“But there _is_ an answer, Mr. Carhart. Mr. Peet came back with me.” “What’s that?” “He’s here--he came back with me. He’s waiting downstairs.” Carhart hesitated. “Well--tell him that I’m very sorry, but I can’t see him. I’m taking a bath.” “All right,” said the boy; and Carhart heard him go off down the stairs. For some little time longer he sat in the tub. His mind slipped again into the accustomed channel. “If it does come to warfare,” he was thinking, “the first thing they’ll do will be to cut me off from my base. They’d know that I shall be near enough to Red Hills to get food through from there by wagon,--that’s what I should have to do,--but there won’t be any rails coming from Red Hills. I’m afraid--very much afraid--that Durfee has got us, cold. That’s the whole trick. If he’s going to seize the S. & W., he’ll cut me off first thing. There’s five to six hundred miles of track between the job and Sherman. It would take an army to guard it. And that much done, he’d be in a position to take his time about completing the H. D. & W. to Red Hills.” And then suddenly he got out of the tub, snatched up a towel, and, half dry, began hurriedly to draw on his clothes. A moment later a thin, spectacled, collarless man darted out of a room on the third floor of the Eagle House, looked quickly up and down the hall, ran halfway down the stairs, and leaned over the balustrade. “Boy,” he said. “Yes, sir.” “You didn’t get your quarter.” But it was a half dollar that he tossed into the waiting hands. “Run after Mr. Peet and bring him back here. Mind you catch him.” The boy started to obey, but in a moment he was back and knocking at Carhart’s door. “He’s down in the office now, Mr. Carhart. He didn’t go at all.” “He didn’t, eh?” The engineer was standing before the cracked mirror, brushing his hair. “All right, I’ll be down in a minute. Hold on there!” He stepped to the door. The first coin his fingers encountered in his pocket was another half dollar. He took it out without glancing at it and handed it to the now bewildered boy. Then he returned to the mirror and brushed his hair again, and put on his collar and tie. “I’ll have to thank Tiffany,” ran his thoughts. “It’s odd how that car-stealing story has stuck in my head. I’m glad he told it.” Peet’s expression was not what might be termed complacent. He was standing on the piazza when he heard Carhart’s quick step on the stairs. His teeth were closed tightly on a cigar, but he was not smoking. “How are you, Mr. Peet?” said the engineer. Peet looked nervously about and behind him, and then faced around. “Look here, Mr. Carhart, I want to tell you that you haven’t got that straight--” “Where’s Tiffany?” said Carhart. At this interruption Peet turned, if anything, a shade redder. “He’s gone home.” “Let’s find him. Would you mind walking over there?”