The Wreckers

by Francis Lynde

"It'll be John Hogan and the Four-Sixteen," said Donohue. "There's nobody else at that end of the branch."

The arrangement, such as it was, was fixed up quickly. The man who was putting up the money seemed to have plenty of it. He was offering five hundred dollars for the engine, and a thousand if it should overtake the special that side of Bauxite Junction.

I guess the bleat unravelled itself pretty clearly for all of us; or at least, it seemed plain enough. A mining deal of some kind was on, and this man who was left behind was going to be left in another sense of the word if he couldn't butt in soon enough to break whatever combination the others were stacking up against him.

In just a few minutes we got the word from the Strathcona operator that the money was paid and the chaser engine was out and gone. The special train had fully a half-hour's start, and with the hazardous grades of Slide Mountain and Dry Canyon to negotiate, it didn't seem probable that the light engine could overtake it anywhere north of Bauxite. That wasn't up to us, however. Kirgan had come in to say that our good-natured strikers had thrown a guard into the shops and were patroling the yard, when Fred May showed up, making signals to me. I heard him when he edged up to the boss and said: "There's a lady in the office, wanting to see you, Mr. Norcross."

"Holy Smoke!" said I to myself. I knew it couldn't be anybody but Mrs. Sheila, at that time of night, and I saw seventeen different kinds of bloody murder looming up again when I tagged along after the boss on the trip down the hall to our offices.

The guess was right, both ways around. It was Mrs. Sheila, and she had the major with her. And the air of the private office was so thick with tragedy that it made the very electrics look dim and ghostly. Mrs. Sheila didn't have a bit of color in her face, and her eyes had a big horror in them that was enough to make your flesh creep.

I won't attempt to tell all that was said, partly by the good old major and partly by Mrs. Sheila. But the gist of it was this: Collingwood had continued his booze fight in his rooms at the Bullard until he had worked himself up to the crazy murder pitch. Then he had gone on the warpath, hunting for Hatch. Just how he had contrived to dodge Hatch's spotters, who were doubtless keeping cases on him, did not appear. But that was a detail. He had dodged them, had learned that Hatch and a bunch of his Red Tower backers had gone to Strathcona on a mining deal, and had started to drive to the gold camp in an auto to get his man.

Before leaving Portal City he had written a letter to Mrs. Sheila, telling her what he was going to do, and that when he got through with it, she would be free. The letter, which had been left at the hotel, had been delayed in delivery—had, in fact, just been sent out to the major's house by the night clerk who had found it.

Long before the story could get itself fully told, the different gaps in it were filling themselves up for me—and for Mr. Norcross, as well, I guess. When Mrs. Sheila came to the auto-drive part of it, the boss whirled and shot an order at me.

"Jimmie, chase into the despatcher's office and find out the name of the man who chartered that following engine!" he snapped; and I went on the run, remembering that in the strike excitement and hustle it hadn't occurred to anybody to ask the man's name or that of the particular "mine owner" who had chartered the special train.