The first day’s session of the Assembly was given over to the usual formalities. On the morning of the second, so Conover’s agent in the enemy’s camp reported that night, Blacarda intended to put forward his bill. Caleb was well prepared for the issue. One thing only puzzled him. Knowing Blacarda as he did, he could not understand why the man had tried no subterfuge this time, to draw his arch-opponent away from the scene of action. That such a trick could be attempted without Conover’s learning of it seemed impossible. Yet no tidings of the sort had reached him. And it was not like Blacarda to go into battle against a stronger foe without trying to weaken the odds against himself. These things Caleb was pondering in his hotel room, early on the evening before the Starke bill was to be presented. He was dressing to go with Caine to a conference of political and business associates, to be held a mile or so distant. And, as he made ready to start out, the answer to his conjecture was received. It came in the form of a telegram: “_Train derailed near Magdeburg. Miss Shevlin badly injured. At Magdeburg hotel. Wire instructions and come by next train. Dangerous._ “_J. Hawarden, Jr._” For the briefest of intervals Conover’s blood settled down stiflingly upon his heart. Then he laughed in grim relief. “I thought Friend Blacarda was too sharp to try the same trick twice on me,” he growled, handing the dispatch to Caine, “an’ I thought he’d be afraid to. Seems I was wrong. He knew Dey was at the Antlers with the Hawardens, of course. But he might a’ took the pains to find out she wasn’t goin’ to leave there for a fortnight. I had a letter from her, there, to-day. An’ any railroad man could a’ told him,” he went on contemptuously, “that no train either from Noo York or the Ad’rondacks passes through Magdeburg. But most likely he chose that because it’s an out-of-the-way hole that takes f’ever to get to. Why couldn’t he a’ flattered my intelligence by a fake that had a little cleverness in it? Come on. We’ll be late to that meetin’. I’ll settle once more with Blacarda, afterward. An’ this time he won’t forget so soon.” “I doubt if Blacarda had any hand in it,” said Caine, as they left the hotel. “There are only two general divisions of the _genus_ ‘Fool.’ And Blacarda belongs to the species that doesn’t put his fingers in the same flame a second time.” “You don’t mean you think there’s a ghost of a chance the tel’gram’s the reel thing? If I--” “No, no,” soothed Caine. “As you’ve shown, it’s a palpable fraud. But there are others beside Blacarda who want the Starke bill to go through. The story of his ruse last spring has gone abroad in spite of Blacarda’s attempt to strangle it. And someone, remembering how well the trick worked then, has tried its effect a second time.”