Benson had been tilting comfortably in his chair, smoking his pipe, but at this he got up quickly and looked at his watch.

“Say, Lidgerwood, I’m going back to the Park on Extra 71, which ought to leave in about five minutes,” he said hurriedly.  “Tell me half a dozen things in just about as many seconds.  Has Flemister used that spur since you took charge of the road?”

“No.”

“Have you ever suspected him of being mixed up in the looting?”

“I haven’t known enough about him to form an opinion.”

Benson stepped to the door communicating with the outer office, and closed it quietly.

“Your man Hallock out there; how is he mixed up with Flemister?”

“I don’t know.  Why?”

“Because, the day before yesterday, when I was on the Little Butte station platform, talking with Goodloe, I saw Flemister and Hallock walking down the new spur together.  When they saw me, they turned around and began to walk back toward the mine.”

“Hallock had business with Flemister, I know that much, and he took half a day off Thursday to go and see him,” said the superintendent.

“Do you happen to know what the business was?”

“Yes, I do.  He went at my request.”

“H’m,” said Benson, “another string broken.  Never mind; I’ve got to catch that train.”

“Still after those bridge-timbers?”

“Still after the boards they have probably been sawed into.  And before I get back I am going to know what’s at the upper end of that old Silver Switch ‘Y’ spur.”

The young engineer had been gone less than half an hour, and Lidgerwood had scarcely finished reading his mail, when McCloskey opened the door.  Like Benson, the trainmaster also had the light of discovery in his eye.

“More thievery,” he announced gloomily.  “This time they have been looting my department.  I had ten or twelve thousand feet of high-priced, insulated copper wire, and a dozen or more telephone sets, in the store-room.  Mr. Cumberley had a notion of connecting up all the Angels departments by telephone, and it got as far as the purchasing of the material.  The wire and all those telephone sets are gone.”

“Well?” said Lidgerwood, evenly.  The temptation to take it out upon the nearest man was still as strong as ever, but he was growing better able to resist it.

“I’ve done what I could,” snapped McCloskey, seeming to know what was expected of him, “but nobody knows anything, of course.  So far as I could find out, no one of my men has had occasion to go to the store-room for a week.”

“Who has the keys?”

“I have one, and Spurlock, the line-chief, has one.  Hallock has the third.”

“Always Hallock!” was the half-impatient comment.  “I hope you don’t suspect him of stealing your wire.”

McCloskey tilted his hat over his eyes, and looked truculent enough to fight an entire cavalry troop.