After having been gone a half-hour or more, the conductor came back to the service-car to say that the single telegraph-wire connecting Lewiston with the outer world was down, and that the orders for the return journey could not be obtained until the telegraph connection was restored.  At that point Blount took matters into his own hands.

There was a mining company having its headquarters in the isolated town, and Blount had met the manager once in the capital—­met him in a social way, and had been able to show him some little attention.  Hiring a buckboard at the one livery stable in the place, he drove out to the “Little Mary,” and found Blatchford, the friendly manager, smoking a black clay cutty pipe in his shack office.  It did not take Blount over a minute to renew the pleasant acquaintance, and to state his dilemma.

“I’m hung up here with my special train, the wires are down and I can’t get out,” was his statement of the crude fact.  “Didn’t you tell me that you owned a motor-car?”

“I did,” was the prompt reply.  “Want to borrow it?”

“You beat me to it,” said Blount, laughing.  “That was precisely what I was going to beg for—­the loan of your car.  I believe you told me that you had driven it from here to the capital.”

“Oh, yes; several times, and the road is fairly good by way of Arequipa and Lost River Canyon.  It’s only about half as far across country as it is around by the railroad.  You ought to make it in six hours and a half, or seven at the longest.  Drive me down to the burg, and I’ll put you in possession.”

Blount began to be audibly thankful, but the mine manager good-naturedly cut him short.

“It’s all in the day’s work, Mr. Blount, and I’m glad to be of service—­not because you are the Transcontinental’s lawyer, nor altogether because you are the Honorable David’s son.  I haven’t forgotten your kindness to me when I was in town three weeks ago.  Let’s go and get out the chug-wagon.”

A little later Blount found himself handling the wheel of a very serviceable knockabout car equipped for hard work on country roads.  When he was ready to go, he drove down to the railroad yard and hunted up his conductor.

“After you have had your vacation, you may get orders from Mr. Kittredge and take his car back to the capital,” he told the man.  “When you do, you may give him my compliments, and tell him I preferred to run my own special train.”

The conductor grinned and made no reply, and he was still grinning when he sauntered into the railroad telegraph office and spoke to the operator.

“I dunno what’s up,” he said, “but whatever it was, the string’s broke.  Old Dave Sage-Brush’s son has borrowed him an automobile, and gone back to town on his own hook.  Guess you’d better call up the division despatcher and tell him the broken-wire gag didn’t work.  Get a move on.  We hain’t got nothin’ to stay here for now.”