He had scarcely finished telephoning his home to instruct George Sea Otter to report with the express package to Shirley when Buck Ogilvy strolled into the office and tossed a document on his desk. “There's your little old temporary franchise, old thing,” he announced; and with many a hearty laugh he related to Bryce the ingenious means by which he had obtained it. “And now if you will phone up to your logging-camp and instruct the woods-boss to lay off about fifty men to rest for the day, pending a hard night's work, and arrange to send them down on the last log-train to-day, I'll drop around after dinner and we'll fly to that jump-crossing. Here's a list of the tools we'll need.”
“I'll telephone Colonel Pennington's manager and ask him to kick a switch-engine in on the Laurel Creek spur and snake those flat-cars with my rails aboard out to the junction with the main line,” Bryce replied. And he called up the Laguna Grande Lumber Company—only to be informed by no less a person than Colonel Pennington himself that it would be impossible to send the switch-engine in until the following afternoon. The Colonel was sorry, but the switch-engine was in the shop having the brick in her fire-box renewed, while the mogul that hauled the log trams would not have time to attend to the matter, since the flats would have to be spotted on the sidetrack at Cardigan's log-landing in the woods, and this could not be done until the last loaded log-train for the day had been hauled out to make room.
“Why not switch back with the mogul after the logtrain has been hauled out on the main line?” Bryce demanded pointedly.
Pennington, however, was not trapped. “My dear fellow,” he replied patronizingly, “quite impossible, I assure you. That old trestle across the creek, my boy—it hasn't been looked at for years. While I'd send the light switch-engine over it and have no fears—”
“I happen to know, Colonel, that the big mogul kicked those flats in to load the rails!”
“I know it. And what happened? Why, that old trestle squeaked and shook and gave every evidence of being about to buckle in the centre. My engineer threatened to quit if I sent him in again.”
“Very well. I suppose I'll have to wait until the switch-engine comes out of the shop,” Bryce replied resignedly, and hung up. He turned a troubled face to Ogilvy. “Checkmated!” he announced. “Whipped to a frazzle. The Colonel is lying, Buck, and I've caught him at it. As a matter of fact, the mogul didn't kick those flats in at all. The switch-engine did—and I know it. Now I'm going to send a man over to snoop around Pennington's roundhouse and verify his report about the switch-engine being in the shop.”
He did so. Half an hour later the messenger returned with the information that not only was the switch-engine not in the shop but her fire-box had been overhauled the week before and was reported to be in excellent condition.
“That settles it,” Buck Ogilvy mourned. “He had gum-shoe men on my trail, after all; they have reported, and the Colonel is as suspicious as a rhino. He doesn't know anything, but he smells danger just the same.”
“Exactly, Buck. So he is delaying the game until he can learn something definite.” He drummed idly on his desk for several minutes. Then: