“Yes. That will be a part of the cure for the crazy sickness among your men. Sit tight and say nothing, and by this evening I’ll be ready to put you next.”
It was late in the afternoon, and the man from Washington had spent much of the intervening time loafing in the different offices sheltered by the head-quarters roof, when young Tarbell got a telephone summons from the hotel. In the writing-room, which was otherwise deserted, he found the superintendent’s guest waiting for him. Sprague waved him to a chair and began at once.
“What did you find out, Mr. Tarbell?”
“Nothing to hurt. The fellow you was askin’ about went out on the wreck-train and came back on it.”
“You’re sure of that?”
“Sure of the first part, and not so sure of the last. I’ve found half a dozen o’ the men who saw him get on the train here, and saw him after he was on. They’re a little hazy about the back trip, but he must’ve come back that way, because he didn’t come on the Limited.”
“And his wife?”
Tarbell’s lip curled in honest cleanliness.
“He ain’t got any wife. It was his girl he was expectin’, and she didn’t come.”
“And afterward?” suggested the questioner.