He went back into the tent, put down the lamp, picked up his handbag, took a last look around, and then blew out the lamp and set off down the slope to the track. The engineer was hanging out of his cab. “All ready, Mr. Carhart?” “All ready, Bill.” The chief caught the hand-rail of _his_ private car, tossed his bag to the platform, and swung himself up after it. “You was in something of a hurry, Mr. Carhart?” “In a little of a hurry, yes, Bill.” They started off, rocking and bumping over the new track, and Carhart began stripping off his clothes. “It isn’t exactly like Mr. Chambers’s,” he said, “but I guess I’ll be able to get in a little sleep; that is, if Bill doesn’t smash me up, or jolt me to death.” * * * * * Three days later, at five o’clock in the afternoon, Carhart was writing a letter in the office of the “Eagle House,” at Sherman. Sitting in rows along three sides of the room was perhaps a score of men, and in a corner by herself sat one young woman. The men were a mixed assortment,--locomotive engineers, photographers, travelling salesmen of tobacco, jewellery, shoes, clothing, and small cutlery, not to speak of an itinerant dentist and a team of “champion banjo and vocal artists.” As for the young woman, if you could have taken a peep into the sample case at her feet, you would have learned that she was prepared to disseminate a collection of literature which ranged from standard sets of Dickens and Thackeray to a fat volume devoted to the songs and scenes of Old Ireland, an illustrated life of the Pope, and a work on the character and the splendid career of Porfirio Diaz. Outside, at the window, stood or sat another score of men, each of whom bore the unmistakable dress and manner of the day laborer. And every pair of eyes, within and without the smoky room, was fixed on the back of the man who was writing a letter at the table in the corner. But Carhart’s mind was wholly occupied with the work before him. He was travel-stained,--it was not yet an hour since he had come in from Crockett, the nearest division town on the H. D. & W.,--but there were few signs of weariness on his face, and none at all in his eyes. “How much had I better tell him?” he was asking himself. “I wonder what he is up to, anyway? Possibly he has an interest in the lumber company, or maybe Durfee’s men have bought him up.” For several minutes his pen occupied itself with dotting out a design on the blotter; then suddenly a twinkle came into his eyes, and he wrote rapidly as follows:--