Ford looked up quickly.

“It won’t be necessary.  You can handle the office work, as you have heretofore, and Mr. Frisbie will have full charge out of doors.”

Penfield looked a little crestfallen.

“Am I to take orders from Mr. Frisbie?” he asked, as one determined to know the worst.

“Just the same as you would from me,” said the superintendent, swinging up to the step of the moving car.  And the chief clerk went back to his office busily concocting another cipher message to the general manager.

On the way down the canyon Ford was saying to himself that he was now fairly committed to the scheme over which he had spent so many toilful days and sleepless nights, and that he would have it out with Mr. North to a fighting conclusion before he slept.

But a freight wreck got in the way while the down passenger train was measuring the final third of the distance, and it was long after office hours in the Pacific Southwestern headquarters when Ford reached Denver.

By consequence, the crucial interview with the general manager had to be postponed; and the enthusiast was chafing at his ill luck when he went to his hotel—­chafing and saying hard words, for the waiting had been long, and now that the psychologic moment had arrived, delays were intolerable.

Now it sometimes happens that seeming misfortunes are only blessings in disguise.  When Ford entered the hotel cafe to eat his belated dinner, he saw Evans, the P. S-W. auditor, sitting alone at a table-for-two.  He crossed the room quickly and shook hands with the man he had meant to interview either before or after the meeting with North.

It was after they had chatted comfortably through to the coffee that the auditor said, blandly:  “What are you down for, Ford?—­anything special?”

“Yes.  I am down to get leave of absence to go East,” said Ford warily.

“But that isn’t all,” was the quiet rejoinder.  “In fact, it’s only the non-committal item that you’d give to a Rocky Mountain News reporter.”

Ford was impatient of diplomatic methods when there was no occasion for them.

“Give it a name,” he said bluntly.  “What do you think you know, Evans?”

The auditor smiled.

“There is a leak in your office up at Saint’s Rest, I’m afraid.  What sort of a bombshell are you fixing to fire at Mr. North?”

Ford grew interested at once.

“Tell me what you know, and perhaps I can piece it out for you.”

“I’ll tell you what Mr. North knows—­which will be more to the purpose, perhaps.  For a year or more you have been figuring on some kind of a scheme to pull the company’s financial leg in behalf of your good-for-nothing narrow gauge.  A month ago, for example, you went all over the old survey on the other side of the mountains and verified the original S. L & W. preliminaries and rights-of-way on its proposed extension.”