Maxwell held his watch to the light and shook his head dejectedly.
“Number Six, the Fast Mail, is due at Corona in five minutes. We can never make it in this world!”
“You bet we can!” shouted Tarbell. “Help Mr. Calmaine, and pile into the car—quick!”
The short race to the near-by mining-camp was a sheer breakneck dash, but Tarbell made good. When the four of them leaped from the car and stormed into Allen’s office, the Fast Mail had already whistled for the “clear” signal, and the operator was reaching for the cord of his semaphore to give the “go-by” wigwag. They yelled at him as one man; and a few seconds later the fast train slid to a shrieking stop at the station.
Maxwell would have sent Tarbell on to New York with the precious proxies, but Calmaine pleaded pathetically for his chance to finish that which he had begun.
“I’ll be all right as soon as I can get into the sleeper and get these infernal shoes off,” he protested. “It’s my job, Mr. Maxwell; for pity’s sake don’t make me a quitter!”
“Let him go,” said Sprague; “he’s earned his chance to stay in the game—and this time he’ll make a touch-down.” And so it was decided.
When the Fast Mail, with its lately added passenger, had slid away among the hills to the eastward, the three who remained at Corona climbed into the hired auto and Tarbell drove another record race to town, pausing only once, when they reached the sheriff’s roadside camp, to take on Harding and as many of his deputies as the car would hold.
By Maxwell’s direction, Tarbell drove first to the railroad head-quarters, where the superintendent and his guest got out. At the office entrance another dusty car was drawn up; and in the upper corridor they found the two young men from the Molly Baldwin mine, still seeking for information. Sprague disposed of them, and he did it with business-like brevity.
“Your dead man has been found,” he told them crisply. “He is at present in the county jail, with one of his accomplices; and when he is given the third degree, he will probably tell all he knows. It’s a weakness he has—not to be able to hold out against a bit of rough handling. If you two fellows will make a clean breast of your part in the swindle to the prosecuting attorney, and promise to play fair with your lessors in future, it is likely that you’ll be let off with a fine, and you’ll probably be able to bag the remainder of the gang and to recover your lost gold.”