The whistle blew. Somewhere back in the night a speck of light swung up in a quarter circle. The engineer opened his throttle. “Bong Voyage to the Paradise Unlimited!” said Tiffany. * * * * * Carhart was not surprised, when the third train rolled into Paradise on that following morning, to see Tiffany descending from the caboose. Between them they lost no time in completing the preparations for the journey down to Total Wreck. Of the two regular trains on the line, No. 3, southbound, was held at Paradise, and the lone passenger was carried down on Carhart’s train; the northbound train, No. 4, was stopped at Dusty Bend. Then for a time a series of remarkable scenes took place along the right of way of the Paradise Southern. Men by the hundred, all seemingly bent on destruction, swarmed over the line and tore it to pieces. Trains ran north and west laden with rusty old rails, switches, ancient cross-ties of questionable durability, with everything, as Carhart had ordered, excepting the sand and clay ballast. “Some poor devils lost their little fortunes in the old P. S.” said Tiffany, on the first morning, as the two engineers stood looking at the work of ruin. “I sort of hate to see it go.” Carhart himself went West on the first train, leaving Tiffany to carry the work through. He was satisfied that everything would from now on work smoothly at Paradise and Sherman, and he knew that not a man of those on the work would slip through Tiffany’s fingers to bear tales back to civilization of the wild doings on the frontier. At Sherman they said that owing to insufficient business the P. S. trains would be discontinued for a time, and no one was surprised at the news. Far off in New York, in the Broad Street office of Daniel De Reamer, it was some time before they knew anything about it. The little world was rolling on. Men were clasping hands, buying and selling, knifing and shooting. Durfee’s plans were marching forward, as his plans had a way of doing. De Reamer’s mind was coiling and uncoiling in its subterranean depths. General Carrington was talking about a hunting trip into the mountains with pack-animals and good company and many, many bottles. Yes, the world was rolling on about as usual; but the Paradise Southern was no more. Forty-five miles of grade, trampled, tie-marked; a few dismantled sheds which had once been known as stations; a lonely row of telegraph poles stretching from one bleak horizon to another; a rickety roundhouse or two: this was all that was left of a railroad: this, and a long memory of disaster, and an excited ranchman at Total Wreck who was telegraphing hotly to his lawyer. CHAPTER VII THE SPIRIT OF THE JOB