"Yesterday morning at ten o'clock, so they said on No. 4. There was a pack of 'em come down to Argenta to get to the owners, they said. By gad, they seem to have got _at_ one of 'em!" A moan from the sufferer was the only answer. Graham shook his head. "How soon can you make it?" he asked. "The sooner this man's in expert hands the better 'twill be." "Twelve minutes," said Cullin, with a snap of his silver watch-lid. "_You_ seem no slouch of a handler yourself. Where'd you learn?" "I lived with a doctor awhile," was the quiet answer. "He had to patch men up occasionally." And Geordie could barely suppress the grin that twitched the corners of his mouth. How strangely already his adventure was faring! "I suppose after hammering him senseless they set him adrift on that hand-car, hoping it would finish him and hide their crime," he hazarded. "Looks like it," was Cullin's short answer as once more he climbed to his station. Ten minutes later they were slowly trundling in among a maze of tracks and sidings, with long trains of gondolas, coal-cars, and dingy-brown freight-boxes on both sides. Cullin was shouting to invisible switchmen, and presently the train came bumping to a stand. Another minute and two or three early birds among the yardmen were climbing aboard and curiously, excitedly, peering over Geordie's head. He never looked up. Calmly he continued his sponging. Then Cullin's voice was heard again. A stretcher was thrust in at the rear door. Three or four men, roughly dressed, but with sorrow and sympathy in their careworn faces, bent over the prostrate body. They seemed to look to Graham for instructions. [Illustration: "BIG BEN WAS BUSY WITH HIS OIL-CAN"] "You know where to take him?" he asked. "All right, then, I'll leave him with you." And before the station-master or other official could come, Graham had seen his patient transferred to the stretcher, borne forth into the sunshine and away to the passenger-room. Then, slipping from the left rear steps, with the train between him and the building, Geordie sauntered, softly whistling, up to the front again, and in five minutes was helping Toomey at the cab. It was not yet seven. Big Ben was busy with his oil-can. Three cars had been cut out from the train and run to a platform close at hand. It was high time they were off again, but the conductor was held in the office, whither he had gone for orders, as well as to report concerning their unsought passenger. Toomey was still angered against Cullin, between whom and himself there was ever more or less friction, but Geordie had begun to take a fancy to him. Cullin would never have said what he did had he known the identity of Toomey's pupil, and Geordie argued that Cullin's gruff and insolent greeting was in reality a tribute to his powers--a recognition of the fact that he looked the part he was trying to play.