The intruder settled himself comfortably on the top of the stenographer’s little desk, and drew out a cigarette. Dangling his fat legs, he eyed Brainard with an amused stare. The latter stood for the moment dumfounded. Although he had at first looked for this outcome, as the days had gone by he had come to believe that the old man was recovering. Now he realized swiftly that with Krutzmacht dead his power of attorney was no better than a piece of blank paper. His position was doubly tenuous. “Say!” The reporter interrupted his meditation in a burst of cynical confidence. “The old man was a good pirate—fought to the last ditch, and then got out.” “What makes you think he got out?” Brainard inquired. The reporter shrugged his shoulders. “They had him, and he must have known it. That railroad crowd would have taken the hide off him, and put what was left in the penitentiary.” “Perhaps they made away with him,” Brainard suggested meaningly. “You think so? My, that would be a fat scoop! What makes you think so?” Brainard raised his eyebrows mysteriously, and the reporter nimbly filled in a reasonable outline of the story. “You mean he got the money down East that he needed to stop this receivership, and they knew it, and put him out of the way, so that he shouldn’t interrupt the game?” “Possibly,” Brainard admitted. The reporter jumped from his seat briskly. “Well, I must get busy—they’re holding the paper for me. Who’s in charge here?” “I am,” Brainard replied promptly. “And what’s your name?” He pulled a dirty note book from his hip-pocket. “Wilkins,” Brainard answered quickly, “of Wilkins & Starbird, Mr. Krutzmacht’s New York attorneys.” The reporter looked at Brainard and whistled, but he wrote down the name. “You folks didn’t lose any time in getting busy! I s’pose there’ll be litigation and all that. Do you expect to save much from the wreck?” “That’s what I am here for—to keep those pirates from making off with the stuff!” His eye fell upon his valise, and a sudden resolution came to him. “See here, Farson,” he said confidentially, laying a hand on the reporter’s pudgy thigh, “do you see that bag? The Pacific Northern that they’re after and the Shasta Company are right inside that bag, together with a lot of other valuable property. I’m going to take it where those pirates can’t lay a finger on it, in spite of all the courts in California!” The reporter’s eyes grew round. “You’ve got your nerve!” he said admiringly. “You see, time’s money—big money. So I can’t stay here all night gassing with you. There is a train on the Santa Fé at ten, isn’t there?” “Ten ten,” the reporter corrected. “I must make that train, or—” “Lose the trick?” the reporter suggested affably. “I’m going to make it!” “You’ll need some help in the get-away, I suppose?”