“In the pocket of an old coat that Jim Sawyer’s been wearin’ here on the job. It’s hangin’ up in the tool shanty. I run out o’ matches a little spell ago, and went to rummagin’ ’round to see if I couldn’t find some.”
“Sawyer’s coat, eh?” said Tregarvon, struck suddenly alert.
Tryon nodded soberly. “An’ that ain’t all,” he went on. “I got a file and tried ’em; they’re harder ’n flint—been tempered till you couldn’t cut ’em with anything softer ’n an emery-wheel. Rucker’d been tellin’ me how the drills went all to the bad that time when you was hung up before the old b’iler bu’sted. Sawyer’s got a tool-box in the shanty where he keeps his wrenches and little traps. It was locked, but I happened to have a key that fitted. What d’you reckon I found?”
“More of these?”
“You’ve hit it plumb centre; a tomatter can about half full of ’em.”
“Tell me all you know about Sawyer,” Tregarvon cut in concisely.
“What I know about him wouldn’t get him a job anywheres where I had the say-so. Last summer he was workin’ for the C. C. & I. at Whitlow—a strike-breaker. Before that he was doin’ time at Brushy Mountain, for some sort o’ crookedness, I dunno what. Maybe I ort to ’a’ told you this when you hired him, but I allowed you knowed what you was doin’, an’ it wasn’t none o’ my business. He’s a good drill boss.”
Tregarvon was examining the bits of steel critically. “Tryon, I’d give something to know just where these came from originally,” he said.
“Maybe I might help out a little on that, too. I served my time in the shop before I went to work for the railroad. D’you know what kind o’ steel that is?”
“No.”