"Not much, you'd say; and yet a queer thing happened. The entire train went off so thoroughly that it passed the point where the trouble began before it piled up. I was able to verify Clay's guess—a rail had turned over on the outside of the curve."
"That proves nothing more than poor spike-holds in a few dry-rotted cross-ties," Lidgerwood objected.
"No; there were a number of others farther along also turned over and broken and bent. But the first one was the only freak."
"How was that?"
"Well, it wasn't either broken or bent; but when it turned over it not only unscrewed the nuts of the fish-plate bolts and threw them away—it pulled out every spike on both sides of itself and hid them."
Lidgerwood nodded gravely. "I should say your guess has already verified itself. All it lacks is the name of the man who loosened the fish-plate bolts and pulled the spikes."
"That's about all."
The superintendent's eyes narrowed.
"Who was missing out of the Angels crowd of trouble-makers yesterday, Mac?"
"I hate to say," said the trainmaster. "God knows I don't want to put it all over any man unless it belongs to him, but I'm locoed every time it comes to that kind of a guess. Every bunch of letters I see spells just one name."