It is doubtful if any sensation had ever stirred the staid little town of Wadsworth from centre to circumference as did the news to which it awoke next morning. The story of the missing train crew, of the mysteriously abandoned train, flew from mouth to mouth, gaining always in the telling some thrilling detail, the generally accepted version being that the strikers had wrecked the train and butchered the crew, the conductor and brakeman perishing in trying to protect the “scab” engineer and fireman. There was no one to worry especially about the latter, for they were strangers whose names were not even known, but the conductor and the two brakemen all had families, to say nothing of relatives and friends, and all of these were very properly exercised.

Allan, foreseeing this excitement, reached his office almost at daybreak, but early as it was, he found three excited women awaiting him, demanding information, hope, encouragement. Of information he had little to give, but of hope and encouragement a-plenty.

“There’s absolutely no reason why you should be so worried,” he told them, when he got them into his office and the door closed. “Your husbands haven’t been injured in any way—I’m sure of it. They’ll be back safe and sound in a day or two.”

“What makes you think they haven’t been hurt?” demanded one of the women. “You don’t really know, do you?”

“No, I don’t really know. But it’s absurd to believe anything else.”

“But who did it?”

“I don’t know.”

“But you suspect! Oh, if I thought it was the strikers, I’d—I’d tear their eyes out!”

And the other two women added that they would be glad to help.

“Now, see here,” broke in Allan, realizing that forceful measures were necessary, “we mustn’t have any nonsense of that sort. I don’t know whether it was the strikers or not—there’s nothing to show it was. If it was, they’ll be punished—trust me for that. If it wasn’t, let’s not accuse them. I want you to promise to leave this thing in my hands. We’re going to do everything possible to clear it up. I want you to promise me to go home and stay there and not do any talking for forty-eight hours.”

“And if we do, what will you promise?”

Allan hesitated an instant.

“I’ll promise,” he said, drawing a deep breath, “that in forty-eight hours the men will be back again.”

They gazed at him a moment—at the clear eyes, the firm lips, the determined jaw—and something of his self-confidence communicated itself to them. And they promised and left the office in much better spirits than when they had entered it.

Almost before the door closed after them, Allan had summoned Stanley, and while waiting for that worthy to appear, gave orders that no information concerning the mystery, or concerning anything else connected with the strike should be given out by anyone but himself. He wanted to be left free, for a few hours, at least, to work on the case in his own way.

Stanley, evidently knowing what was in the wind, lost no time in obeying the summons. Allan told him, briefly, the story of the mystery, and laid before him the theory which he had mentioned to Mamie the night before—that this was only a preliminary move on the part of the strikers. Stanley listened in silence, and sat for a moment thinking it over when Allan had finished.

“I don’t know,” he said, at last. “I can’t say I think much of your theory. It looks to me like a mighty bold thing for the strikers to do—an’ what’s worse, a mighty foolish one. They can’t hope to capture enough men to really cripple us. Where would they keep them?”

“I’m sure I don’t know. But what other explanation can there be?”

“Well,” said Stanley, “I’m always in favour of the simplest explanation. Maybe the whole thing was just a plain robbery. Were the car seals examined after the train got in?”

“Yes—I’d thought of that. None of the seals were broken.”

“It ain’t so much of a trick t’ doctor a seal, if a feller’s fixed for it,” Stanley observed.

“But suppose it was a robbery—where is the crew? Nobody would want to steal them?”

“I’d like to look over the ground before I do any more guessing,” said Stanley. “Why can’t I run out there? Everything’s quiet here and I can be back by night.”

“Just what I was thinking of,” agreed Allan. “And I’m going with you. We can take the accommodation—I’ll get the conductor to drop us off at the place we found the train.”

“All right,” said Stanley, rising. “I’ll just run over to the freight-house an’ give my men a few orders. I’ll be back in five minutes.”

“We’ve got fifteen,” said Allan, glancing at his watch. “I’ll meet you down on the platform.” Then he called the office-boy from the outer room. “Jim,” he said, “I’m going to be busy for a while and don’t want to be disturbed. See that I’m not.”

“All right, sir,” said Jim, and retired to take his stand before the door, like Cerberus before the gate of Hades.

For the next ten minutes, Allan devoted his whole mind to clearing away the accumulated work which piled his desk. Fortunately, he had an intelligent and efficient stenographer, and tossed the last letter to him just as the accommodation pulled in.

“That’s all,” he said. “I’m going out to Schooley’s. You can catch me there, if you need me, but I’ll probably be back by the middle of the afternoon. Hello!” he added, as he reached for coat and hat, “what’s all that noise?”

And, indeed, from the sounds, it seemed that a riot of some sort was taking place in the outer office.

Allan flung open the door, and paused, amazed, on the threshold. For a dozen men rushed at him with a violence which almost carried him off his feet.

“Here; hold on!” he shouted. “What’s the matter with you fellows, anyway?”

“We want to know—”

“Everybody says see you—”

“We must have the story—”

“Oh, reporters!” cried Allan, suddenly understanding. “I can’t give you anything now, boys; I’ve got to catch a train. I’ll give you the whole story as soon as I get back.”

“When will that be?”

“Sometime this afternoon.”

“But, look here,” began one of the men desperately; but Allan tore his way through and sprang down the steps two at a time.

At the foot, another man was waiting for him, and Allan recognized the special delegate.

“See here, Mr. West,” he began, excitedly, “I understand the Brotherhood’s accused of having a hand in this thing, and I just want to say to you that it didn’t—”

“All right,” said Allan, and swung himself on to the rear platform of the train. “I’ll be back this afternoon. Drop in and talk it over.”

“I will. There isn’t a bit of truth in the—”

But the delegate’s voice was drowned by the rumble of the train as it started.

Allan, entering the coach, found Stanley awaiting him. They dropped into a seat together.

“Well, did they get you?” asked the detective, grinning.

“I managed to break away. But I nearly missed the train. Then that fellow in charge of the strike held me up to say the Brotherhood hadn’t anything to do with this thing.”

“Oh, no,” said Stanley, “of course the Brotherhood didn’t. But that isn’t saying that none of its members did.”

The conductor came up at that moment and stopped for a moment’s chat.

“We want to drop off about a mile and a half this side of Schooley’s,” said Allan. “I’ll show you the place.”

“All right. Going out to look over the ground?”

“Yes; and to solve the riddle if we can. By the way, I’m glad to see the conductors and brakemen still at work. I hope you’re going to stick.”

“Well,” answered the other, “we had a meeting last night, but of course I can’t tell you what happened there. I can say this, though—you don’t need to lose any sleep over it yet awhile.”

“That’s good,” said Allan, his cheeks flushing with pleasure. “Here we are!” he added, as he glanced out the window.

The conductor pulled the signal cord sharply and Allan and Stanley dropped off as the train’s speed slackened. Then the conductor gave the go-ahead signal, and the train sped eastward on its way.

They had been carried a little past the place where the derelict had been discovered. Allan led the way back, pointed out the spot, as nearly as he could—very nearly, however, for he found the fusee which the fireman had burnt—and then sat down on the bank beside the roadway, while Stanley prowled up and down like some sort of wild beast. His great hooked nose seemed to grow longer and more hooked, and his little close-set eyes sparkled with a strange brilliancy. For Stanley was really a man of considerable ability and had been successful in clearing up more than one abstruse problem. Allan watched him with a good deal of curiosity, and the thought came to him that he would not care to have this fellow on his trail.

“I can’t make much out of it,” Stanley said at last, stopping before Allan. “Let’s look around the neighbourhood a little.”

The track, at this point, ran along a shallow cut, the bank on either side rising to a height of two or three feet. The right of way, about twenty-five feet in width, was bordered by rail fences, and back of them was a stretch of scrubby woodland. Stanley, walking slowly along the bank on the left, stopped suddenly and pointed to the ground.

“Look at that,” he said. “There’s been a wagon here. Two wagons,” he added, a moment later, pointing to other traces.

“To take the prisoners away in,” ventured Allan.

“Maybe, maybe,” muttered his companion. “And maybe to take something else away in. Let’s see where they went.”

The tracks could be followed without difficulty in the soft earth. They led to a break in one of the fences and on through the strip of woodland to a road on the farther side. There they turned westward and were lost amid the ruts of the road.

“Well,” said Stanley, stopping and looking along it, “I think, if you don’t mind, that I’d like to spend a day or two trying to run those fellows down. I don’t see that I’m needed back at Wadsworth—everything’s quiet there, and my men know their business. Besides, you can keep an eye on them. This affair kind of worries me. There’s more in it than appears on the surface. What do you say?”

“All right,” Allan agreed. “I’d like to have this thing cleared up. Do you think you can do it?”

“I can try, anyway,” said Stanley. “And I’ll start right away. I don’t want the trail to get any colder. Good by.”

“Good by,” said Allan; “and good luck.”

He stood watching Stanley’s gaunt figure until it disappeared around a turn in the road, wishing absurdly that he could go along; then he turned eastward toward the little station of Schooley’s, a mile or more away. The road was one evidently not much used, for it was rutted and uneven and in poor repair. The fall and winter rains had washed it badly, and evidently no effort had been made to repair it. In fact, it soon grew so bad that Allan began to doubt whether it was anything more than a private road. The trees on either side grew closer and closer to it, there was no vestige of a fence, and after a time it became apparent that its direction had changed so that it was not leading him toward Schooley’s at all. A glance at the sun showed him that it was past midday, and his stomach began to warn him that he had eaten nothing since breakfast early that morning.

He stopped for a moment in perplexity and considered what he would better do. He might strike off into the woods in the direction in which he thought Schooley’s to be, but he was by no means certain of the direction, and the most probable result of such a course would be to get lost and miss his way entirely. The road he was following must certainly lead to a house; there were wagon tracks and hoof-prints on it which seemed fresh, so he concluded that the best thing he could do was to push forward as rapidly as possible, find the house to which the road led, and then, if he was any considerable distance from Schooley’s, hire a vehicle of some sort to take him on to his destination.

He walked on more rapidly, after that, following the road as it turned and twisted among the trees. The ground grew uneven and at last actually hilly, and the road grew worse and worse. Allan began to fear that it led only to a wood-lot or outlying field, and was more than once tempted to turn back, seek the railroad track and follow it into Schooley’s. But always he resolved to go around the next corner and the next, and finally his perseverance was rewarded.

For there, almost hidden behind a screen of trees, with hills protecting it on either side, stood an old stone house.

Heartened by this discovery, Allan hurried forward, and yet, as he drew near, he hesitated, for there was about the place something indescribably desolate and dreary—something almost threatening. The windows across the front of the house were all closed by heavy shutters. There were five of them, one on either side of the door in the lower story, and three in the story above. The house was square and solidly built, but had fallen into neglect and decay. The roof was covered with moss, and the path to the front door broken and uneven. There was a tumble-down barn some distance back of it and one or two other decrepit outbuildings, from which, however, came no sign of life.

Allan, for a moment, thought the house deserted, too; then his eyes caught a faint streamer of smoke which drifted sluggishly upward from one of the chimneys, and, encouraged by this sign of human occupancy, he hastened forward and knocked at the front door.

There was no response, and he knocked again more loudly. Still there was no response, though he fancied that he detected a sort of uneasy movement inside the house, as though some one were moving cautiously along the hall, and he had a sensation as though some one was staring out at him. It was a sensation anything but pleasant, as every one who has experienced it knows, and it required no little resolution for him to carry his quest further. But he resolutely shook away the feeling of uneasiness, and, leaving the front door, he proceeded around the house, determined to try a door at the back. He knew that there was some one in the house and he determined to have him out.

He found the rear of the house even more dilapidated and forbidding than the front. A ramshackle porch ran across the back, in the last stages of decay, its floor rotted through and its roof falling in. Near by was an old pump which had evidently yielded no water for many years. This did not seem to indicate that the house was occupied, but Allan picked his way carefully across the porch, and knocked at the back door. Again there was silence. He banged with his closed fist, and when there was no response, he tried the door, rattling the knob fiercely. But the door was locked. And then, suddenly, it seemed to him that he could hear a confused sound of voices, faint and far-away. He listened intently, and banged the door again, and again there came that confused murmur. After all it might be only an echo, Allan told himself; no doubt the house was cavernous and empty, and would re-echo strangely to any sound. Or the house might be full of bats—or some strange creature might have its dwelling place there.

He crossed the porch again and breathed a little easier as he stood once more in the open air. Plainly, there was nothing for him to do but retrace his steps to the railroad and follow it in to Schooley’s. He sighed at thought of the weary way he had to go.

“I’ll have a look at the barn, first,” he murmured to himself, and started toward it.

It was perhaps a hundred feet back of the house, and leaned so dangerously to one side that it seemed in danger of falling at any moment. There were two doors, a large one running upon an overhead rail, and a smaller one swinging upon hinges. He tried the smaller one first, and found that it yielded to his touch. Swinging it open, he stepped inside the barn.

“Hello!” he called. “Is there any one here?”

There was no response, but he fancied that he heard a faint rustling at the farther end of the structure. For a moment, in the semi-darkness, he could see nothing, then, as his eyes grew more accustomed to it, he saw that the place was empty. The stalls on either side had fallen to decay, the roof had rotted away in places and the floor was wet and mucky and covered with an ill-smelling litter. There had at one time been a loft, but the planks which had composed the flooring had disappeared, stolen no doubt by some one in the neighbourhood. Only at the farther end did he find any indication of recent occupancy. Here in the mangers were some fresh cobs from which the corn had evidently been eaten only a short time before, and the floor was covered with a litter of straw, which was tramped and soiled, indeed, but which was still comparatively clean. Farther on, two boards had been laid across a manger and piled with straw, which was pressed down as though it had been used for a bed. It was from this, Allan concluded, that the rustling had proceeded, doubtless from some rats running through it.

Satisfied that it was useless to look further, Allan turned back toward the door. He was tired and discouraged. He felt that the day had been wasted. The mystery of the abandoned train was no nearer solution than it had been, unless Stanley—

What was it sent a sudden chill through him? What was it brought him with a start out of this reverie?

He turned his head with a jerk and threw up his arm instinctively, as a dark shadow seemed to loom over him; then a great blow fell upon his head, the world reeled and turned black before him, and he fell forward limply upon his face.