"All of which points to one conclusion, Mr. Leckhard. They are plotting against Ford--without the president's connivance. But the president is going to be made to swing the club. I know rather more than you do about it--which isn't saying very much. My--a relative of mine who is with the party in the Nadia wired me three days ago from Denver that Ford had been tried and condemned, and was only waiting to be hanged. That's why I am here to-night. You've got to get me to the end-of-track before it comes to blows between Mr. Colbrith and Stuart Ford. I know both men, Mr. Leckhard. If the iron comes to a certain heat, the past master of all the peacemakers won't be able to patch things together." "Ford will resign," said the engineer. "That is what I'm afraid of; and we can't let him resign. That would mean Mr. North for everything in sight, and the ultimate ruin of the Pacific Southwestern. On the other hand, I can't have Ford fighting the family--or my uncle--which is just what he will do if he gets his blood up--and doesn't quit in a huff. It's up to you to trundle this car over to the seat of war, Mr. Leckhard." The division engineer was thinking hard. "I can't see how it's to be done, right now, Mr. Adair. But I'll tell you what I will do. Our empty material trains come back from the front in the night, as a rule. When they get in, and I can be sure that the track's clear, I'll double one of the construction engines out with you. It will be along toward morning, I'm afraid; but, with nothing in the way, you ought to make the run in four or five hours--say by late breakfast time." That was the way it was left when Leckhard went back to his telegraph den at ten o'clock; and some six hours later, Adair, sleepily conscious of disturbances, wakened sufficiently to hear the wheels once more trundling monotonously under the "01." XX THE CONSPIRATORS "How far do we go, and what do we do when we get there?" asked Frisbie of his chief, when the two buckboards, heaving and lurching over the rock-strewn talus at the foot of the canyon cliff, had passed beyond sight and sound of the headquarters camp at the mouth of Horse Creek. "I'm not guessing any more," said Ford crustily. He was finding that his temper deteriorated as the square of his distance from Alicia Adair increased. "The president said he wanted to drive over this short-cut, and he's doing it." "Humph!" growled Frisbie. "If he wanted to rub salt into your bruises, why didn't he take you in the cart with him? And where do _I_ come in?" "You are 'implicated' with me; that was his word."