Lidgerwood asked a single question.
"Did Williams find that anything had been tampered with?"
"Nothing that you could shoot up the back-shop man for. One of the truck safety-chains—the one on the left side, back—was loose. But it couldn't have hurt anything if it had been taken off. We ain't runnin' on safety-chains these days."
"Safety-chain loose, you say?—so if the truck should jump and swing it would keep on swinging? You tell Williams when you go up ahead that I want that machinist's name."
"H'm," said Bradford; "reckon it was meant to do that?"
"God only knows what isn't meant, these times, Andy. Hold on a minute before you give Williams the word to go." Then he turned to young Jefferis, who had come out on the car platform to light a cigarette. "Will you ask Miss Brewster to step out here for a moment?"
Eleanor came at the summons, and Jefferis gave the superintendent a clear field by dropping off to ask Bradford for a match.
"You sent for me, Howard?" said the president's daughter, and honey could not have matched her tone for sweetness.
"Yes. I shall have to anticipate the Angels gossips a little by telling you that we are in the midst of a pretty bitter labor fight. That is why people go gunning for me. I can't take you and your friends over the road to-night."
"Why not?" she inquired.