Everybody talked about the Directors' Special run--naturally. And, naturally, everybody wondered what was going to come from it. It was an open secret that Regan had handed one to the general manager without any candy coating on the pill, and the Hill Division sort of looked to see the master mechanic's head fall and Regan go. But Regan did not go; and, for that matter, nothing else happened--for a while. Carleton came back and got the rights of it from Regan--and said nothing to Regan about his reply to H. Herrington Campbell's letter, in which he had stated that if they were looking for a new master mechanic there would be a division superintendency vacant at the same time. The day man at Mitre Peak quit railroading--without waiting for an investigation. Old Dan MacCaffery and Billy Dawes went back to their regular run with the 304. And the division generally settled down again to its daily routine--and from the perspective of distance, if the truth be told, got to grinning reminiscently at the run the Big Bugs had had for their money. Only the grin came too soon. A week or so passed, pay day came and went--and the day after that a general order from the East hit the Hill Division like a landslide. Carleton slit the innocent-looking official manila open with his paper knife, chucked the envelope in the wastebasket, read the communication, read it again with gathering brows--and sent for Regan. He handed the form to the master mechanic without a word, as the latter entered the office. Regan read it--read it again, as his chief had--and two hectic spots grew bright on his cheeks. It was brief, curt, cold--for the good of the service, safety, and operating efficiency, it stated. In a word, on and after the first of the month the services of employees over the age of sixty years would no longer be required. Those were early days in railroading; not a word about pensions, not a word about half-pay; just sixty years and--out! The paper crackled in Regan's clenched fists; Carleton was beating a tattoo on his teeth with the mouthpiece of his pipe--there wasn't another sound in the office for a moment. Then Regan spoke--and his voice broke a little. "It's a damned shame!" he said, through his teeth. "It's that skunk Campbell." "How many men does it affect?" asked Carleton, looking through the window. "I don't know," said the little master mechanic bitterly; "but I know one that it'll hit harder than all the rest put together--and that's old Dan MacCaffery." There was hurt in the super's gray eyes, as he looked at the big-hearted little master mechanic's working face. "I was thinking of old Dan myself," he said, in his low, quiet way.