"No," he contradicted: "Cranford was able to talk a little after we toted him back to the service-car. He says it was a broken rail; says he saw it and saw the man that was flaggin' him down, all in good time to give her the air before he hit it."
"What man was that?" asked Groner, whose point of view had not been that of an onlooker.
Lidgerwood answered for himself and Bradford.
"That is one of the things we'd like to know, Groner. Just before the smash a man, whom none of us recognized, ran down the track and tried to give Cranford the stop signal."
They had been walking on down the line, looking for the actual point of derailment. When it was found, it proved Cranford's assertion—in part. There was a gap in the rail on the river side of the line, but it was not a fracture. At one of the joints the fish-plates were missing, and the rail-ends were sprung apart sidewise sufficiently to let the wheel flanges pass through. Groner went down on his hands and knees with the lantern held low, and made another discovery.
"This ain't no happen-so, Mr. Lidgerwood," he said, when he got up. "The spikes are pulled!"
Lidgerwood said nothing. There are discoveries which are beyond speech. But he stooped to examine for himself. Groner was right. For a distance of eight or ten feet the rail had been loosened, and the spikes were gone out of the corresponding cross-ties. After it was loosened, the rail had been sprung aside, and the bit of rock inserted between the parted ends to keep them from springing together was still in place.
Lidgerwood's eyes were bloodshot when he rose and said:
"I'd like to ask you two men, as men, what devil out of hell would set a trap like this for a train-load of unoffending passengers?"
Bradford's slow drawl dispelled a little of the mystery.