When he came out he was red with anger and his pale blue eyes flashed. His visitor appeared to overlook the supervisor’s disturbance. He said: “This Whitey Malone has been McCarrey’s messenger and dirt-carrier. From the moment the shopmen struck, Whitey disappeared, so they tell me. I am going to send out a general order to apprehend the fellow wherever he is found. We will risk a little something. I understand he is really on probation and the magistrate might send him to jail if he appears not to be working.” The supervisor evidently had his own matters to think of. He did not even grunt. “I wonder if Ralph Fairbanks knows anything about Whitey,” considered Hopkins’ visitor aloud, and slyly watching the supervisor. The question finally brought the latter to life. He flushed up to his bald brow. “_That_ fellow? He is perfectly useless. I will put a flea into the directors’ ears about him,” Hopkins snarled, with unusual show of his feelings. The other got up, lazily stretched himself and nodded. “Just so. Matter of opinion, Mr. Hopkins,” he said. “Some of us think quite well of Ralph. You see, we have known him since he was a kid-hostler about the roundhouse. Good-night.” “Good-night,” returned Barton Hopkins shortly. CHAPTER XIV A TRAGEDY There was a fight down by one of the stockade gates not long after Ralph telephoned to Mr. Hopkins to learn if the supervisor knew anything about Bob Adair. It might as well be said that the young train dispatcher got no satisfaction from Barton Hopkins. “I am not giving information of railroad affairs to anybody, Fairbanks, and you should know that,” the supervisor had said shortly. “If the chief detective wishes to interview you, he doubtless will know how to find you.” “But I’ve got some information for him!” ejaculated Ralph. Mr. Hopkins hung up without further reply. He evidently considered it sheer impudence for the train dispatcher to have called him. It was within the next ten minutes that the row started at the yard gate. Ralph grabbed his cap and ran down to see what it was all about. The time was verging toward midnight. Freight trains had been made up as usual and sent out. But outside the railroad property a crowd had been gathering, and the yard crews were hooted and threatened. The train dispatcher was too late to take any part in the fight. But he learned that the attack had been made upon several of the members of the night train crews that were coming in by this gate because it was nearest to the roundhouse. The police had charged and aided the railroad men in driving back the strike sympathizers. Missiles had been thrown and one of the men attacked had had his coat torn off. When Ralph got close to this man he saw that it was old Byron Marks, engineer of the fast express.