His hand was on the latch of the dooryard gate when a man rose out of the gloom--out of the ground at his feet, as it appeared to Lidgerwood--and in the twinkling of an eye the night and the starry dome of it were effaced for the superintendent in a flash of red lightning and a thunder-clap louder than the crash of worlds. When he began to realize again, Dawson was helping him to his feet, and the draftsman's mother was calling anxiously from the door. "What was it?" Lidgerwood asked, still dazed and half blinded. "A man tried to kill you," said Dawson in his most matter-of-fact tone. "I happened along just in time to joggle his arm. That, and your quick drop, did the business. Not hurt, are you?" Lidgerwood was gripping the gate and trying to steady himself. A chill, like a violent attack of ague, was shaking him to the bone. "No," he returned, mastering the chattering teeth by the supremest effort of will. "Thanks to you, I guess--I'm--not hurt. Who w-was the man?" "It was Rufford. He followed you from the Crow's Nest. Williams saw him and put me on, so I followed him." "Williams? Then he isn't----" "No," said Dawson, anticipating the query. "He is with us, and he is swinging the best of the engineers into line. But come into the house and let me give you a drop of whiskey. This thing has got on your nerves a bit--and no wonder." But Lidgerwood clung to the gate-palings for yet another steadying moment. "Rufford, you said: you mean the discharged telegraph operator?" "Worse luck," said Dawson. "It was his brother Bart, the 'lookout' at Red-Light Sammy's; the fellow they call 'The Killer'." VIII BENSON'S BRIDGE-TIMBERS It was on the morning following the startling episode at the Dawsons' gate that Benson, lately arrived from the west on train 204, came into the superintendent's office with the light of discovery in his eye. But the discovery, if any there were, was made to wait upon a word of friendly solicitude. "What's this they were telling me down at the lunch-counter just now--about somebody taking a pot-shot at you last night?" he asked. "Dougherty said it was Bart Rufford; was it?" Lidgerwood confirmed the gossip with a nod. "Yes, it was Rufford, so Dawson says. I didn't recognize him, though; it was too dark." "Well, I'm mighty glad to see that he didn't get you. What was the row?" "I don't know, definitely; I suppose it was because I told McCloskey to discharge his brother a while back. The brother has been hanging about town and making threats ever since he was dropped from the pay-rolls, but no one has paid any attention to him." "A pretty close call, wasn't it?--or was Dougherty only putting on a few frills to go with my cup of coffee?" "It was close enough," admitted Lidgerwood half absently. He was thinking not so much of the narrow escape as of the fresh and humiliating evidence it had afforded of his own wretched unreadiness.