At exactly ten o'clock the next morning as the general superintendent and Adair sat in earnest consultation at headquarters. Glidden arrived in great haste with a telegram. "A pink, sir," he reported to the head officer. "Was in cypher. From Fairbanks." "Hello!" commented Adair, rising from his chair interested. "That's good. He never wastes electricity unless he has something to tell." "Why," almost shouted the superintendent, roused up to tremendous excitement, "he has found the missing pay car!" "He beats me, and that's fine, quick work!" declared Adair. "I told you he was a genius, and I knew what I was about when I sent for him." "Listen to this," continued the superintendent hastily: "Pay car found--north Eagle Pass. Smashed. Empty. Adair must come at once.'" "I guess so," nodded the road detective with animation. "What a record: Roundhouse wiper, towerman, fireman, engineer, train dispatcher, and now beating the special road service right on its own grounds! Chief, where are you going to put Fairbanks next?" "Something better and something soon," said the gratified superintendent. "He deserves the best." "There's nothing better than chief dispatcher," declared old John Glidden, loyal to the core to the proud traditions of his calling. "You just keep Fairbanks right at my side--we're both happy and useful right here." Adair waited for no regular train. A special locomotive took him down to Maddox, to find Ralph and Zeph awaiting him in a private room off the operator's office. "Found the pay car, eh, Fairbanks?" challenged the road detective briskly. "Yes, Mr. Adair--what was left of it." "Knew you would, if anyone did. So I bungled? Well, I'm glad to learn what I don't know. Give us the details." Ralph was brief and explicit. The first investigating party under Adair's direction had traversed all the southern cut offs. They had forgotten or neglected the one over which Ralph had made his sensational run with the California fruit special. It was no wonder that the division superintendent had considered it impossible, for at places the fruit special had ploughed up dirt and dead leaves matted down over the rails two feet thick. At all events, recalling the obstruction of the chained ties, Ralph and Zeph had gone to the spot. "That obstruction," explained Ralph, "had certainly been placed before the theft of the pay car, anticipatory of what was planned to happen." "Yes, it looks that way," nodded Adair thoughtfully. "The car must have run on strong gravity to the bumper, and went over the edge of the roadway at that point. She struck down over one hundred feet, breaking through the tops of trees. The snow later covered all traces of the descent. You will find the car lying near an old abandoned quarry house, a mere heap of kindling." "And the safes and the money parrels?"