadow of doubt, it was the sinister, many-armed machine which had reached out to seize and destroy the evidence against its allies and fellow conspirators, the lawbreaking railroad company and the vote-selling corporations.

And, again beyond doubt, he made sure, it was his own boast made to his father which had been passed on to tell the sham burglar where to look and what to look for.

XVII

ON THE KNEES OF THE HIGH GODS

In the evening of the day following the safe-blowing in Blount’s office, a one-car train, running as second section of the Overland, slipped unostentatiously into the capital railroad yard.  With as little stir as it had made in its arrival, the single-car train took a siding below the freight station, where it would be concealed from the prying eyes of any chance prowler from the newspaper offices.

Coincident with the side-tracking O’Brien, the vice-president’s stenographer, dropped from the step of the car and went in search of a telephone.  When O’Brien was safely out of the way, a small man, clean-shaven and alert in his movements, whipped out of the shadows of the nearest string of box-cars, pushed brusquely past the guarding porter, and presented himself at the desk in the roomy office compartment of the private car.

The vice-president looked up and nodded.  “How are you, Gibbert?” he said, and then:  “You may condense your report.  I have seen the newspapers.  In passing I may say that it isn’t much to your credit that you had to fall back upon the methods of the yeggmen.”

“There wasn’t any other way,” protested the small man.  “The papers were locked up in the cash-box of the safe, and young Blount carried the only key.”

“It was crude; not at all worthy of a man of your ability, Gibbert.  And if the newspapers tell it straight, you came near being caught.  How did that happen?”

“Blount went to a ball, and I shadowed him.  His girl was there, and it looked like a safe bet that he’d stay to see the lights put out.  But he didn’t.”

“Well, never mind; you got the papers, I suppose?”