Brant unlocked the door of the chief engineer’s rooms, and, telling the reporter to make himself comfortable while he waited, left him. But since it was no time for half measures he took the precaution to set the catch of the nightlatch as he closed the door, locking Jarvis in. Hurrying back to the superintendent’s office, he turned on the light and tried to rouse Antrim, shaking him roughly and sparing neither blows nor abuse. Nothing coming of this, he was beginning to despair of any measure of success which should antedate the end of the reporter’s patience, when his eye lighted upon the unfinished letter to the train despatcher. Written as it had been, in the dark, it was a barely legible scrawl, but he made shift to decipher it, pieced it out with Jarvis’s information and Disbrow’s ignorance, and knowing much more about building railways than about operating them, jumped at once to the conclusion that the special train was rushing onward to certain destruction. Wherefore he forgot the imprisoned reporter, overlooked the very obvious expedient of notifying the despatcher by word of mouth, and fell upon Antrim with renewed buffetings to which the assumed exigencies lent stinging vigour. No sudorific could hold out long against such an heroic antidote, and with the first signs of returning consciousness Brant dragged his patient to the wash basin in the corner of the room and held his head under the cold faucet. Antrim came up gasping and struggled feebly with his tormentor, but Brant thrust him down again and held him until he found speech and sanity wherewith to protest. “For Heaven’s sake, let up--you’ll drown me!” gasped the victim, and Brant desisted. “Got your grip again so it will stay?” he inquired grimly. Antrim staggered back against the wall and groped for the towel which Brant handed him. “I should hope so. What’s the matter? What have you been doing to me?” “Matter enough. Drop that towel and come over here.” Brant was dragging him back to the desk. “Read that letter, quick, and tell me what to do, before somebody gets killed!” he commanded. Antrim sank into the chair. “Great Scott! I feel as if I had been brayed in a mortar!” he groaned. Then he took up the letter and read it. “Well?” said Brant impatiently. “Pull your wits together and tell me what I am to do--or is it too late to do anything?” The chief clerk blinked at the clock and was evidently unable to see its dial. “Will you tell me what time it is?” he said. “I can’t seem to see very well.” “It is ten minutes past nine.” “‘Between nine and ten,’ he said,” muttered Antrim, quoting the misplaced message. Then to Brant: “Maybe there is time enough. Can you run a typewriter, Brant?” “Yes--after a fashion.” “Then let me give you a letter. I couldn’t write it with a pen to save my life.” Brant jerked the cover from the machine and thrust in a sheet of paper. “Go ahead.” Antrim handed him the unfinished letter.