"Yes; and I don't know whether I ought to tell you or not. I'm still drawing my salary from the railroad, you know."

"And you are not sure that I am drawing mine?" she laughed. "Don't you remember when Mr. McVickar gave me this?" touching the little jewel-incrusted watch on her shoulder.

"Yes, I remember; also I remember that this is the first time I have ever seen you wearing it." And then: "I'd never try to bribe you in the wide, wide world, Mrs. Blount."

"Why not?"

"For two reasons: you are too much in love with your husband; and, if you took a notion to fly the track, a king's ransom wouldn't be big enough to make you stay bribed."

"I am flattered, I'm sure; but I'm still in the dark about the thing you have come here to tell me," she reminded him.

"I presume you may as well know it, though I can tell you that it has been kept the darkest kind of a secret. Mr. McVickar came west to-day from Bald b.u.t.te in a new gasolene unit-car which is supposed to be making a trial trip over the road. The car is supposed to have a bunch of the Chicago officials on board, though not half a dozen men on this division know that the vice-president is the only official, and that the others are clerks and telegraphers."

"Go on," said the small person quickly.

"That gasolene special is lost. No station west of Bald b.u.t.te has yet reported it. Strictly between us two, it left the main line at the old disused track leading out to the abandoned Shoshone mine workings. There were autos to meet it at the mine, and by this time Mr. McVickar is probably toasting his feet before an open wood-fire in the Shonoho Inn."

Mrs. Honoria leaned her two round arms on the mezzanine rail, and looked long and earnestly down upon the caucussing lobby throng. When she looked up it was to say: "There are wires?"

"A full set of cut-ins. You can trust the big boss for that. He is in touch with every corner of the State, just the same as he would be if he were here in his usual election headquarters in the hotel."

The small plotter became silent again, and when she spoke she was smiling brightly.

"You are a good boy, Richard, and you shall have your reward. And it is going to be something that will make you happy, this time. Run away, now, and let me have a little solitude. I want to think."

It was a full hour after Gantry's disappearance that the senator came up-stairs, and Mrs. Honoria beckoned to the pair on the opposite side of the gallery.

"It's bedtime," she said, when they came around to her divan. And then, with a malicious little grimace for Evan: "I've been counting, and I've seen Patricia stifle three distinct and separate yawns in the last five minutes. She has been up every night since we came to town, and--"

Left to himself, Blount sat watching the crowd for a time, and then went to his room to read himself to sleep. One of the two crucial days of suspense was outworn, but there was another coming; and after he had read for an hour he went to bed, resolutely determined to get the rest necessary to carry him through the dreaded Sat.u.r.day. Sleep came quickly when he had turned off the lights, but it was merely a transition to a troubled dreamland in which Patricia, Mrs. Honoria, Gryson, and Gantry were weirdly confused. In the thick of it he seemed to see the ward-heeler standing at his bedside and beating furiously upon a huge Chinese gong. When he sprang up and began to rub his eyes, the room was lighted by a red glare, and the dream-noise was translated into the rattling of wheels and the clanging of alarm-gongs and cries of "Fire!"

in the avenue below.

As a city dweller, Blount should have felt the wall of the room, and, finding it still cool, should have turned over and gone to sleep again.

Instead, he slipped out of bed and went to the window. One glance showed him that the fire was in the business district, either in or near the Temple Court Building. That was enough to make him dress hurriedly and hasten to the street, where he found a handful of policemen trying ineffectually to keep a clear pavement for the racing fire-trucks.

Watching his chance, Blount darted out to make the crossing. He was half-way to the opposite curb when an unwieldy hook-and-ladder truck, drawn by a pair of magnificent grays, came lurching and plunging down the side street upon which the hotel cornered.

In front of the horses, and leaping and barking at their heads in a frenzy of excitement, was a spotted coach-dog--the truck squad's mascot.

Blount was within a few feet of the farther sidewalk, and was well out of danger when the long truck slewed into the avenue. But at the pa.s.sing instant the mascot dog, leaping and whirling like a four-footed dervish, sprang backward. Blount felt the catapulting shock of a yielding body between his shoulders, heard a yell from the truck-driver on his high seat, and went plunging headlong to the curb. After which he felt and heard no more.

XXIV

FIELD HEADQUARTERS

In the great world-battles of yesterday, or the day before, the commanding general rode, with a few chosen officers of his staff, to some near-by hill-top, sh.e.l.l-swept and perilous, and with the help of a pair of field-gla.s.ses and a corps of hard-riding aides kept in touch as he could with the shifting fortunes of his divisions and brigades. It would be small credit to an up-to-date day of progress and invention if this were not all changed. The present-moment commander-in-chief--warring, industrial, or political--may sit, thanks to the Morses and the Edisons, comfortably in office-coat and slippers, far removed from the battle turmoil, directing his forces with the pressure of a finger upon the appropriate electric b.u.t.ton, or in a few words dictated to the human ear of a clicking telegraph-instrument.

By all these advent.i.tious aids Vice-President McVickar was profiting on the Sat.u.r.day morning following the mysterious disappearance on the Friday of the gasolene unit-car somewhere between Bald b.u.t.te and the capital. The small resort hotel at the head of Shonoho Canyon had been transformed into a field headquarters. The hotel manager's desk, wheeled out in front of a crackling wood-fire in the ornate little lobby, was studded with its row of electric call-b.u.t.tons; a railroad dining-car crew had taken possession of the kitchen; and the s.p.a.cious writing-and lounging-room, sacred, in the season, to the guests of the exclusive hotel, housed a ranking of gla.s.s-topped telegraph-tables and impromptu desks--a work-room manned by a dozen picked young men, with O'Brien, the vice-president's private secretary, acting as the chief.

Though the momentous Tuesday was still three days in the future, Mr.

McVickar was actively at work on the Sat.u.r.day morning, gathering in the loose ends and strengthening the railroad company's defences. With his arm-chair drawn up to the borrowed desk he was running rapidly through the telegrams filtering in a steady shower from the crackling sounders in the writing-room. When the situation had begun to outline itself with something like coherence, he pressed a call-b.u.t.ton for O'Brien.

"How about that wire to Detwiler at Ophir--any reply yet?" was the rasping demand shot at the secretary.

"Nothing yet; no, sir."

"Go after him again! There's a screw loose among those miners! How about Hathaway? Did you phone Twin b.u.t.tes?"

"Yes; and Grogan, the mill time-keeper, answered. He says Mr. Hathaway is in the capital and something has gone wrong--he doesn't know what."

"Keep the wires hot until you can get hold of Hathaway himself, and when you nail him, switch him over to my phone. Any word from the irrigation people at Natcho?"

"Yes. They say that the farmers under the High Line have been getting restive and forming a.s.sociations. Daniels was the man who talked to me, and he says it's a Gordon movement, though the ranchmen are trying to keep it quiet."

"Take a message to Daniels!" snapped the vice-president; and then, dictating: "'How would it do to let it be known quietly that Gordon's election means raise in price of water to High Line users?' Send that, and sign it 'Committee of Safety.' Now how about Kittredge? Did you get him?"

"I did; he's driving out in his car, and he ought to be here in a few minutes."

As if to make O'Brien's word good, the roar of an automobile came from the driveway, dominating for the moment the chattering of the telegraph-instruments, and a little later Kittredge came in, lifting his goggles and wiping the road dust from his closely clipped black beard.

"That car of yours isn't what it might be, Kittredge," was the vice-president's crusty greeting. "You'd better get a faster one. Sit down, and let's have it. How are things shaping up in the city?"

The big superintendent sat down and found a cigar in an inner pocket of his driving-coat.

"We are holding our own, as far as anybody can see," he returned.

"That 'as far as anybody can see' is just your weakness, Kittredge,"

said the chief testily. "What we want--what we've got to have first, last, and all the time--is the _fact_. Now see if you can answer a few straight questions. What is the senator doing?"

"His wife has a young girl visiting her, and if the Honorable Dave is doing anything more than to show the two women a good time, I can't find it out."

"There you go again! You say 'if.' It's your business to know."

Kittredge held his peace. Being designed by nature for a heavy-weight ring-fighter, there were times when he felt like taking off his coat to the vice-president.

"Well?" prompted McVickar, when Kittredge remained obstinately silent.

"If I knew what sort of a deal you have made with the senator--"

"That cuts no figure. But let it go. What's young Blount doing?"

"He's out of it, good and plenty. He started to go to the Sampson Block fire last night and was knocked down by a hook-and-ladder truck. It's a cracked skull, and Doc Dillon says he's safe to stay in bed for a week or so."

"H'm," said the chief reflectively. "That is almost what you might call opportune, Kittredge. The young fellow has done his work well, but there was always the danger that he might overdo it. In fact, there was a time, a week or two ago, when I thought he would have to be called down and given a lesson. Now then, how about that Gryson business?"

"It was just as you said: I had to take Tom by the neck and get rid of him."