Having his shackles stricken off, the Norwegian proceeded “with due care,” which is to say that he sent the eight-wheeler darting down the line toward Lesterville at the rate of a mile a minute.  The mystery of the delay was solved at a point half-way between the two stations.  A broken flange had derailed three cars of the freight, and the block was impassable.

Armed with the general manager’s mandatory wire, Kent ran forward to the engine of the freight train and was shortly on his way again.  But in the twenty-mile run to Gaston more time was lost by the lumbering freight locomotive, and it was twenty minutes past three o’clock when the county seat came in sight and Kent began to oscillate between two sharp-pointed horns of a cruel dilemma.

By dropping off at the street-crossing nearest the Court House, he might still be in time to get a hearing with such documentary backing as he had been able to secure at the capital.  By going on to the station he could pick up the Boston wire which, while it was not strictly evidence, might create a strong presumption in his favor; but in this case he would probably be too late to use it.  So he counted the rail-lengths, watch in hand, with a curse to the count for his witlessness in failing to have Loring repeat the Boston message to him during the long wait at Juniberg; and when the time for the decision arrived he signaled the engineer to slow down, jumped from the step at the nearest crossing and hastened up the street toward the Court House.

In the mean time, to go back a little, during this day of hurryings to and fro Blashfield Hunnicott had been having the exciting experiences of a decade crowded into a corresponding number of hours.  Early in the morning he had begun besieging the headquarters wire office for news and instructions, and, owing to Kent’s good intentions to be on the ground in person, had got little enough of either.

At length, to his unspeakable relief, he had news of the coming special; and with the conviction that help was at hand he waited at the station with what coolness there was in him to meet his chief.  But as the time for the hearing drew near he grew nervous again; and all the keen pains of utter helplessness returned with renewed acuteness when the operator, who had overheard the Juniberg-Lesterville wire talk, told him that the special was hung up at the former station.

“O my good Lord!” he groaned.  “I’m in for it with empty hands!” None the less, he ran to the baggage-room end of the building and, capturing an express wagon, had himself trundled out to the Court House.

The judge was at his desk when Hunnicott entered, and Hawk was on hand, calmly reading the morning paper.  The hands of the clock on the wall opposite the judge’s desk pointed to five minutes of the hour, and for five minutes Hunnicott sat listening, hoping against hope that he should hear the rush and roar of the incoming special.