"It makes a lot of difference," said Warry, gloomily. "We'd better not say anything about this just now--not even to Fenton," Saxton suggested. "I'll take these things over to my other office for safe keeping. Some one may want them badly enough to look for them." Raridan sat down with his newspaper and pretended to be reading until Saxton was ready to go. CHAPTER XXXII CROSSED WIRES A great storm came out of the north late in January and beat fiercely upon Clarkson. It left a burden of snow on the town and was followed by a week of bitter cold. The sun shone impotently upon the great drifts which filled the streets; it seemed curiously remote, and ashamed of its failure to impress the white, dazzling masses. The wires sang their song of the cold; even the confused wires of the Clarkson Traction Company lifted up their voices, somewhat to the irritation of John Saxton, receiver, as he fought the snow banks below and sought to disentangle the twisted wires above. Upper Varney Street, beyond Porter Hill, was receiving his attention late one afternoon as the winter sunset burned red in the west. The iron poles of the trolley wires had been pulled far over into the street by the blast and the weight of snow; and trolley, telephone, and electric light wires were a baffling tangle which workmen were seeking to straighten. Saxton's men had detached their own wires and were restoring them to the poles. Traffic on the Varney Street line would, he concluded, be resumed on the morrow; and he gave final instructions to the foreman of the repair crew and turned toward his office.