Why hadn’t the old fool who built the engine made one that could travel faster than a hand car? * * * * * The express--thanks to Caleb’s track-clearing telegram--rolled into Granite station a full half hour ahead of time. Long before the cars came to a lurching halt under the sheds, Conover, with all an old-time railroad man’s deftness, had swung off the moving train and had started down the platform at a run. Through bevies of departing passengers he clove a rough, unapologetic way. Station hands leaped nimbly aside and gazed in gaping amaze after their hurrying President. Past the platform, through the vaulted waiting room toward the street beyond; and, at the outer door-- “_Caleb!_” Conover halted, dumbfounded, shaking, at the call. There in the doorway he stood, his face a dull purple, his eyes bulging, staring down at--Desirée Shevlin. “What on earth are you doing here?” she marvelled. “You said you were to be at the Capital till to-morrow. Isn’t it the squunchiest, trickliest day you ever saw? If I hadn’t promised ever and ever so solemnly to go out to Jean’s on the eleven-forty, I’d--” “Good _Lord_!” It was as though all the engines on the C. G. & X. were letting off steam at once. And, with the ejaculation, the cloud of horror was wiped clean from the Fighter’s brain. He was, on the moment, his old self; alive and masterful in every atom of his mighty body. “Caleb!” the girl was saying, plaintively, as she gazed up at him with her head on one side, “is your hat _wished_ on?” “I’m sorry I forgot!” he laughed, excitedly, doffing the wet derby with one hand and slapping her vigorously on her little rain-coated shoulder with the other. “I came all the way back to Granite to tell you I’m tickled to death to see you lookin’ so well. An’--an’--to tell you I’m goin’ to beat Blacarda yet!” “Caleb _Conover_!” she gasped. “_What_ do you think you are talking about? Are you--” But Conover had vanished--swallowed up in the recesses of the dark station. Desirée looked after him, round-eyed. “I sometimes think,” she confided to the silver handle of her umbrella, “that Caleb will never _quite_ grow up!” CHAPTER VII THE BATTLE The red-haired man was fighting. Just now he was fighting at long range. And all the complex system of the C. G. & X. railroad vibrated under his blows. A dozen rapid-fire orders had sent as many station officials scuttling to posts of duty. Already telegraph wires were sizzling; and employees miles away were hustling in consequence, to fulfil their master’s behests. The fastest engine on the C. G. & X. was getting up steam. A dozen frantic machinists with oil cans, wrenches and hammers were swarming over and under the huge locomotive making her ready for a record trip. In the few minutes that remained, before his Special could start, Caleb Conover, coolest, least hurried man in the whole buzzing station, was talking over the long-distance telephone to Caine.