The President's private car pulled into Wardlow at the tail of No. 2, the east-bound express, at 3.10 a.m., and was there side-tracked upon instructions from Detective Robert Cranston. As soon as No. 2 had got away behind a fresh engine on the long jump to the next divisional point, Cranston, fully dressed, descended from the car and went across to the despatcher's office. Half an hour later he returned to the car, undressed and crawled back into his berth with a grunt of satisfaction.

The President greeted him at breakfast with a smile and Cranston responded with the grin of a man who has made predictions which have come true.

"Well, Bob, your fish bit, I see."

"Sure did, sir. He took bait, hook an' sinker at 23.20 an' I'll have him reeled in by to-morrow morning."

"Not so sure about that, Bob," said Wade skeptically. "Fish sometimes get clean away, remember. What have you done?"

"Wired his description to every section foreman on the division with instructions to notify me here and hold him prisoner till we come. Fifty dollars reward. We crossed No. 1 half an hour after Hughey jumped. Johnston has special instructions to watch out for him, and there isn't a sharper conductor in the service. He'd figure to grab the west-bound, if everything went well. If he didn't succeed, we'll nab him sure somewhere up the line during the day."

"Unless he's taken to the woods. Podmore's not fool enough to stick to the track, Bob," objected Wade.

"Excuse me, sir, but that's exactly what he's got to do in these here parts. A train's the on'y hope he's got of gettin' quick to where he can get an outfit. On'y a damn fool 'd try to make the lake immediate. I aint sayin' as he mightn't lay low for a while, but he can't stick that out long."

"Well, I'll be gone all day with Foster up the Lone Hollow spur. Back by dark. That's all the time I can give you, Bob. If you haven't a lead before No. 2 gets here, I'm afraid I can't wait." He got up from the table.

"That's all right, Mr. Wade. But I'll have a message to show you when you get back this evening," said Cranston confidently.

Nevertheless the only message which he was able to show the President on his return was a wire from Johnston that there was no trace of Podmore among his passengers, and that everybody who had boarded last night's westbound train on the Wardlow division was accounted for. It was with considerable secret disappointment that the Chief of the Special Service Department of the C.L.S. made arrangements for the President's car to continue eastward with No. 2, while he remained behind at Wardlow; for thereby Cranston was losing a splendid opportunity to demonstrate his ability at cross-questioning in the presence of the magnate. He was only human.

Cranston, however, had been taught by experience that time is never up till the last moment. Although his belongings were packed, he left his suitcase aboard the car and long after he had said good-bye to Wade, long after the President was in his berth for the night, the detective sat doggedly on in the despatcher's office, smoking his pipe. His patience was rewarded about an hour before No. 2 was due.

The message was from Thorlakson and came over the wire from the night operator at Indian Creek. The Icelander was holding Podmore at Thorlakson Siding as instructed. Cranston already had made arrangements for a special engine to run them back up the line, and having issued definite instructions he went back to the private car and unpacked his pyjamas.

One of those methodical individuals who are born every now and then with the gift of interpreting railway schedules would have had no great difficulty in locating "Thorlakson" in the main-line timetable of the Canadian Lake Shores Railway. It takes the form of a little dagger-mark which, pursued into the fine print of the "Explanatory," yields the information that "Thorlakson" is a flag-station.

Magnus Thorlakson himself, Icelander, must be credited with being one of the oldest and most conscientious section foremen on the division. He, his men, his wife, his children and everything that was his abode in a log shanty on a rise of ground close to the track. The rest of the place consisted of a long siding, a short wooden platform, a tall new standard enclosed water-tank and a little whitewashed shed where the handcar and tools were stored. A creek here slipped out of the woods to find fault with a stone culvert ere it flowed beneath the track and resought silence among the encircling spruce trees.

It was a lonesome, insignificant place with nothing to indicate its selection as a bobbin for threads of destiny. The sun was just coming into the sky above the low-lying hills to the east when the President's special steamed into the siding. From the group, clustered about the tool-shed and awaiting its arrival, a broad-shouldered young man in the flannel shirt and legging boots of a railway engineer separated himself and hurried forward. He waved his hand as he recognized Wade's sturdy figure and laughed to hear the magnate's hearty greeting of surprise, his profane enquiry as to what in Gehenna Philip Kendrick was doing away up here in the woods.

The mere sound of that big vibrant bass voice, the mere vitality of the magnate's presence was stimulating. Here was a two-fisted, hard-headed, straight-spoken man's man who had fought his way to the top by refusing pointblank to stay at the bottom. As Phil stood renewing acquaintance he realized more fully why his aunt had always had such supreme confidence in this old friend of her girlhood.

"I've been working for the C.L.S. for nearly two weeks now," he explained. "I'm chainman with the Rutland party, out from North Bay on a topographical survey. We're taking a new mileage and mapping the right-of-way. Our van's on the second siding above here."

This unexpected "vacation" had come about quite simply. On arrival in North Bay to go fishing with Billy Thorpe he had found that wide-awake young architect so immersed in an important contract that temporary postponement of their plans was imperative. As if provided specially to meet the situation along had come Rutland's urgent wire to headquarters for a new chainman, one of his men having taken sick suddenly. Phil had jumped at the opportunity for a taste of practical survey work, and with Thorpe's assistance the matter had been arranged readily and he had left the same night to join the Rutland party out the line.

The battered old freight caboose in which the young engineers lived was moved ahead from siding to siding by passing freight trains as Rutland advised the Chief Despatcher of the work's progress. Scarcely a day had passed that had not strung a few interesting beads of incident to brighten the necklace of its routine monotonies—the squealing, kicking baby rabbit which Anderson, the head chainman, had captured; the wild duck which they had cornered in a thicket and which Bayley, the marker, had insisted upon decorating with his white paint before he would let it go; the occasional mess of speckled trout for which they angled; the fresh baked pies and cakes they were sometimes able to buy from a section-man's wife; the bear tracks and the bodies of wild animals lured to death by the glare of the powerful headlights on the fast trains at night; the excitement at the great ballast pit where the gangs at work were running an unpopular cook out of camp; the very old Indian who had stared at the dragging chain and muttered "Heap big snake," and the very young Englishman who had gone crazy from fly-bites and whom the sawmill gang had strapped to a rough litter in preparation for rushing him to the North Bay hospital by the first train they could flag. In spite of the mosquitoes, black flies and midges, which at this season of the year were a decided affliction in the country through which they were working, Kendrick had enjoyed the new experience. Twenty miles average daily working distance, frequently with an extra ten-mile walk back to the car, already had rounded the erstwhile captain of the Varsity rugby champions into tackling condition.

In spite of the fact that he had been up all night, therefore, his eyes were bright with the mirror glisten which is the gift of long hours in the open air. The black eye which had attracted unwelcome attention at first no longer contributed to the amusement of the inquisitive, the obtrusion of its remaining jaundice being overcome by the new coat of tan that encroached upon it.

His presence at Thorlakson Phil accounted for very briefly, saying merely that he had come back there to look for a lost pocketbook, containing his railway pass. But it had not been the pass or the loose change that had troubled him so greatly; it had been—well, darn it, he didn't want to lose them like that anyway!—a dollar bill, wrapped carefully around a lady's shirtwaist pin! It was his own business entirely. Luckily Thorlakson had picked it up and was able to restore the pocketbook with its contents intact.

As it had turned out Kendrick's evening hike back down the track to Thorlakson had been a lucky thing for Podmore too. Within a mile of the siding Phil had come upon him, sitting beside the track in despair of reaching human aid before he collapsed completely. He had been badly hurt in his fall from the train, and aside from these injuries his hands were swollen and covered with dirt and blood, his torn clothes encrusted with dried mud, collar and tie gone and his shirt ripped open in front, revealing neck and chest smeared with blood where the blackflies had bitten him severely.

"He had spent part of the night and the whole day in the woods and was half out of his head, poor devil!" said Phil. "I managed to get him down here and with the help of Mrs. Thorlakson's homemade liniment I fixed him up as well as I could. He insisted on me staying with him all night—till you arrived, in fact."

"Expected us, eh?" grunted Wade.

"Oh, sure. News of the—er—accident travelled up and down the line pretty swiftly. A track-walker passed the word to us early yesterday morning just as we were starting out from the caboose for the day's work. So I had Thorlakson get a message off to you; he stuck it in a split stick and the engineer of a passing freight caught it O.K. and took it up the line to the operator at Indian Creek."

As Kendrick finished speaking they both turned to watch Cranston approaching slowly, supporting Podmore. The secretary's condition had improved greatly under Phil's ministrations and the food which Mrs. Thorlakson had prepared for him. But it was apparent that he was still suffering from shock and beneath the bandage about his head the black and blue evidence of the contusion was visible. His sprained arm was bandaged also and he limped badly and leaned heavily upon the detective.

"Hello there, Hughey," greeted Wade. "Wrecked from engine to caboose, eh? What a whack on the head! Might've killed you. How'd you come to fall off?"

Podmore smiled weakly. He gazed for a moment at Kendrick as if trying to collect his thoughts. Then he explained that he had been troubled with insomnia and got up to smoke a cigarette. He had been fool enough to perch up on the brass rail at the rear of the private car, thinking the fresh air might make him sleepy. The train had been hitting up a fast pace on a down grade and as they swung a curve he had lost his balance and pitched clean down a long fill among the rocks of a creek bottom. The fall had knocked him senseless. When finally he had recovered consciousness he had been too ill to move for a long time. Then the hot sun had driven him to crawl painfully into the woods where he had lain helpless most of the day, with just enough strength to get water from the creek. When he began to feel a little better toward nightfall he had gone back to the track and started for help. Just as he was ready to give up Kendrick had found him.

Cranston and the President exchanged glances, but Wade merely nodded when Podmore requested to be allowed to crawl into his berth because he was feeling "swimmy in the head." Cranston and the steward helped him aboard and proceeded to put him to bed.

"From that little shake of the head that Cranston just passed you, Mr. Wade, I gather that he failed to find any trace of the envelope that's missing," said Kendrick quietly. He smiled at the abruptness with which the President of the C.L.S. took hold of his arm and walked him away from the car.

"Let's go over there and see Thorlakson a minute," he said loudly. "Now, shoot," he added in a lower voice. "What do you know about this thing, Phil?"

"He's been trying to fill me up with the smoothest line of bunk I ever listened to. According to him you're the sworn political enemy of Uncle Milt and have had a finger in the theft—theft, mind you!—of important secret state documents which would have been the cause of a financial panic if they had remained in your possession much longer, to say nothing of undermining public confidence in the present administration."

"Great Busted Reputations! Did he tell you that?"

"While I was bandaging him. He said he was the reporter who located the evidence that had convicted Rives and elected my uncle, and that he was acting now as an agent of the government to recover the confidential reports that had been stolen from the chairman of the Waterways Commission."

"Trying to unload the envelope on you, eh?"

"Yes. He asked me to post it for him—addressed it himself to his address in Toronto."

"What did you do?"

"Posted it, of course—in a hollow stump over there near the tank with a slab of fungus on top for a lid!"

Ben Wade laughed aloud.

"Know what's in the thing?" he demanded abruptly.

"These stolen Government documents?"

"Fifty thousand dollars, you mean!"

"The son-of-a-gun!" muttered Kendrick, looking startled.

"But he doesn't happen to know that the bills are bogus—stage money, sandwiched between a couple of genuine bills of small denomination," chuckled Wade. He stopped short and stood in front of Kendrick with one hand on the younger man's shoulder. "Phil," he said seriously, "you've stumbled in on a little game that is being played out with stacked cards. We'll talk about it after breakfast. We'll be running up as far as Indian Creek to use the Y in the old ballast pit. You're coming along. We can stop at Rutland's caboose long enough for you to pick up your nightie and your safety razor."

"I don't think I understand, Mr. Wade," said Phil, puzzled.

"Not supposed to," retorted Wade. "Fact is, you're fired! You can't work for Rutland another minute——"

"Why, what——?"

"Because you're hired! I've got to have a secretary, haven't I? There's interesting work ahead, boy, and I need you. Don't ask questions. Breakfast first. I can't talk without a cigar and I never smoke before breakfast."

"Shall I run over to the stump and get the envelope?" asked Kendrick when he had recovered from his first surprise.

"Not by a jugful! Podmore thinks you're playing his game, doesn't he? Always draw to the aces, Phil. Leave the envelope where it is. Hello, Thorlakson. Hello, boys. Good work last night. I want to thank you all. Mr. Kendrick here has just been telling me how well you did your duty. He wants you to have that fifty dollar reward—all of it."

As he spoke he took from his pocket a roll of greenbacks and peeled off five ten-dollar bills which he handed to the foreman with a twinkle of the eye. It was what they had been waiting for with a vast interest. And while Svenson, the big Swede, and the two Norwegians snatched off their caps and grinned, Thorlakson endeavored to convey their entire satisfaction.

"Yaow, Meester Vade, sir, it is wery suffeecient," he assured in his best English as he shook hands with profound respect. When he turned to Kendrick there was added his evident admiration of the young man's generosity.

Smoke was curling up from the kitchen end of the private car and the welcome aroma of coffee announced that Taylor had breakfast ready. They climbed aboard forthwith, but the special remained sidetracked to pass a fast freight. It thundered by before they finished the meal and by the time Kendrick found himself on the observation platform at the rear of the car the special was on its way.

Wade carefully shut the door behind them. Podmore had fallen into a sound slumber while Cranston was busy at the writing-desk, and it was with a lively interest that Phil settled himself to listen to whatever confidences Ben Wade might see fit to impart. For some time, however, the President of the C.L.S. smoked in silence, his shaggy eyebrows puckered in a frown and his gaze fastened thoughtfully upon the serrated skyline of the spruce tops that ran rearward unceasingly.

"We've come across two or three places like that on this division the past two weeks," said Phil to break the silence. He nodded towards the disused station building that was receding down the track, its boarded windows and broken platform eloquent of desolation. "I've wondered why a perfectly good station like that should be built in the first place if it was to be abandoned later on without even a day telegraph operator?"

"Eh? Oh, there used to be some lumbering around here when we first opened up. Also the road's required to put up a station every so-many miles without regard to the surrounding country—just a fool charter obligation, that's all; sometimes we use an old box-car——" Wade carefully picked away the band of his cigar. "Phil, I'm going to ask you to undertake a somewhat unusual commission for me with no very definite idea of what it may lead you into. There may be even some danger attached to it. It is my duty to mention this possibility, although I know you'll consider that not at all when I tell you that the results may have some bearing upon the welfare of—your uncle; indirectly, perhaps your aunt.

"Let me give you a few facts. If you've cut your eye teeth you know that just as man does not live by bread alone so elections in this fair land are not won nowadays by mass meetings and fine speeches, but by hard cold cash and organization. Things have come to such a pass that it is largely a matter of machinery. The side with the biggest machine and the most oil—and gas—is pretty sure of passing the grandstand in the lead. The oil is most important, and long before the race it is gathered into a large tank called the 'Party Campaign Fund,' by henchmen who call upon various friendly corporate institutions. You follow me?"

"Right at your heels," smiled Kendrick.

"Well then, one of these substantial little contributions not long since while on its devious way to the Place of Burnt Offerings was ambushed by somebody with a hankering for the fleshpots of Egypt—fifty thousand dollars cold, stolen as slick as a whistle. I happen to be one of the very few, outside of the principals in the transaction, who know anything about it; for campaign fund contributions are among those things which men of discretion do not discuss from the housetops. I'm not going to say just now how this information reached me; but it is necessary for you to know that the Interprovincial Loan & Savings Company is vitally interested in the recovery of this money, or at least in the identity of the thief. And when we speak of the Interprovincial in these halcyon days we speak of J. Cuthbert Nickleby, its astute president. A thing like this could never have happened if Nat Lawson had been in the saddle.

"Mention of Nickleby brings me to Podmore, who is nothing more than a tool of Nickleby's. I knew when I hired Podmore as my secretary that I was hiring a spy. I knew his record. You see, they were aware of the fact that I was interesting myself on behalf of my friend, Lawson. Podmore hadn't been with me two days before the beggar had the combination of the safe aboard this car. He's a smooth one. But I figured to learn as much from him as he got from me. Before we get to Toronto I'll give you the inside history of that Lawson situation; for it's mixed up with the rest of it.

"But let me get back to this stolen money. It was done up in an envelope just like this one which Podmore stole from the car the other night; fact is, they're duplicates. It was a little experiment which Cranston and I decided to try out to get Podmore where we wanted him. We're going to have an interesting session with him after a bit on the off chance of securing some information. I haven't a great deal of confidence in third-degree methods; but I'm letting Cranston have a fling at it on the chance that Podmore will drop a stitch. He's yellow enough for anything.

"Now, here's where you come in, Phil. Podmore thinks you intend to help him out and that is exactly what I want you to pretend to do. We'll stage a little drama and we'll have you on the carpet along with him. You'll deny all knowledge of the envelope. I'll fire you. You'll get mad and come back at me with red-hot talk for doubting your word and so on. We're going to let Podmore go when we get to the city. You'll go with him. The chance to sic you onto him is too good to miss. So we'll turn you loose together; it will be up to you then to mix in where you see fit. Is that all clear?

"All right. What I want you to do is to keep an eye on him. Find out what his next move is. He told you he was the reporter who had located the evidence that convicted Rives. Did he tell you how he got hold of it?—how he double-crossed Rives by low-down trickery? He doesn't know how to be loyal to anybody. I'll be surprised if he doesn't repeat on Nickleby.

"Then there are some things I want to find out about Nickleby and his associates. I want you to move carefully, Phil. I had one of Cranston's best men on the job until recently; but his usefulness was ended by unexpected developments. I'm working to put Nat Lawson back at the head of the loan company; Nickleby is an interloper and he's playing ducks and drakes with the concern. Tell you about it later. Are you agreeable to act as my secretary in these matters and to carry out instructions—blindfolded, so to speak?"

Kendrick had listened intently to this recital. Now he deliberately lighted his pipe before replying, and when he did it was to ask a blunt question.

"Does Uncle Milt figure in this?" and he noted the shadow that crossed the magnate's face.

"I wish I really knew that, Phil," said Wade seriously. "Time will tell. I'm banking on your uncle to stay square to the finish; but there's nothing to be gained by shutting one's eyes to the fact that many a good man has found the political game as it's being played these days too many for him. There are those who are inclined to doubt all politicians, your uncle included. I don't set myself up as any high-minded reformer; if you're sitting in on a game at all, you've got to play it according to the rules that are handed you—or quit."

Phil smoked in silence. He was thinking of that strange interview with his uncle the night of the fog; but he gave no voice to his thoughts.

"Your aunt has some of her private funds invested in the Interprovincial Loan and that's one of the reasons I want you with me, Phil." Wade turned and laid a hand on Kendrick's knee while he looked the young man quietly in the eye. "There are stronger considerations than the money side of it, though. All I can say is that the happiness of your aunt is as dear to me as it is to you, or as it would be to anyone who had learned to respect and admire her as we have. That happiness has got to be guarded, Phil, even at the sacrifice of—everything else."

His gaze wandered away again to where the twin rails converged, and for a moment the rhythmic beat of the wheels over the joints held sway. Rather surprised, Phil stole a glance at the virile face that was turned so steadfastly away and recalled an item of gossip he had once overheard somewhere—that Mrs. Waring was the real reason Benjamin Wade was still a bachelor. He wondered if there could be any truth in that idle rumor.

"I'm sorry that I can't be more explicit. Did you ever try to piece out a puzzle, Phil? That's what I'm up against now. I'll tell you all about it—as soon as I know myself. There are men in this world who stop at nothing——"

Phil turned abruptly, a startled look in his eyes; but the other did not finish the sentence.

"Harrington Rives is out of jail—" he began.

"A case in point, if you like," nodded Wade. "But don't let's talk to no purpose. We'll be passing Rutland's car in a minute. Do we stop for your things?"

"You hired me back there at Thorlakson's," Kendrick reminded.

In this simple fashion were events conspiring.