and equipment had been allowed to fall into disrepair under indifferent
supervision and the short-handing of the section gangs--always an
impractical directory's first retrenchment when the dividends begin to
fail. Lidgerwood had seen how the ballast had been suffered to sink at
the rail-joints, and he had read the record of careless supervision at
each fresh swing of the train, since it is the section foreman's
weakness to spoil the geometrical curve by working it back, little by
little, into the adjoining tangent.

Reflecting upon these things, Lidgerwood's comment fell into speech over
his cup of coffee and crisp breakfast bacon.

"About the first man we need is an engineer who won't be too exalted to
get down and squint curves with the section bosses," he mused, and from
that on he was searching patiently through the memory card-index for the
right man.

At the summit station, where the line leaves the Pannikin basin to
plunge into the western desert, there was a delay. Lidgerwood was still
at the breakfast-table when Bradford, the conductor, black-shirted and
looking, in his slouch hat and riding-leggings, more like a
horse-wrangler than a captain of railroad trains, lounged in to explain
that there was a hot box under the 266's tender. Bradford was not of any
faction of discontent, but the spirit of morose insubordination, born of
the late change in management, was in the air, and he spoke gruffly.
Hence, with the flint and steel thus provided, the spark was promptly
evoked.

"Were the boxes properly overhauled before you left Copah?" demanded the
new boss.