"So he thoughtfully stopped us to give us the chance!" snapped Lidgerwood in wrathful scorn. "What did you do?"
"Oh, as long as he had done it, I had him call up the Angels despatcher to find out where we were at. We're on 204's time, you know—ought to have met her here."
"Why didn't we?" asked the superintendent, taking the time-card from its pigeon-hole and glancing at Train 204's schedule.
"She was late out of Red Butte; broke something and had to stop and tie it up; lost a half-hour makin' her get-away."
"Then we reach Little Butte before 204 gets there—is that it?"
"That's about the way the night despatcher has it ciphered out. He gave the Timanyoni plug operator hot stuff for holdin' us up."
Lidgerwood shook his head. The artless simplicity of Red-Butte-Western methods, or unmethods, was dying hard, inexcusably hard.
"Does the night despatcher happen to know just where 204 is, at this present moment?" he inquired with gentle irony.
Bradford laughed.
"I'd be willing to bet a piebald pinto against a no-account yaller dog that he don't. But I reckon he won't be likely to let her get past Little Butte, comin' this way, when he has let us get by Timanyoni goin' t'other way."