The engineer halted with a sullen, disrespectful face.
"Well?" he projected.
"Who's to blame in this smash up?"
"Tain't me, that's dead sure," retorted the engineer, with a careless shrug of his shoulders, "and we'll leave it to the yardmaster to find out."
"I want to find out," spoke Bardon incisively--"I am here to do just this kind of thing. Can't you read a signal right?" he demanded of the brakeman.
The latter smiled a lazy smile, lurched amusedly from side to side, took a chew of tobacco, and counter-questioned:
"Can't you?"
Mr. Bardon, inspector, was getting scant courtesy shown him all around, and his eyes flashed. He deigned to glance at the first switch. It was set wrong, he could detect that at a glance.
"How's this?" he called to the one-armed switchman sharply. "You're responsible here."
"I reckon not, cap'n," answered the man lightly. "The switch is set on rule. I got no signal to change it."