“Well?”
“I shouldn’t wonder if they have the evidence.”
“The tunnel?”
“No; that is safe, as yet, I believe. It is in the bridges. There is a certain specified penalty for jerry-building bridges that are to be used for human traffic, you know.”
“Bosh!” said David. “These little two-by-four spans we are throwing over the Powder River would carry anything you could pile upon them; you know they would, Plegg. And they’d do it if they didn’t have a single bar of steel in them.”
“Sure!” said Plegg, with a dry smile. “But we’d better be getting over to the car and the ’phone. If those temporary sheriffs are coming up here, we ought to know it.”
“Lushing won’t come,” David averred, as they walked together toward the bunk car office.
“Think not?”
“He’d better not.”
The service telephone was buzzing when they entered the car. Plegg picked up the receiver and held it to his ear. After a time, he said, “It’s Crawford again. He is at Number Three bridge now. The Lushing crowd had a break-down with their gasoline push-car, and Tommy skipped across the hill in the hair-pin curve and got to Number Three ahead of them. He says he talked to one of the men who came back to Number One to borrow a monkey-wrench. The man was foolish enough to let the cat out of the bag and brag about it. The bunch is coming up here to arrest you and Mr. Grillage. Crawford wants to know what he shall do with the few minutes he has at his disposal.”