“I’ve got him under guard in the freight office—I’ll send him up to the county jail pretty soon—but he said he wanted to see you first.” “To see me? What for?” “I don’t know. Maybe he wants to confess and tell who his pals were. Of course we know Bassett was. I’ve got a sort of idea that Bassett was at the head of the whole thing. There’s the freight-house. You kin see what damage the bomb did.” It was certainly a frightful looking place. The end wall of the building had been blown out bodily, and a great section of the platform had also been blown away. Evidently Hummel had placed the bomb just inside the wall. There was, at either end of the building, a small square ventilator near the ground, covered with a piece of perforated iron, as such openings usually are. Later investigation showed that Hummel had probably knocked out this plate, and as the ventilator was too small to permit the passage of his body, he had placed the bomb as far inside as he could reach, and had then attached and lighted the fuse. The position of the bomb, by a fortunate chance, was such that the greatest force of the explosion was directed outwards, and while the end wall had fallen, it had fallen outward and not inward, and the side walls had remained nearly intact. The roof had sagged badly, but had not fallen. The other end of the freight-house, at which were the offices, had not been injured at all. Allan stood for a moment contemplating this wreckage, and as he turned away, he felt a touch on his arm. He turned to find himself face to face with Simpson, the special delegate. “Mr. West,” said Simpson, “I hope I may have a few words with you.” “Why, certainly,” said Allan. “What is it?” “In the first place, I want to assure you that no brotherhood man had anything to do with this,” and he waved his hand toward the wrecked freight-house and the blazing cars. “We know who did both,” said Allan quietly. “The man who set fire to the cars was a union man.” “Who was it?” asked Simpson quickly. “Rafe Bassett.” Simpson’s face grew a shade paler, and his eyes lighted with a grim satisfaction, as he realized how this discovery vindicated the course he had taken with regard to the strike. “Bassett was not a union man; he was suspended from the lodge last night,” he said, quietly. “He would never have been reinstated. I suspect him of having had something to do with that outrage at Cincinnati, and I believe all this was done simply to revenge himself on the brotherhood and give it a black eye.” “And you were going to carry on the strike for a man like that?” “No, Mr. West, we were not,” answered Simpson earnestly. “After Bassett was run out of the hall last night, a committee was appointed to wait upon you in the morning and declare the strike off.” Allan’s face brightened wonderfully. “Without condition?” he asked. “With only one condition—that the men be reinstated in their old positions—all except Bassett.”