"You're Mr. Lidgerwood, I take it?" said he, tilting the derby to the
back of his head. "Come to tell me to pack my kit and get out?"

"Not yet, Mr. McCloskey," laughed Lidgerwood, getting his first real
measure of the man in the hearty hand-grip. "On the contrary, I've come
to thank you for not dropping things and running away before the new
management could get on the ground."

The trainmaster's rejoinder was outspokenly blunt. "I've nowhere to run
to, Mr. Lidgerwood, and that's no joke. Some of the backcappers will be
telling you presently that I was a train despatcher over in God's
country, and that I put two trains together. It's your right to know
that it's true."

"Thank you, Mr. McCloskey," said Lidgerwood simply; "that sounds good to
me. And take this for yourself: the man who has done that once won't do
it again. That is one thing, and another is this: we start with a clean
slate on the Red Butte Western. No man in the service who will turn in
and help us make a real railroad out of the R.B.W. need worry about his
past record: it won't be dug up against him."

"That's fair--more than fair," said the trainmaster, mouthing the words
as if the mere effort of speech were painful, "and I wish I could
promise you that the rank and file will meet you half-way. But I can't.
You'll find a plucked pigeon, Mr. Lidgerwood--with plenty of hawks left
to pick the bones. The road has been running itself for the past two
years and more."

"I understand," said Lidgerwood; and then he spoke of the careless