blamelessly have turned over the trouble call to his trainmaster. But a
wreck was as good a starting-point as any, and he took command at once.

"Go and clear for the wrecking-train, and have some one in your office
notify the shops and the yard," he said briskly, compelling the
attention of the one-eyed despatcher; and when Callahan was gone: "Now,
Mac, get out your map and post me. I'm a little lame on geography yet.
Where is Gloria Siding?"

McCloskey found a blue-print map of the line and traced the course of
the western division among the foot-hills to the base of the Great
Timanyonis, and through the Timanyoni Canyon to a park-like valley, shut
in by the great range on the east and north, and by the Little
Timanyonis and the Hophras on the west and south. At a point midway of
the valley his stubby forefinger rested.

"That's Gloria," he said, "and here's Little Butte, twelve miles
beyond."

"Good ground?" queried Lidgerwood.

"As pretty a stretch as there is anywhere west of the desert; reminds
you of a Missouri bottom, with the river on one side and the hills a
mile away on the other. I don't know what excuse those hoboes could find
for piling a train in the ditch there."

"We'll hear the excuse later," said Lidgerwood. "Now, tell me what sort
of a wrecking-plant we have?"

"The best in the bunch," asserted the trainmaster. "Gridley's is the one