The vice-president frowned and shook his head.  “You took a chance—­a long chance, Kittredge!  Twenty-four hours gave him all the time he needed to fall afoul of young Blount.”

The big superintendent grinned amiably.

“The senator helped out on that,” he explained.

“The senator?  How was that?”

“It’s the first time he has shown any part of his hand to me in the entire campaign.  About an hour after I had shot Tom Gryson to pieces a note came down from the Inter-Mountain, asking me to come up.  I didn’t get to see the senator himself, but Mrs. Blount gave me the dope.  As a result, young Blount got a hurry telegram from you, directing him to go to Lewiston at once in that right-of-way matter of Brodhead’s.  I gave him my car, and the trip cost him the better part of two whole days.”

Again the vice-president shook his head.

“Your methods are always pretty crude, Kittredge,” he commented.  “You took another long chance when you forged my name to a telegram for as shrewd a young lawyer as Evan Blount.  But go on.  You got Blount out of the way—­then what?”

“Then I went after Gryson again.  The little woman’s hint hit the bull’s-eye as true as a rifle bullet.  Tom meant to give us away to Blount.  He haunted Blount’s up-town office the better part of the day; and finally, in sheer self-defence, I had to tip him off to the police, as I had threatened to.  Another little mystery bobbed up there.  Chief Robertson winked one eye at me and said:  ’You’re too late, Mr. Kittredge; your man has already been piped off and he’s gone.’”

“Who did it?” snapped McVickar.

“I don’t know, and Robertson wouldn’t tell me.  But I got him to promise to put out the reward quietly.  If Gryson comes back he’ll be nipped before he can talk.”

“With young Blount laid up, it won’t make much difference,” was the summing-up rejoinder.  And then:  “I think that is all—­for this morning.  Go around to the telephone-exchange when you get back to town and tell the manager that I want a special operator—­a man, if he’s got one—­put on this long-distance wire.  Have you sent your linemen out to guard the wires on the Shoshone mine track?”

“Yes; all the way from the switch to the hills.”

“All right; that’s all.  Keep your finger on the pulse of things in town to-day, and arrange with your despatcher to give my operators here a clear wire in any direction whenever it’s called for.  Above all, keep me posted, Kittredge; don’t let anything get by you, no matter how trivial it may seem.”

As the superintendent was climbing into his car, the railroad electrician who was in charge of the men guarding the telegraph-wires came up.

“One minute, Mr. Kittredge.  I’ve put the box in, according to orders—­”

“What box, and whose orders?”

“The recording microphone in Mr. McVickar’s office, in there; and by his orders, I guess—­at least they came from one of his men.  We’re needing a couple more batteries, and I was just wondering if it’d be all right to take ’em from that gasolene unit-car.  We could put ’em back afterwards.”