hand on the air-cock brought her down just before the critical moment beyond which neither brakes nor the steadiest nerve could avail.  Thrice in the long downward rush Ford checked the speed to a foot-pace.  This was in the rock cuttings where the jagged faces of the cliffs thrust themselves out into the white cone of the headlight, scanting the narrow shelf of the right-of-way to a mere groove in the rock.  He was afraid of the cuttings.  One of the many tricks of the MacMorroghs was to keep barely within the contract limits on clearance widths, and once the Nadia, sagging mountainward on the roughly leveled track at the wrong moment, touched one of the out-hanging rocks in passing.  Hector heard the touch, and so did Ford; but it was the engineman who made a grim jest upon it, saying:  “If she does that more’n once or twice, there’ll be a job for the car painters, don’t you reckon, Mr. Ford?  And for the carpenters.”

Just below the doubling bend in the great loop they came in sight of the first of the MacMorrogh camps.  Since the night was frosty a huge bonfire was burning beside the track; and when Hector blew his whistle, some one flagged the train with a brand snatched from the fire.  Ford stopped because he dared not do otherwise.

“Well, what’s wanted?” he snapped, when the train came to a stand, and the brand-swinger, backed by a dozen others, made as if he would climb to the cab of the 1012.

“Some of us fellies want to go down to Ten Mile—­the liquor’s out,” said the man, trying to get a fair sight of the strange engineman.

“Get off!” said Ford; and Hector made the order effective by shoving the intruder from the step.  That was easy; but before the train had measured twice its length, a pistol barked thrice and the glass in the cab window on Ford’s side fell in splinters.

“Holy smoke!” said Hector.  “Is them the kind of plug-uglies you’ve got over here, Mr. Ford?”

Ford nodded.  His eyes were on the track again, and he was hoping fervently that the three shots had all been aimed at the engine.  A mile farther on, Penfield came sliding over the coal to say that the president wanted to know what the shooting was about.

Ford turned the 1012 over to Hector.  The track hazards of the mountain grade were safely passed.

“Did any of the shots hit the car?” he asked of Penfield.

“No.”

“Well, if you have to say anything before the ladies it might be advisable to make a joke of it.  Signal torpedoes sound very much like pistol-shots, you know.”

Penfield nodded.  “But to Mr. Colbrith?”

“To Mr. Colbrith you may say that a gang of drunken MacMorrogh surfacers flagged us down, and when we wouldn’t let them have the train, made a little gun play.”

“Heavens!” said the clerk, whose curiosity stopped short at the farthest confines of any battle-field.  “Is that sort of thing likely to happen again, Mr. Ford?”