High up in the air the apparatus noiselessly and untiringly flashed forth one message after the other in big, black letters on the white ground--telling of one train attack after another. But of that living machine in the far West, working with clocklike regularity and slowly adding one link after the other to the chain, that machine which at this very moment had already separated three of the States by an impenetrable wall from the others and had thus blotted out three of the stars on the blue field of the Union flag--of that uncanny machine neither John Halifax nor the people loitering opposite the newspaper building in order to take a last sensation home with them, had the remotest idea. Not till the next morning was the meaning of these first flaming signs to be made clear. * * * * * At ten o'clock the telephone bell rang noisily beside John Halifax's bed. He seized the receiver and swore under his breath on learning that important telegrams required his presence at the office. "There isn't any reason why Harry Springley shouldn't go on with those old train-robbers," he grumbled; "I don't see what they want of me, but I suppose the stupid fellow doesn't know what to do, as usual." An hour later, when he entered the editorial rooms of the _New York Daily Telegraph_, he found his colleagues in a great state of excitement. Judging by the loud talk going on in the conference room, he concluded at once that something out of the common must have happened. The editor-in-chief quickly explained to him that an hour ago the news, already disseminated through an "extra," had arrived, that not only were all messages from the Pacific coast, especially from San Francisco, held up, but the Canadian wire had furnished the news that a foreign strange squadron had been observed on Sunday at Port Townsend, and that it had continued its voyage through Puget Sound toward Seattle. In addition the news came from Walla Walla that since Sunday noon all telegraphic communication between Seattle, Tacoma, and Portland had been broken off. Attempts to reach Seattle and Tacoma over the Canadian wire had also proved vain while, on the other hand, the report came from Ogden that no trains from the west, from the direction of San Francisco, had arrived since Sunday noon, and that the noon express had been attacked this side of Reno by bandits, some of whom had been distinctly recognized as Japanese. John Halifax recalled the first message of the evening before, in which there was a mention of the Japanese. He quickly put the separate news items together, and, after having glanced hurriedly at the messages in the extra, turned to the managing editor and in a low voice, which sounded strange and hard even to himself, said: "I believe this means war!" The latter slapped him on the back in his brusque fashion, crying: "John Halifax, we're not making war on Japan." "But they're making war on us," answered Halifax.