Over in the town a dance-hall piano was jangling, and the raucous voice of the dance-master calling the figures came across to the Crow’s Nest curiously like the barking of a distant dog.  Suddenly the barking voice stopped, and the piano clamor ended futilely in an aimless tinkling.  For climax a pistol-shot rang out, followed by a scattering volley.  It was a precise commentary on the time and the place that neither of the two men in the head-quarters upper room gave heed to the pistol-shots, or to the yelling uproar that accompanied them.

It was after the shouting had died away in a confused clatter of hoofs, and the pistol cracklings were coming only at intervals and from an increasing distance, that the corridor door opened and the night despatcher’s off-trick man came in with a message for Hallock.

It was a mere routine notification from the line-end operator at Copah, and the chief clerk read it sullenly to the master-mechanic.

“Engine 266, Williams, engineer, and Blackmar, fireman, with service-car Naught-One, Bradford, conductor, will leave Copah at 12:01 A.M., and run special to Angels.  By order of Howard Lidgerwood, General Superintendent.”

Gridley’s pivot-chair righted itself with a snap.  But he waited until the off-trick man was gone before he said, “Lidgerwood!  Well, by all the gods!” then, with a laugh that was more than half a snarl, “There is a chance for you yet, Rankin.”

“Why, do you know him?”

“No, but I know something about him.  I’ve got a line on New York, the same as you have, and I get a hint now and then.  I knew that Lidgerwood had been considered for the place, but I was given to understand that he would refuse the job if it were offered to him.”

“Why should he refuse?” demanded Hallock.

“That is where my wire-tapper fell down; he couldn’t tell.”

“Then why do you say there is still a chance for me?”

“Oh, on general principles, I guess.  If it was an even break that he would refuse, it is still more likely that he won’t stay after he has seen what he is up against, don’t you think?”

Hallock did not say what he thought.  He rarely did.

“Of course, you made inquiries about him when you found out he was a possible; I’d trust you to do that, Gridley.  What do you know?”

“Not much that you can use.  He is out of the Middle West; a young man and a graduate of Purdue.  He took the Civil degree, but stayed two years longer and romped through the Mechanical.  He ought to be pretty well up on theory, you’d say.”

“Theory be damned!” snapped the chief clerk.  “What he’ll need in the Red Desert will be nerve and a good gun.  If he has the nerve, he can buy the gun.”

“But having the gun he couldn’t always be sure of buying the nerve, eh?  I guess you are right, Rankin; you usually are when you can forget to be vindictive.  And that brings us around to the jumping-off place again.  Of course, you will stay on with the new man—­if he wants you to?”