If David Vallory were reluctant to leave the hotel and make his way down the wooded ridge to the gridironing of tracks in the railroad yard, it was only because his duty was shortening the evening with Virginia. Without being unduly puffed up with a sense of his own efficiency, he felt sure that his work would show for itself and that there was no reason why he should hesitate to spread the results before the president. Not knowing where Mr. Grillage’s car had been placed, it took him some few minutes to find it in the crowded material yard, which was not too well lighted by the widely spaced masthead electrics. When he did find it, on the single unobstructed spur-track, the nearest electric showed him the figure of a man dropping from the car step to become quickly lost in the shadows of the surrounding material trains. In the brief glimpse David recognized the alert poise and swinging stride of his first assistant; but since neither jealousy nor suspicion had any part in the Vallory make-up, the recognition evoked no wondering query as to why Plegg had anticipated him in calling upon Eben Grillage. A moment later the porter had admitted him and was standing aside to let him pass through the vestibule to the open compartment in the rear of the luxurious car. At the heavy, glass-topped desk he found the contractor magnate sitting alone, with the inevitable black and shapeless cigar clamped between his teeth. “Hello, David--come in!” was the brusque greeting; and then with a grim chuckle: “By George! I was beginning to think you were lost out completely.” “I was up at the tunnel when your train got in,” David explained, judiciously slurring over the interval which had elapsed since the early-evening hour of the arrival. “And when you crawled out of the tunnel you found your way to the hotel and promptly forgot all about the old duffer who has to dig down into his jeans for the pay-roll money,” laughed the man-driver in jovial humor. “It’s all right, my boy; I was young once, myself. How goes the job?” “I think you will find it moving along all right,” David ventured. Then he said a good word for the first assistant. “Plegg had things in fine shape when I took hold; good organization, good distribution, and no friction. All that was needed was a little pace-setting.” “And you’ve been setting the pace, eh? How about the railroad inspectors?--are they giving you much trouble?” “All we need, though as a general thing they don’t say much to me personally; they go to Plegg. One of them--Strayer--took me into his confidence a bit to-day. He professes to believe that we are deliberately burking the railroad company and threw out a hint to the effect that the railroad Executive Board might take some action.” “Did you get back at him?”