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Date: 14-02-03 16:35:00

EA R LY C H I L D H O O D / I N C L U S I V E E D U CAT I O N

& Klein
Richardson-Gibbs
“A valued guide for administrators and inclusion teams creating,
implementing, or evaluating their work with young children with
diverse abilities.”
—Bonnie Keilty, Ed.D., Owner and Founder, B2K Solutions, Ltd.

“A wonderful resource that addresses major issues related to

successful preschool inclusion . . . will help readers apply what they
are learning to their own experiences.”

MAKING PRESCHOOL INCLUSION WORK

—Laurie A. Dinnebeil, Ph.D., University of Toledo

P
reschool inclusion is about much more than placing a child in a
general education classroom. A network of creative, effective
supports must be in place for the child, the teachers, and the pro-
gram—and this comprehensive textbook shows how to make it happen.

Future educators will get a thorough introduction to inclusion supports:

evidence-based practices and strategies that help children with dis-
abilities fully participate in preschool classrooms. Readers will get clear
guidance on every step of successful inclusion:
• planning and delivering creative, cost-effective inclusion services and
accommodations
• implementing itinerant teaching, consultation, co-teaching, and other models
• preparing for and conducting an effective IEP meeting
• solving problems and managing conflict
• applying universal design for learning principles to classroom instruction
• using teaching strategies that engage and support all children
• preventing and managing challenging behavior with positive behavioral supports
• supporting kindergarten readiness and ensuring a smooth transition between programs
In-depth case studies and vignettes give readers both professional and parent perspec-
tives, and the strategies and disability-specific interventions are perfect to keep and use
as a reference. An ideal textbook for preservice educators—and a valuable book for early
childhood programs—this important volume will help establish inclusive classrooms where
every young child learns, belongs, and thrives.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS Anne Marie Richardson-Gibbs, M.A., is an early childhood special educator who has
provided inclusion services for the past 20 years. She works for the El Monte City School District providing inclu-
sion support to preschool and early elementary-age children with disabilities. M. Diane Klein, Ph.D., CCC-SLP,
is a professor of early childhood special education at California State University, Los Angeles, where she has
directed the programs in early childhood special education for 30 years.

In order to view this proof accurately, the Overprint Preview Option must be checked
in Acrobat Professional or Adobe Reader. Please contact your Customer Service Rep-
resentative if you have questions about finding the option.
 Making Preschool Inclusion Work

BK-BRP-RICHARDSON-131079-FM.indd 1 06/02/14 9:11 PM

BK-BRP-RICHARDSON-131079-FM.indd 2 06/02/14 9:11 PM
 Making Preschool Inclusion Work
Strategies for Supporting
Children, Teachers, and Programs

by
Anne Marie Richardson-Gibbs, M.A.
El Monte City School District
El Monte, California

and

M. Diane Klein, Ph.D., CCC-SLP

Early Childhood Special Education
Division of Special Education and Counseling
California State University, Los Angeles

Baltimore • London • Sydney

BK-BRP-RICHARDSON-131079-FM.indd 3 06/02/14 9:11 PM

 Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co.
Post Office Box 10624
Baltimore, Maryland 21285-0624
USA

www.brookespublishing.com

Copyright © 2014 by Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co., Inc.

All rights reserved.

“Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co.” is a registered trademark of

Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co., Inc.

Typeset by Cenveo, Baltimore, Maryland.

Manufactured in the United States of America by
Sheridan Books, Chelsea, Michigan.

Cover photos are (from top to bottom): Copyright Inmagine, Unlisted Images, Inc., and istockphoto/
matka_Wariatka.

The photos on page ii are (clockwise from top left): © Veer/Ocean Photography; © Veer/Fancy
Photography; © istockphoto/mguttman; © Inmagine; © istockphoto/ktaylorg; © Unlisted Images, Inc.;
© Veer/Fancy Photography; and © Getty Images/ Photodisc/Andersen Ross.

Selected photos and clip art are © 2014 Jupiterimages Corporation; © Veer/Fancy Photography;
© istockphoto/kate_sept2004; © Veer/Juice Images Photography; and © istockphoto/DegasMM.

The quotation on page 7 is from DEC/NAEYC. (2009). Early childhood inclusion: A joint position
statement of the Division for Early Childhood (DEC) and the National Association for the
Education of Young Children (NAEYC) (p. 2). Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina,
FPG Child Development Institute.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Richardson-Gibbs, Anne Marie.

â•… Making preschool inclusion work: strategies for supporting children, teachers, and programs /
by Anne Marie Richardson-Gibbs, M.A. and M. Diane Klein, Ph.D., CCC-SLP.
â•…pagesâ•…â•…cm
â•… Includes bibliographical references and index.
â•… ISBN 978-1-59857-211-7 (hardcover)â•…â•… ISBN 978-1-59857-613-9 (EPUB)
â•… 1. Children with disabilities–Education (Early childhood)–United States. 2. Inclusive education–
United States. I. Klein, M. Diane. II. Title.

â•… C4019.3R53 2014

â•…371.9–dc23 2013035805

British Library Cataloguing in Publication data are available from the British Library.

2018â•…2017â•…2016â•…2015â•…2014

10â•…â•…9â•…â•…8â•…â•…7â•…â•…6â•…â•…5â•…â•…4â•…â•…3â•…â•…2â•…â•…1

BK-BRP-RICHARDSON-131079-FM.indd 4 06/02/14 9:11 PM

 Contents

About the Authors........................................................................................................................vii

Contributors............................................................................................................ ix
Foreword.............................................................................................................................. xi
Acknowledgments............................................................................................................xiii

1 An Introduction to Preschool Inclusion Support Practices................................... 1

2 Models of Inclusion Support.......................................................................................21
Kathleen C. Harris, Ph.D.
3 Getting Started: Administrative and Leadership Strategies
for Building Inclusive Preschool Programs............................................................ 45
4 Preparing for the Individualized Education Program and
Working with Families............................................................................................... 79
5 Problem Solving and Conflict Resolution..............................................................101
Appendix 5A: Two Case Studies—Jonny and Brandon
6 Strategies that Support the Needs of All Learners.............................................. 135
7 Disability-Specific Challenges and Strategies in Inclusive
Preschool Programs..................................................................................................157
With invited contributors Beth A. Moore, M.A.,
Sue Parker-Strafaci, M.A., Sherwood J. Best, Ph.D.,
Sara Chen Ling, M.A., Janice Myck-Wayne, Ed.D.,
Jennifer Symon, Ph.D., BCBA-D, and Michelle Dean, Ph.D.
8 Positive Behavior Supports: Preventing and Managing
Difficult Behavior...................................................................................................... 195
Kathryn D. Peckham-Hardin, Ph.D.
9 Preparing for Kindergarten: Adaptations and
Supports Across the Curriculum.............................................................................219

Index................................................................................................................................. 249
v

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BK-BRP-RICHARDSON-131079-FM.indd 6 06/02/14 9:11 PM
 About the Authors

Anne Marie Richardson-Gibbs, M.A., is an early childhood special educator

and has provided inclusion services for the past 20 years in both community-based
preschool and public school settings. Ms. Richardson-Gibbs works for the El Monte
City School District, where she provides inclusion support to preschool and early
elementary age children with disabilities. Ms. Richardson-Gibbs has been the direc-
tor of an early intervention program that provides services to infants, toddlers, and
their families from East Los Angeles and worked as a statewide early intervention
program specialist for the California Department of Education. She was the train-
ing coordinator for Project Support, a federally funded personnel training grant.
As coordinator she created inclusion-support in-services, training videos, and a
manual for early childhood special educators. Ms. Richardson-Gibbs has taught
early childhood special education classes at California State University, Los Ange-
les, and has served as chairperson for both the Infant Development Association of
California and the Los Angeles Early Intervention Directors’ Forum. She continues
to provide training and in-services for Head Start and school district personnel on
inclusion support, behavior management, and autism and developmental delays in
young children.

M. Diane Klein, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, is a professor of early childhood special edu-

cation at California State University, Los Angeles, where she has directed the pro-
grams in early childhood special education for 30 years. Dr. Klein received her M.A.
in speech-language pathology and audiology from Western Michigan University and
her Ph.D. in developmental psychology from Michigan State University. In her early
career, she worked as a speech-language pathologist with young children with dis-
abilities and their families. She has directed numerous federally funded projects
involving caregiver–child interaction, working with infants with low incidence and
multiple disabilities, training of early childhood special educators, and training
inclusion-support personnel (Project Support). She has Â� coauthored—with col-
leagues Deborah Chen and Ruth Cook—several journal articles and books. These
have included a widely used text in early childhood special education, Adapting
Early Childhood Curricula for Children with Special Needs, Eighth Edition
(Merrill/Prentice Hall, 2012); Project PLAI, a curriculum and training video for

vii

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 viii About the Authors

working with families of infants with multiple disabilities (Paul H. Brookes Pub-
lishing Co., 2002); Including Children with Special Needs in Early Childhood
Settings (Delmar, 2002); and Working with Children from Culturally Diverse
Backgrounds (Delmar, 2001). Along with Anne Marie Richardson-Gibbs, Dr. Klein
has produced a variety of training videos related to inclusion-support strategies
for young children with disabilities in community-based early childhood education
settings.

BK-BRP-RICHARDSON-131079-FM.indd 8 06/02/14 9:11 PM

 Contributors

Sherwood J. Best, Ph.D. Beth A. Moore, M.A.

Professor Retired Teacher of the Visually
California State University, Impaired Family Resource Specialist
Los Angeles Center for the Partially Sighted
Division of Special Education and 6101 W. Centinela Ave., Suite 150
Counseling Culver City, CA 90230
5151 State University Drive
Los Angeles, CA 90032 Janice Myck-Wayne, Ed.D.
Associate Professor
Michelle Dean, Ph.D. California State University, Fullerton
Post-Doctoral Scholar Department of Special Education
University of California, Los Angeles Post Office Box 6868
Kasari Research Lab Fullerton, CA 92384
760 Westwood Plaza, NPI 68-229
Los Angeles, CA 90024 Sue Parker-Strafaci, M.A.
Director of Child Development Services
Kathleen C. Harris, Ph.D. Braille Institute
Retired Professor 741 N. Vermont Avenue
California Polytechnic State University Los Angeles, CA 90029
San Luis Obispo
School of Education, College of Kathryn D. Peckham-Hardin, Ph.D.
Science and Mathematics Professor
California Polytechnic State California State University, Northridge
University 18111 Nordhoff Street
San Luis Obispo, CA 93407 Northridge, CA 91330

Sarah Chen Ling, M.A. Jennifer B.G. Symon, Ph.D., BCBA-D

Special Education Teacher Associate Professor
Moreno Elementary School California State University, Los Angeles
4825 Moreno Street Special Education and Counseling
Montclair, CA 91763 5151 State University Drive
Los Angeles, CA 90032

ix

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BK-BRP-RICHARDSON-131079-FM.indd 10 06/02/14 9:11 PM
 Foreword

In this book, Anne Marie Richardson-Gibbs and M. Diane Klein have addressed the
unique challenges of creating and maintaining successful inclusive early education
programs. They bring to the text years of hands-on experience in early childhood
inclusion support, experience in teacher training, and fieldwork supervision. The
authentic voices of key players in the inclusion process are also included: admin-
istrators, early childhood educators, special educators, parents, and disability
specialists.
The authors emphasize that successful early childhood inclusion is a positive
and rewarding experience for young children, both with and without disabilities,
and for their teachers and families. However, achievement of real success often
presents surprisingly complex challenges. Success lies in administrative leader-
ship, individualized configurations of supports, and in creative and collabora-
tive problem solving.
This book takes a comprehensive and multidimensional approach—ranging
from the conceptual/philosophical considerations of common challenges to every-
day evidence-based strategies and solutions. A primary focus is on the ways key
players can creatively configure and deliver support service to meet the unique
needs of each child.
Challenges and solutions related to service delivery and teaching strategies
are reflected in chapter topics that consider a range of dimensions that contribute
uniquely to successful inclusion. Legal foundations for inclusive early childhood
education are reviewed. These foundations encourage support teams to take a
bold, problem-solving approach to designing the individualized educational pro-
gram (IEP). Strategies are presented for supporting families as key players in both
the IEP process and in the ongoing decision making on behalf of their children.
Also foundational to inclusion success is an appreciation for the possible configu-
rations of “models of inclusion support service delivery,” which are as important
to inclusion success as are the specific services and instructional adaptations. A
chapter on administrative challenges helps the reader understand both the per-
spective of the school administrator and the importance of administrative leader-
ship. The authors provide many practical suggestions and checklists to assist an
administrator in the development and oversight of inclusive early education pro-
grams and classrooms. A chapter on collaborative communication and problem

xi

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 xii Foreword

solving reflects the authors’ belief that the lack of such skills can easily undermine
inclusion success and team building.
Disability-specific considerations for children with hearing loss, visual dis-
abilities, physical and health disabilities, and autism spectrum disorders are
addressed in a chapter with contributions from specialists in those areas. An
invited chapter on positive behavior support presents guidelines for creating inclu-
sive environments that support the positive behaviors of all learners. Finally, two
chapters review evidence-based general-classroom teaching strategies and cur-
riculum issues related to preschool to kindergarten transition.
These chapters, whether considered together as an overview of challenges and
solutions in successful early childhood inclusion support or as individual resources
for early childhood teachers and special educators, administrators, parents and
disability specialists, will uniquely contribute to planning and implementing effec-
tive inclusive early childhood classrooms.

Marci J. Hanson
Professor of Special Education
San Francisco State University

BK-BRP-RICHARDSON-131079-FM.indd 12 06/02/14 9:11 PM

 Acknowledgments

We must first acknowledge that without the patient, skillful support of Johanna
Cantler this book would have never been possible. The expertise of all the Brookes
editorial and production “key players,” especially Sarah Zerofsky, was very much
needed and appreciated. We also thank the early project reviewers who provided
critiques and suggestions.
The many chapter contributions and real-life practical solutions described in
the book were provided or inspired by parents, administrators, and many dedi-
cated and brilliant students and colleagues. These include the preschool inclusion
team at El Monte City School District as well as students and faculty at California
State University, Los Angeles. We thank the following individuals:
• The El Monte City School District child development program personnel,
including Lisa Dunbar and Olga Vasquez, and the many Head Start teachers and
assistants who have consistently welcomed young children with disabilities into
their classrooms and have always been willing to collaborate and work with us
to determine how best to serve each child’s individual needs
• The El Monte City School District Special Education Department, whose past
administrator, Carol Williams, realized and promoted establishment of “formal”
inclusion specialist positions and whose present administrator, Toni Kopilec, con-
tinues to support these positions in spite of often overwhelming budget crises
• The inclusion “team” of specialists who continue to be inspirational both per-
sonally and professionally, especially Estelle Charlebois and Janice Baroff;
their daily energy, enthusiasm, and unwavering belief in the ability of children
with disabilities to succeed with the appropriate supports in regular education
settings inspire an ongoing commitment to inclusive practice
• The early childhood inclusion assistants, especially Juana Mejorado and
Marisela Hernandez, who, on a daily basis, have provided “just enough” support
for so many children to encourage their independence while learning to be true
members of their inclusive classrooms
• Bonnie Karlin, Sharon Kilpatrick, Hannah Rodriguez, Mariela Avila, Rose Jen-
kins, Carol Dale, Tracy Eagle, Bernice Gonzalez de Torres, and June Szabo-
Kifer for sharing their real-life stories of inclusion support
xiii

BK-BRP-RICHARDSON-131079-FM.indd 13 06/02/14 9:11 PM

 xiv Acknowledgments

For their excellent chapter contributions we thank Drs. Kathleen C. Harris,

Kathryn Peckham-Hardin, Jennifer Symon, Sherwood Best, Janice Myck-Wayne,
Beth Moore, Sue Parker-Strafaci, Michele Dean, and Sarah Chen Ling.
Finally, we must thank the many families of children with disabilities who
inspire us and keep us focused on the vision of inclusive possibilities for all chil-
dren. Their commitment to their children and their willingness to campaign for
inclusive educational services, often against great odds, fills us with a sense of
awe at the inner strength they find, year after year. Many sincere thanks to the
Welflin, Spinelli, and Daffron families, and to the members of Club 21 in Pasadena,
California.

BK-BRP-RICHARDSON-131079-FM.indd 14 06/02/14 9:11 PM

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the babies are out of town. They’re due to come home in a day or
two, and I’m selfish enough to hope that we can keep you over. Let’s
drop off here at the crossing. It’s nearer to the hotel, and it’ll give
me a chance to reach The Tribune office before Treadwell’s young
men come in with their scare stuff.”
It was a half-hour after the arrival of the unwrecked Limited, and
the story of the curious false alarm was just getting itself passed
from lip to ear among the loungers in the Hotel Topaz lobby, when
the Government man came down from his room to file a rather
lengthy New York message with the hotel telegraph operator.
“Cipher?—holy smoke!” exclaimed the young man at the lobby
wire desk; but a liberal tip made it look easier, and he added: “All
right, I’m good for it, I guess, and I’ll get it through as quick as I
can. Answer to your room?”
“If you please,” said the guest; and, as it was by this time well on
toward midnight, he went to bed.
By noon of the day following the false alarm run of the wrecking-
train to Timanyoni Canyon, all Brewster, or at least the railroad part
of it, knew that Superintendent Maxwell was entertaining an old
college classmate at the Hotel Topaz. For the town portion of the
gossip there was some little disagreement as to Mr. Calvin Sprague’s
state and standing. Some had it that the big, handsome athlete was
a foot-ball coach taking his vacation between seasons. Others said
that he was a capitalist in disguise, looking for a ground-floor
investment in Timanyoni mines.
These were Mr. Sprague’s placings for the man in the street. But
to the rank and file in the railroad head-quarters building Sprague
figured in his proper character as a Government drug-mixer on a
holiday; a royal good fellow who fraternized instantly with
everybody, whose naïve ignorance about railroading was a joke, and
whose vast unknowledge was nicely balanced by a keen and
comradely curiosity to learn all that anybody could tell him about the
complex workings of a railroad head-quarters in action.
 Naturally, and possibly because Davis, the chief despatcher, was
willing to be hospitable, he spent an hour of the forenoon in the wire
office, ingenuously absorbing detail and evincing an interest in the
day’s work that made Davis, ordinarily a rather reticent man,
transform himself into a lecturer on the theory and practice of
railway telegraphy.
It was in Davis’s office that he met Tarbell; and the keen-eyed,
sober-faced young fellow who was carried on the division pay-rolls
as a relief operator became his guide on a walking tour of the shops
and the yards. Tarbell saw in Mr. Maxwell’s guest nothing more than
an exceedingly affable gentleman with an immense capacity for
interesting himself in the workaday details of a railroad outfit; but at
one o’clock, when Maxwell joined Sprague at a quiet corner table for
two in the hotel café, there were several surprises awaiting the
superintendent.
“Getting it shaken down a little so that you’ll know where to
begin?” was Maxwell’s opening question; and the ex-fullback
laughed.
“You must take me for a sleuth of the common or garden
variety,” he retorted. “Did you suppose I had thrown away an entire
forenoon scoring for a start? Not so, Richard; not even remotely so.
I’ve been finding out a lot of things. I am even able to suggest an
improvement or two in your telegraph installation.”
“For example?” said Maxwell.
“Both of your yard offices are cut in on the working wire. If this
were my railroad I’d put them on a pony circuit and cut them out of
the main line.”
“Why would you?”
“We’ll have to go back a little for the specific answer in the
present case; back to last night, and to the young man who chased
out with a red lantern to keep us from running into the passenger
train which wasn’t wrecked. Why do you suppose he did that?”
 “That’s easy; he heard the passenger coming down the canyon.”
“That was the inference, of course. But when you have taken the
thirty-third degree in the exact science of observation, Dick, you’ll
learn to distrust inferences and to accept only conclusions. He didn’t
hear the passenger; he didn’t know it was coming. If you had been
observing him as closely as I was, you would have seen him write
this down in his actions as plain as print. He had a much better
reason for stopping us—and the passenger. It was a wire order from
somebody. If you don’t believe it, have Davis call him up and ask
him, when you go back to your office.”
Notwithstanding the criticism just passed upon him by his table-
mate, Maxwell again caught at an inference.
“You’ve found the wire-devil, Calvin? You’ve got to the bottom of
the thing in a single forenoon?”
“No; not quite to the bottom. But some few things I have
learned, beyond any question of doubt. In the first place, this
trouble of yours is pretty serious; far more serious than you suspect.
In fact, it is designed to remove your railroad from the map, not by
murder outright, but by what you might call incited suicide. The
condition which you described last night is painfully apparent, even
to an outsider like myself. Half of your men are potential powder-
mines, ready to blow up if the spark is applied.”
“Go on,” said Maxwell eagerly. “What else did you find out?”
“I learned that a stop-all-trains order was sent to your young
man at the canyon station last night, and that, in all probability, it
was sent from Brewster. The ultimate question fines itself down to
this: did your night despatcher, Connolly, send that order through his
own instrument in his own office? or did he, or some other, send it
from the upper yard office?—which, as I have remarked, is rather
injudiciously cut in on the regular working wire. I’ll venture to make
the answer positive; the order was sent from the yard office.”
“Connolly!” said the superintendent under his breath. “I can’t
believe it, Calvin. Who ever heard of a fat villain?”
 “Go a little easy on the inferences,” laughed the chemistry expert.
“I didn’t say it was Connolly, though it looks rather bad for him at
the present stage of the game. He is in debt, and he wants to get
married.”
“But, good Lord! what has that got to do with——”
“Hold on,” interposed the expert calmly. “We haven’t come to
that part of it yet. As I say, this stop-order was sent from the yard
office. How do I know? Because the sender left his trail behind him
in the shape of a wire recently cut and recoupled—the cutout being
made to keep the message from repeating itself in the head-quarters
office where it might be heard by anybody who happened to be
standing around.”
“But Connolly couldn’t leave his wire to go to the yard office.”
“Unfortunately for him, he did leave it. About half an hour after
the wrecking-train left he called Davis, who was sleeping in one of
the bunk-rooms in your wickiup attic. His excuse was that he was so
rattled that he couldn’t hold himself down at the train-desk. Davis
relieved him for an hour or so, and then he came back.”
“Still I can’t believe it of Connolly,” Maxwell persisted. “If he sent
that message to Timanyoni last night, that makes him responsible
for all the others—the devil-messages, as the men are calling them.
Some of these have come in the night, while he was on duty. How
could he have worked it in that case?”
Again the chemistry expert laughed. “A suspicious person might
draw a bunch of inferences,” he said, “throwing out a dark hint or so
about a concealed cut-in on the wires after they enter the attic of
the railroad building and a hidden set of instruments. Also, the same
person would probably point to the fact that Connolly wasn’t at his
desk when the fake wreck notice came last night. It was your chief
clerk, Calmaine, who took it from the wire, and he tells me he was
subbing for Connolly for a few minutes while Connolly went upstairs
for his smoking-tobacco.”
 “My Lord!” said Maxwell; “you’ve put it upon Connolly, fair and
square, Calvin; it’s all over but the hanging!”
“There you go again,” joked the Government man, with his good-
natured grin. “I haven’t said it is Connolly. But I will say this: with
another half-day at it, I’ll probably be able to turn the case over to
Tarbell—and the newspapers.”
“The newspapers?”
“Yes. That will be a part of the cure for the crazy sickness among
your men. Sit tight and say nothing, and by this evening I’ll be ready
to put you next.”
It was late in the afternoon, and the man from Washington had
spent much of the intervening time loafing in the different offices
sheltered by the head-quarters roof, when young Tarbell got a
telephone summons from the hotel. In the writing-room, which was
otherwise deserted, he found the superintendent’s guest waiting for
him. Sprague waved him to a chair and began at once.
“What did you find out, Mr. Tarbell?”
“Nothing to hurt. The fellow you was askin’ about went out on
the wreck-train and came back on it.”
“You’re sure of that?”
“Sure of the first part, and not so sure of the last. I’ve found half
a dozen o’ the men who saw him get on the train here, and saw him
after he was on. They’re a little hazy about the back trip, but he
must’ve come back that way, because he didn’t come on the
Limited.”
“And his wife?”
Tarbell’s lip curled in honest cleanliness.
“He ain’t got any wife. It was his girl he was expectin’, and she
didn’t come.”
“And afterward?” suggested the questioner.
 “After he got back he showed up in the office and took his job
again, lettin’ Catherton go home.”
The Government man’s eyes narrowed and after a moment he
began again.
“How near can you come to keeping your own counsel, Mr.
Tarbell?” he demanded abruptly.
“I reckon I can talk a few without sayin’ much,” said the ex-
cowboy. And then, after a pause: “You mean that you don’t want to
be mixed up in this thing by name, Mr. Sprague?”
“You’ve hit it exactly. You’ve got your start and I want you to
work it out yourself. You have the line. Somebody—somebody who is
not a thousand miles from your head-quarters building over yonder
—is working this scare, working it for a purpose which he wishes to
accomplish without making himself actually and legally responsible.
Had you got that far in your own reasoning, Mr. Tarbell?”
“No, indeedy,” was the prompt reply. “I reckon I’m only a plug
when it comes down to the sure-enough, fine-haired part of it.”
“You’ll learn, after a bit,” said the chemistry expert shortly. “But
let that go. You have the facts now, and they are driven pretty well
into a corner. Can you go and get your man?”
Tarbell got up and shoved his hands into his pockets.
“I reckon I can,” he admitted slowly, and started to move away.
But at the door the big man at the writing-desk recalled him.
“Don’t go on supposition, Tarbell. Ask yourself, when you get
outside, if you’ve got the evidence that the court will demand. Ask
yourself, also, if you know of your own knowledge, or if you’ve only
allowed yourself to be hypnotized into your belief. If you can get
satisfactory answers to these questions, go to it and bring back the
money, as they say up in Seattle.”
For what remained of the afternoon after Tarbell went away,
Sprague sat in the writing-room and wrote letters, sealing and
addressing the last one just as Maxwell came over to go to dinner
with him. At table there were plenty of uncut back-numbers in the
way of college reminiscences to be threshed over, and Sprague
carefully kept the talk in this innocuous field until after they had left
the dining-room to go for a smoke on the loggia porch. When the
cigars were alight, Maxwell would no longer be choked off.
“Anything new in the wire-devil business, Calvin?” he asked.
“I’ve turned the case over to Tarbell, as I promised. I’m through
with my part of it.”
“What’s that!” ejaculated the superintendent. “You’ve got your
man?”
“Tarbell will get him—most probably before we go to bed to-
night. He’s a fine young fellow, that reformed cowboy of yours, Dick.
I like him.”
Maxwell was still gasping. “You’re a wonder, Calvin—a latter-day
wizard! Good Heavens! Do you realize that we’ve been working on
this thing for a month? And you’ve cleaned it up in a day!”
The chemistry expert was smiling good-naturedly.
“Perhaps I came at a fortuitous moment, and had exceptional
advantages,” he demurred.
“But are you sure?” demanded Maxwell soberly.
“So sure that if your ‘devil’ had caused any loss of life in his
monkeyings, I could go into court and hang him.”
“Thank God!” said the superintendent; and then again, as if an
enormous weight had been lifted from his shoulders, “Thank God!”
Sprague looked up quickly.
“You’ve been taking it pretty hard, haven’t you, Dick? Any special
reason?”
“Yes. You know Ford, our president: he has made the Pacific
Southwestern System—made it out of whole cloth; and, incidentally,
he has made a good few of us fellows who have fought with him
shoulder to shoulder from the first. When I was last in New York, a
couple of months ago, he rode from the club to the station in the
taxi with me. He was in trouble of some sort—he didn’t tell me what
it was; but the last thing he said as I was boarding the train gave
me some notion of it. ‘Run that jerk-water Short Line of yours, Dick,
as if you were carrying all your eggs to market and had them all in
one basket,’ he said, and then he added: ‘No wrecks, Dick, if you
have to sit up nights to head them off.’”
Sprague was smoking peacefully. It was perhaps too much to
expect that a man whose problems were chiefly in the field of
laboratory science should be very deeply interested in one in which
the elements were merely human. When he spoke again it was to
recur to his favorable impression of Tarbell. “I like that young fellow,”
he said in conclusion. “He’ll pull you out of the hole—with a little
timely help from the newspapers. When he gets the ball into his
hands and starts down the field with it, you’d best be prepared for
some pretty sensational developments. They’re due.”
For a little while Maxwell said nothing, and the fine lines between
his eyes deepened slowly into a frown of anxiety. Finally he said:
“I’ve got ’em, too, Calvin—the ‘jimmies,’ I mean. My wife and the
two kiddies are coming home on the ‘Apache’ to-night, and don’t you
know, I had half a mind to wire her to stop over in Copah until I
could go after her? That’s a pretty pass for things to come to, isn’t
it?—when a man’s afraid to have the members of his family ride over
his own particular piece of railroad?”
Sprague flipped the ash from his cigar.
“That’s one of the bridges you don’t have to cross until you come
to it.”
Maxwell got out of his chair and refused Sprague’s offer of a
fresh cigar.
“No,” he said; “this has been one of the days when I’ve smoked
too much. I’m going over to the office to keep my finger on the
pulse of things. When it gets too dull for you over here, come across
and break in. If I’m not in my own office, you’ll find me in room
eleven—the despatcher’s—keeping tab on the movements of the
Apache Limited.”
Fully two hours beyond the time when the superintendent had
crossed the railroad plaza to climb the stair of the head-quarters
building, Tarbell, strolling along the plaza-fronting street, swung
himself over the railing of the loggia porch and took the chair next to
the man from Washington, who was still sitting as Maxwell had left
him and still smoking.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” said the patient smoker, without
taking his eyes from the row of lighted windows in the railroad
building opposite.
“I allowed you would be,” rejoined Tarbell in his gentle
Tennessee-mountain drawl. And then, quite as calmly: “I reckon I’ve
found the answers to all them questions you ’lotted to me. I reckon
I’ve got him.”
“I’ve been betting on you, Tarbell,” was the word of approval.
Then: “It comes pretty near home, doesn’t it?”
“It sure does. It’s goin’ to hurt Mr. Maxwell good and plenty. He
counts all the men in the home office as his fam’ly, and there’s never
been one o’ them to go back on him till now.”
“What is your evidence?” queried Sprague.
“I reckon you’d call it circumstantial—and so will the judge. But it
hobbles him all right. There’s a cut-in on the despatcher’s wires over
yonder, ’way up under the roof where nobody’d find it, with four little
fine lead wires goin’ down in the wall. I couldn’t find where they
come out at, but I reckon that don’t make any difference: they’re
there.”
“Anything else?”
“Yes. I’ve got a letter that I hooked out of his coat pocket not ten
minutes ago; a letter from some gang boss o’ his’n in New York,
givin’ him goss for not showin’ up results, and allowin’ to pull some
sort of a gun on him if the papers don’t begin to print scare heads
about a certain railroad management, pronto.”
The chemistry expert smiled shrewdly.
“You are not the young man I took you for, Tarbell, if you are not
wringing your brain like a wet towel to make it tell you why anybody
in New York should wish to see Nevada Short Line wreck bulletins in
the newspapers.”
“That ain’t no joke, neither,” Tarbell admitted gravely, adding, “I
been hopin’ maybe it would come out in the round-up.”
“Yes,” said Sprague, half-absently. “It will come out in the round-
up.” And then, after a thoughtful pause, “Perhaps we’d better go
over and relieve Mr. Maxwell’s mind. But first it wouldn’t be a bad
idea to telephone the editor of The Tribune and ask him to send his
railroad reporter down to Mr. Maxwell’s office. If you say that Mr.
Maxwell will probably have a bit of first-page stuff for him, it won’t
be necessary to go into details.”
Tarbell went into the hotel lobby to telephone, and afterward
they crossed the plaza to the working head-quarters of the double
division. Finding the superintendent’s office open and lighted but
unoccupied, they went on to the despatcher’s room. In the public
space outside of the counter railing three or four trainmen were
grouped in front of the bulletin-board looking for their assignments
on the night trains and thumbing the file of posted “General Orders.”
Behind the railing Connolly was sitting at his glass-topped wire-
table with the train-sheet under his hand and the superintendent at
his elbow. Over in the corner under his green-shaded electric bulb,
Bolton, the sallow-faced car-record man, was fingering the keys of
his type-writer.
Tarbell opened the gate in the railing to admit Sprague and
himself. Maxwell looked up and nodded a welcome to his guest.
 “Got tired of sitting it out alone, did you?” he said; and then, “I’ll
be with you in a minute and we’ll go over to my office. I’m waiting
to get Timanyoni’s report of the Limited.”
“Mrs. Maxwell is on the train?”
Maxwell nodded, and a moment later Connolly’s sounder clicked
out Timanyoni’s report of the passing train. The fat despatcher was
nervous. It showed in his rattling of the key as he O K’d the canyon
station’s report, and again in a small disaster when, in reaching for
his pen to make the train-sheet entry, he overset his ink-well.
“Well, I’m damned!” he grunted, snatching at the train-sheet and
pushing the ink flood back with his free hand. Maxwell came to the
rescue, and so did Tarbell; and a liberal application of blotters
stopped the flood. But at the close of the incident Connolly’s hands
were well blackened.
It was at this conjuncture that Davis, the chief despatcher, came
in on the way up to his room in the attic half-story above. Connolly
appealed to him at once.
“If you’ll sit in here, just for a minute, Davis, while I go wash my
hands?” he said, adding: “I’d ought to be kicked all the way
downstairs!”
When Davis had taken the chair and Connolly had gone out,
Tarbell whispered to the superintendent. Maxwell nodded, and made
a sign to Sprague. When he had closed the door of the despatcher’s
room behind himself and his guest, he explained:
“Tarbell says he is ready, and we may as well have it over with.
Do you want to be present?”
“As a spectator, yes,” said the expert.
“All right; we’ll go to my office and wait for Archer.”
The waiting interval proved to be short. Maxwell had just thrown
his roll-top desk open, and the Government man had planted his big
bulk solidly in the half-shadowed window-seat, when the door
opened and Connolly came in, his full-moon face a frightened blank
and his hands still ink-blackened. Tarbell was only a step behind the
despatcher, and the reporter from The Tribune office was at Tarbell’s
heels. When the three were inside, Tarbell shut the door and put his
back against it.
“Here’s your man, Mr. Maxwell,” he said briefly; and Sprague,
who had started to his feet at the door opening, sat down again in
the shadow and said nothing.
Maxwell pointed brusquely to a chair at the desk end. “Sit down,
Dan,” he snapped. And then: “I suppose you know what you’re here
for?”
Connolly fell into the chair as if the sharp command had been a
blow.
“Know what I’m here for?” he stammered.
“Yes. Nothing will be gained by dodging. You may as well make a
clean breast of it. You’ve been faking these scare wreck reports—
don’t lie about it; we’ve got the evidence. I want to know who is
behind you. Who bribed you to do this thing?”
“Before God, Mr. Maxwell!” the culprit began, with the sweat
rolling down his face; but Maxwell stopped him with a quick gesture.
“I’ve told you it was no use to try to lie out of it. I have here on
my desk a letter which was taken from your coat pocket to-night,
since you came on duty; a letter from which you were careful
enough to tear the signature, but on which you were not careful
enough to destroy the date line. In that letter the writer threatens to
give you away to the New York police if you don’t get busy and give
the newspapers a string of Nevada Short Line wrecks to write about.
That is enough to send you over the road, but there’s more. The
working wires east and west have been cut under the roof of this
building, and leads taken off. The leads disappear in the wall back of
your bunk-room. I don’t ask you what you have to say for yourself; I
want you to tell us, right here and now, who planned the thing, and
what it was intended to accomplish.”
 Connolly had been slowly collapsing in his chair under the
merciless fire of accusation, and a pasty pallor was driving the pink
out of his round face.
“My God!” he gasped thickly; and then he repeated, “My God!” A
silence crammed with threatenings settled down upon the small
office-room. Suddenly it was broken by the sound of hurried footfalls
in the corridor, and Tarbell was hurled half-way across the room
when the door was flung open from without.
It was young Cargill, the engineer, who burst into the private
office, and his lips were white.
“The Limited!” he broke out. “She’s overrun her orders at Corona
and she’s due to meet Second Eighteen on the single track!”
It was the Government man who led the rush to the despatcher’s
room, a rush in which even the fat culprit joined. In the wire office
Davis had the key; his jaw was set and the perspiration was
standing thickly on his forehead, but he had not lost his nerve.
Calmaine, the chief clerk, was hanging over his shoulder, and outside
of the railing the group of trainmen had grown to a breathless
crowd, pressing to hear the latest word.
When Maxwell’s party pushed through the gate, Sprague was still
in the lead, and his quick glance took in every detail of the scene.
Like a flash he turned upon Tarbell, who was fumbling a pair of
handcuffs in his pocket, and pinioned him in a grip that was like the
nip of a vice.
“Not yet!” he whispered in Tarbell’s ear; and then Davis snapped
his switch and spoke.
“It’s no use,” he said, and his harsh tone was only a thin mask for
the break in his voice. “It’s the real thing this time. First Eighteen
was ready to pull out of Corona when the Limited went by. Corringer
left his wire and chased the freight, hoping to get its engine to cut
loose and run after the passenger. He couldn’t catch it.”
 A low murmur ran through the crowd packed against the counter
railing and somebody whispered, “It’s got the boss; his wife and
babies are on that train. Look at him!”
Maxwell had gripped the back of a chair and he was staring hot-
eyed at the despatcher.
“Do something, Davis,” he pleaded. “Don’t sit there and let those
trains come together! For Christ’s sake, think of something!”
The chief despatcher ducked his head as if he were dodging a
blow and swallowed hard.
“There isn’t anything to do, Mr. Maxwell—you know there isn’t
anything,” he began in low tones. “If there was——”
It was Connolly who made the break. Twisting away from
Tarbell’s grip on his arm he flung himself upon Davis.
“Get out o’ that chair and let me have the key,” he wheezed; and
when Davis did not move quickly enough he pounced upon the key
standing. Davis got up and quietly slid the chair under the night man
who sank heavily into it without missing a letter in the call he was
insistently clicking out, over and over again in endless repetition.
“What is it?” whispered the newspaper man, who was standing
aside with Tarbell and Sprague; and Tarbell answered:
“It’s the Corcoran coal mine—about half-way between Corona
and the first station this side, and a half-mile up the gulch. They’ve
got a private wire, but they ain’t got any night operator.”
Davis overheard the whisper and shook his head.
“Dan’s got his wits with him,” he said, in open admiration.
“There’s a young time-keeper that sleeps in the coal company’s
office shack, and he’s learning to plug in on the wire a little. If Dan
can only wake him——” And then, in sudden sharp self-accusation:
“God forgive me! why didn’t I think of it and save all the time that’s
been wasted?” Then, as Connolly closed the circuit and a halting
reply clicked through the receiving instrument: “He’s got him! Thank
the Lord, he’s got him! If he can only make him understand what’s
wanted, there’s a chance—just one chance in a thousand!”
With the very seconds now freighted with disaster, and with only
the crudest of amateur telegraphers at the other end of the wire,
nine men out of ten would have blown up and lost the thousandth
part of a chance remaining. But Connolly was the tenth man. With
his left hand shaking until it was beating a tattoo on the glass table
top he hitched his chair closer and began to spell out, letter by letter,
the brief call for help upon which so much depended. Tarbell
translated for Sprague, word by word. “Hurry—down—to—main-line
—and—throw—your—switch—to—red. Then—run—west—and—flag
—passenger.”
The key-switch clicked on the final word, and for five long,
dragging seconds the silence was a keen agony. Then the sounder
began hesitantly: dot—pause—dot; dash—dot—dash, it spelled; and
Tarbell translated under his breath, “He says ‘O K’. Now, if he can
only chase his feet fast enough——”
How Maxwell managed to live and not die through the
interminable twenty minutes that followed; how Davis and Tarbell
and Connolly hung breathless over the wire-table, while the throng
outside of the railing, augmented now to a jammed crowd of
sympathetic watchers, rustled and moved and whispered in awed
undertones—are themes upon which the rank and file of the Nevada
Short Line still enlarge in the roundhouse tool-rooms and in the
switch shanties when the crews are waiting for a delayed train.
The dreadful interval seemed as if it would never be outworn, but
the end came at last when the hesitant clicking of the sounder was
resumed.
“Call it out, Dan,” shouted somebody among the waiting
trainmen, and Connolly pronounced the words slowly as the amateur
at the end of the private wire ticked them off.
“Both—trains—safe—freight—backing—to—blind—siding—at—
Quentin—switch—passenger—following—under—flag.”
 A shout went up that drowned the feeble patter of the telegraph
instruments and made the windows rattle. “Bully for the kid at the
coal mine!” “Bully for Danny Connolly!” “Come out here, Danny, till
we get a chanst at you!”
Maxwell fought his way stubbornly through the crowd, with the
newspaper man, Sprague, Tarbell, and Connolly following in his
wake. When the five were once more behind the closed door of the
private office across the hall, the superintendent turned morosely
upon the night despatcher, and he was so full of the thing he was
about to do that he did not notice that his guest had taken Tarbell
aside for a whispered conference.
“You’ve drawn the teeth of the law, this time, Connolly,” he said
sharply. “After what you’ve just done I’m not going to send you to
jail. But the least you can do is to tell me who hired you and sent
you out here to make trouble for us. If you’ll do that——”
It was Sprague’s hand on his shoulder that stopped him, and
then he noticed that Tarbell had disappeared. “Just a minute—until
Tarbell gets back,” said the guest, in low tones; and while he was
saying it, the door opened suddenly and the ex-cowboy returned,
thrusting a sallow-faced young fellow, shirt-sleeved and livid with
fear, into the office ahead of him. Then the Government man went
on in the same low tone, “You can say to this young man all the
things you were going to say to Mr. Connolly. There was a little
miscue on Tarbell’s part, and I was just going to tell you about it
when the train trouble butted in.” Then to the fat despatcher, “Mr.
Connolly, sit down. You’ve jolly well earned the right to look on and
listen.”
Connolly sat down heavily, and so did the superintendent.
Thereupon the man from Washington slipped easily into the breach,
turning briskly upon the yellow-faced car-record operator.
“Step up here, Bolton, and make a clean sweep of it to Mr.
Maxwell. Tell him how a certain firm of New York brokers—you
needn’t give the names now—sent you, a convicted bucket-shop
wire-tapper, out here to disarrange things on this railroad for stock-
jobbing purposes. Then tell him how you tapped the despatcher’s
wires and put a set of concealed keys under your car-record table in
the other room. Tell him how, after you’d faked that wreck message
last night, you ran a bluff for sympathy, and how, when it had
worked, your nerve flickered and you dropped from the wrecking-
train in the yard and sent a stop-order from the yard office. Come to
the front and loosen up!”
Bolton was shuffling forward and was beginning a tremulous
confession when Maxwell stopped him harshly.
“You can keep all that to tell in court!” he snapped. And then to
Tarbell: “Take him away, Archer. And you go back to your job, Dan,
and let Davis go to bed. What I’ve got to say to you will keep.” Then
to the young man from the Tribune, who had his note-book out and
was scribbling down his story at breakneck speed: “Write out what
you please, Scanlan, but tell Mr. Kendall that I’ll be up to the office
presently, and that I’d like to see the story before it goes to the
linotypes.”
When the room was cleared, the snappy little superintendent
spun his chair around to face his guest.
“Calvin,” he said solemnly, “you’ll never know how near you came
to making me break my heart to-night. If I’d had to send Dan
Connolly to jail after what he did in the other room a little while ago
——”
The chemistry expert was grinning joyously.
“It was a curious little slip,” he commented. “I thought Tarbell
was on; never suspected for a moment that he wasn’t until he
butted Connolly in here and shot him at you.”
“But you knew Connolly wasn’t the man? How on top of earth did
you run it down, in a single day? I can’t surround it, even yet.”
“It wasn’t much of a nut to crack,” laughed the expert easily. “I
hope you’ll have a harder one for me the next time I happen along. I
got my pointer last night—before I knew anything at all about the
nature of your trouble. You see, Bolton was the only man in the
outfit who wasn’t sincerely jarred and horrified by that fake
message. I saw it the minute I’d had a look into his eyes. From that
on it was easy enough.”
“I don’t see it,” objected Maxwell.
“Don’t you? I merely argued backward from the results your
wire-devil was trying to obtain and sent a cipher message to a friend
of mine in New York. He put me next to a nice little plot in the Street
to hamper Ford and break down your company credit. Then I loafed
around your shack here until I found Bolton’s wire machinery. Bolton
didn’t catch on, but he was suspicious enough of a stranger like me
to take a little measure of precaution by slipping that incriminating
letter into Connolly’s coat pocket. I supposed Tarbell knew that, or
I’d have told him.”
Maxwell had been listening in appreciative admiration, but
gratitude came quickly to the fore when Sprague paused.
“Calvin, there’s no telling how many lives you’ve saved by this
little stop-over of yours here in Timanyoni Park!” he broke out.
“You’ve done it. When that story, properly trimmed down, comes out
in the Tribune to-morrow morning, the bare-nerves strain will go off
like that”—snapping his fingers. “I wish I could show you.... By
George! there’s the Limited pulling in. I’ve got to go down and meet
the wife and kiddies!”
The big-bodied man who called himself a chemistry sharp and
confessed to the riding of many hobbies rose up with a laugh.
“You want to show me? All right: take me downstairs with you
and show me Mrs. Maxwell and the babies. As for the other, you
know as well as I do that it’s all in the day’s work. Pitch out or we’ll
miss the folks—and that would be worse than getting another
message from the wire-devil.”
 II
High Finance in Cromarty Gulch
ITfewwaslingerers
a warm night for altitude five thousand feet, and the last
in the dining-car on the eastbound “Flying Plainsman”
had their windows open. Midway of the car a quartette of light-
hearted young people were exchanging guesses as to the proper
classification of a big man with laughing eyes and a fighting jaw who
was dining alone at one of the end tables.
“He looks like money—nice, large, ready money—to me,”
commented the prettiest of the three young women; but her seat-
mate, a handsome young fellow with the badge of his college
athletic association worn conspicuously in his button-hole, thought
differently. “You’ve fumbled the ball this time, Kitty,” he dissented. “If
he isn’t the champion of all the amateur heavy-weights, you can put
him down as a ’varsity coach out scouting for talent. Jehu! what a
‘back’ he’d make under the new rules!”
“Vaudeville is my guess,” chimed in the next-to-the-prettiest girl
mockingly; “the strong man who puts up the dumb-bells, and all
that, you know. If you could break into his luggage, I’d wager a box
of chocolates that you’d find a perfectly beautiful suit of pink tights
with spangled trunks and resined slippers.”
A little later the big man in the far corner took his change from
the waiter and left the car. As he passed the joyous party at the
double table there was a good-natured twinkle in his gray eyes and
he dropped a neatly engraved card at the collegian’s plate.
“Heavens and earth!—he heard us!” gasped the prettiest girl. And
then, feminine curiosity overcoming shame, “What does it say,
Tommy?”
 The young man held the card so that all could see, and admitted
himself a loser in the classification game.
Calvin W. Sprague,
Washington, D. C.
Chemist, Dept. of Agriculture
was what they read; and the fourth member of the group, a young
woman with fine eyes and an adorable chin, who was neither pretty
nor prettier, but something far more transcendent, took the card and
studied it thoughtfully.
“You’ve all missed the most astonishing thing—how he contrived
to overhear us at this distance,” she commented musingly. And then,
addressing the vanished card-owner through his bit of pasteboard:
“So you’re a chemist, are you, Mr. Sprague? You don’t look it, not the
least little bit, and I’m sure you’ll forgive me if I say that I doubt it;
doubt it very much indeed.”
While the young people were debating among themselves as to
whether or no there might not be an apology due, the big man who
had dined alone passed quite through the string of vestibuled
Pullmans and went to light his cigar on the rear platform of the
combination buffet and observation car.
Shortly after he had seated himself in one of the platform camp-
chairs, the train, which had been rocketing down a wide valley with
an isolated ridge on one hand and a huge mountain range on the
other, came to a stand at one of the few-and-far-between stations.
The pause, one would say, should have been only momentary; but
after it had lasted for a full minute or more the solitary smoker on
the rear platform left his chair and went to lean over the platform
railing for a forward glance.
Looking down the length of the long train, he saw the lights of
the small station, with other lights beyond it which seemed to mark
a railroad crossing or junction. On the station platform there were a
number of lanterns held high to light a group of men who were
struggling to lift a long, ominous-looking box into the express-car.
 A little later the wheels of the train began to trundle again, and
as his car-end passed the station the smoker on the observation
platform had a fleeting glimpse of the funeral party, and of the
heavy four-mule mountain-wagon which had apparently served as its
single equipage. Also, he remarked what a less observant person
might have missed: that the lantern-bearers were roughly clothed,
and that they were armed.
A hundred yards beyond the station the train stopped again; and
when it presently began to back slowly the platform watcher
understood that it was preparing to take on a lighted coach standing
on a siding belonging to the junction railroad. When the coupling
was made and the “Flying Plainsman,” with the picked-up car in tow,
was once more gathering headway in its eastward flight up the
valley of a torrenting mountain river, the big man read the number
“04” over the door of the newly added coach. After he had made out
the number he coolly put a leg over the barrier railing, brushed the
guarding porter aside, and pushed his way through the narrow side
corridor of the trailer.
In the rear half of the car the corridor opened into a comfortable
working-room fitted with easy-chairs, lounges, and a desk;
otherwise, the office in transit of the Nevada Short Line’s general
superintendent, Mr. Richard Maxwell. Maxwell was at his desk when
the big-bodied intruder shouldered himself into the open
compartment, but he sprang up joyfully when he recognized his
unannounced visitor.
“Why, Calvin, old man! Where in thunder did you drop from?” he
demanded, wringing the hand of greeting in a vain endeavor to
match the big man’s crushing grip. “Sit down and tell it out. I
thought you’d gone back east over the Transcontinental a full month
ago.”
The man whose card named him as a Government chemist
picked out the easiest of the lounging-chairs and planted himself
comfortably in it.
 “Jarred you, did I? That’s nothing; I’ve jarred worse men than
you are in my time. Your thinking machinery is all right; I was due to
go back a month ago, but I got interested in a little laboratory
experiment on the coast and couldn’t tear myself away. How are
Mrs. Maxwell and the kiddies?”
“Fine! And I’m hurrying to get home to them. I’ve been out for a
week and had begun to think I was never going to get back to the
Brewster office again. I’ve been having the busiest little ghost dance
you ever heard of during the past few days.”
The big man settled himself still more comfortably in his chair
and relighted the cigar, which, being of the dining-car brand, had
sulked for a time and then gone dejectedly out.
“Will the busy story bear telling?” he asked.
“Yes—to you,” was the half-guarded reply. “You’ll be interested
when I tell you that I’m inclined to believe that it’s ‘a little more of
the same’—a continuation of our round-up with the ‘wire-devil’ that
you straightened out for us a few weeks ago.”
The listener nodded. “Begin back a bit,” he suggested; and
Maxwell did it.
“After you went west, we put our wire-devil through the courts,
and President Ford served notice on the New York high-finance
pirates; told them he had their numbers, and that they’d better let
up on us. That was the end of it for the time. But a week ago
Thursday I got a hot wire from Ford, telling me to secure voting
proxies on every possible share of Short Line stock held locally, firing
the proxies to him in New York by special messenger, who should
reach him, he said, not later than the night of the fifteenth.”
“Um,” commented the smoker thoughtfully. “Is there much of the
stock held out here in your Timanyoni wilderness?”
“A good bit of it, first and last. When the Pacific Southwestern,
with Ford at its head, took over the Red Butte Western, the R. B. W.
was strictly a local line, and the reorganization plan was based upon
an exchange of stock—the new for the old. Then, when we built the
extension and issued more stock, quite a block of it was taken up by
local capitalists, bankers, mineowners, and ranchmen; not a
majority, of course, but a good, healthy balance of power.”
Again the giant in the lounging-chair nodded. “I see,” he cut in.
“There is doubtless a stockholders’ meeting looming up in the near
future—say on the day after the all-important fifteenth—and the Wall
Street people are going after Ford’s scalp again, this time in a strictly
legal way. He will probably need your Western proxies, and need
them bad.”
“I’ve got them right here,” said Maxwell, tapping a thick bunch of
papers on his desk. “And believe me, I’ve had a sweet time rounding
them up. Every moneyed man in this country is a friend of Ford’s,
and yet I’ve had to wrestle with every individual one of them for
these proxies as if I’d been asking them to shed their good red
blood.”
“Of course,” was the quiet comment. “The fellows on the other
side would stack the cards on you—or try to. What’s in the wind this
time? Just a stock-breaking raid for speculation, or is it something
bigger than that?”
The young superintendent shook his head doubtfully.
“I don’t know, certainly; I haven’t had a chance to talk with Ford
since early in the summer. But I have my own guess. If the
Transcontinental could control this five-hundred-mile stretch of ours
from Copah to Lorchi, it would have the short line to southern
California.”
“Therefore and wherefore, if Mr. Ford doesn’t happen to have the
votes in the coming stockholders’ meeting, you’ll be out of a job. Is
that about the size of it?”
“Probably,” admitted Maxwell. “Not that it makes any special
difference to me, personally. As you know, I have a mine up on the
Gloria that beats railroading out of sight. But I’d fight like a dog for
Ford, and for my own rank and file here on the Short Line. Of
course, Transcontinental control would mean a clean sweep of
everybody: there wouldn’t be baskets enough this side of the main
range to hold the heads that would be cut off.”
“I suppose not. But, as you say, you have the ‘come-back’ right
there under your hand in those proxies. How will you get them to
New York?”
“My chief clerk, Calmaine, will deliver them in person. He’ll meet
us at Brewster and go right along on this train, which, by the way, is
the next to the last one he could take and make New York on time.
It’s all arranged.”
The guest smoked on in silence for a little time and when he
spoke again it was to ask the name of the junction station at which
the late stop had been made.
“It’s Little Butte—where our Red Butte branch comes in from the
north.”
“You’d been stopping over there?” Sprague asked.
“No; I had my car brought down from Red Butte on the local,
which doubles back on the branch.”
“Um; Little Butte; good name. You people out here run pretty
persistently to ‘Buttes,’ don’t you? Did I, or didn’t I, see a funeral at
this particular Butte as we came along?”
“You did. It’s Murtrie; a mining engineer who has been doing a
sort of weigh-master’s stunt at the Molly Baldwin mine. Died pretty
suddenly last night, they say.”
“Large man?” queried the Government chemist, half-absently;
and Maxwell looked up quickly.
“Beefy rather than big, yes. How could you tell?”
Sprague waved his cigar as if the question were childish and the
answer obvious. “It took a dozen of them, more or less, to put him
into the express-car.”
 Maxwell turned back to his desk. “Metallic casket, probably,” he
suggested. “They had our agent wire Brewster for the best that
could be had. Said they were going to ship the body to some little
town in Kentucky. They’re a rather queer lot.”
“Who?—the Kentuckians?”
“No; the Molly Baldwin outfit. The mine was opened by a
syndicate of New York people four years ago, and after the New
Yorkers had put two or three hundred thousand into it without
taking anything out, they gave up in disgust. Then a couple of young
fellows from Cripple Creek came along and leased the property.
There was a crooked deal somewhere, for the young fellows began
to take out pay—big pay—right from the start. Then the New York
people wanted to ‘renig’ on the lease, and dragged the thing into the
courts.”
“And the courts said no?”
“The courts straddled. I didn’t follow the fight in detail, but the
final decision was that the lessees were to keep all they could take
out each month up to a certain amount. If they exceeded that
amount, the excess was to be shared equally with the New Yorkers.”
“Lots of room for shenanigan in that,” was the big man’s passing
comment. “Unless these young Cripple Creekers are more honest
than the average, they’ll stand a good bit of watching, you’d say.”
Maxwell laughed. “That was what the New Yorkers seemed to
think. They secured a court order allowing them to put an expert of
their own on the job. And nobody seems to enjoy the watch-dog
stunt. They’ve had to send in a new man every few weeks.”
“Do the Cripple Creekers kill them off?”
“No; they buy ’em off, I guess. Anyway, they don’t stay. Murtrie
was the last.”
“And apparently he hasn’t stayed,” said Sprague reflectively; and
just then a long-drawn wail of the locomotive whistle announced the
approach of the train to Brewster. At the signal the guest rose and
tossed the remains of the bad cigar out of the window. “Here’s
where I have to quit you, Dick,” he was beginning; but Maxwell
would not have it that way.
“Not much, you don’t, Calvin, old man,” he protested. “You’re
going to stop over one day with me, at least. No; I won’t listen to
any excuses. Give me your berth check and I’ll send my boy up
ahead to get your traps out of the sleeper. Sit down right where you
are and take it easy. You’ll find a box of cigars—real cigars—in this
lower drawer. I’ll be back as soon as I’ve seen Calmaine.”
Apparently, the man from Washington did not require much
urging. He sat down in Maxwell’s chair as the train was slowing into
the division station, and was rummaging in the desk drawer for the
box of cigars when an alert, carefully groomed young man came in
through the forward corridor and met the superintendent as he was
going out. There was a hurried conference, a passing of papers, and
the two, Maxwell and his chief clerk, went out together, leaving the
big man to go on with his rummaging alone.
Shortly afterward came the bump of a coupling touch, and the
office-car, in the grip of a switching-engine, raced backward through
the yards; backward and forward again, and when it came to rest it
was standing on the short station spur at the end of the railroad
head-quarters building. From the open windows Sprague could see
the long through train, with its two big mountain-pulling locomotives
coupled on, drawn up for its farther flight. It was after it had
steamed away into the night that Maxwell returned to his side-
tracked car to find his guest, half-asleep, as it seemed, in the depths
of the big wicker easy-chair.
“I hope you didn’t think I’d deserted you,” he said, drawing up
another of the wicker chairs. “I took time to telephone home. Mrs.
Maxwell’s dining out at her sister’s, and, if you don’t mind, we’ll sit
here a while and go out to the house later.”
There was enough to talk about. The two, who had been college
classmates, had seen little of each other for a number of years.
Maxwell told how he had gone into railroading under Ford, and how
in his first summer in the Timanyoni he had acquired a gold mine
and a wife. Sprague’s recounting was less romantic. After leaving
college he had coached the ’varsity foot-ball team for two years and
had afterward gone in for original research in chemistry, which had
been his “major” in college. Later he had drifted into the Washington
bureau as an expert, taking the job, as he explained, because it
gave him time and frequent leisurely intervals for the pursuit of his
principal hobby, which was the lifting of detective work to the plane
of pure theory, treating each case as a mathematical problem to be
demonstrated by logical reasoning.
“You ought to drop everything else and take up the man-hunting
business as a profession,” laughed Maxwell, when the hour-long talk
had come around to the big man’s pet among the hobbies.
“No,” was the instant objection. “That is where you’re wrong. A
man does his best work as an amateur—in any line. As long as the
man-hunting comes in the way of a recreation, I enjoy it keenly. But
if I had to make a business of it, it would be different.” Then he
changed the subject by asking about Tarbell, Maxwell’s ex-cowboy
division detective, who had served as his understudy in the “wire-
devil” case a few weeks earlier.
“Archer is all right,” was the reply; “only he’d like to break away
from me and go with you. He thinks you are about the one only top-
notcher; says he’d like to take lessons of you for a year or so.”
Sprague was gazing absently out of the near-by window.
“Speaking of angels,” he broke in, “there is Tarbell, right now;
coming down your office stair three steps at a jump,” and a moment
later the young man in question had dashed across to the service-
car and was thrusting his face in at the open window.
“Trouble, Mr. Maxwell!” he blurted out. “The ‘Plainsman’s’ just
been held up and robbed at Cromarty Gulch! Connolly’s getting the
wire from Corona, and he started me out to see if I could find you.”
 The superintendent leaped up as if his easy-chair had been
suddenly electrified.
“What’s that you say?” he demanded; “a hold-up?” Then he went
into action promptly, as a trained emergency captain should. “Call
Sheriff Harding on the ’phone, and tell him to rustle up a posse and
report here, quick! Then get the yard office and turn me out an
engine and a coach for Harding’s men. Hustle it!”
While he was closing his desk he made hurried explanation to
Sprague. “It’s probably the Scott Weber gang. They held up a train
on the main line over in Utah ten days ago. Come on upstairs with
me and we’ll get the facts.”
When the superintendent, accompanied by his broad-shouldered
guest, climbed the stair and entered the despatched office, fat,
round-faced Daniel Connolly was rattling the key at the train-sheet
table. He glanced up at the door opening.
“I’m mighty glad Tarbell found you,” he broke out, with a gasp of
relief. “I was afraid you’d gone home.” And then he recognized the
square-shouldered one: “How are you, Mr. Sprague? Glad to see you
again.”
Maxwell went quickly around to the wire-table.
“Whom have you got?” he asked.
“Allen, night operator at Corona. The train is there, and I’ve been
holding it to give you a chance to talk with McCarty, the conductor.”
“Tell me the story as you’ve got it; then I’ll tell you what to say to
Mac,” was the brisk command.
“It was in Cromarty Gulch, just at the elbow where the track
makes the ‘U’ curve. Cruger’s on the pilot-engine, and Jenkins is
running the train puller. Cruger saw somebody throwing a red light
at him. They stopped, and four of the hold-ups climbed on the
engines and made them cut off the postal- and express-cars and pull
on around the curve. Then a bunch of ’em broke in the end door of
the express-car and scragged little Johnny Galt, the messenger.
While they were doing that, another bunch went through the train
and held up the passengers. After they’d gone through Galt’s car
and taken what they wanted, they made Cruger and Jenkins couple
up again and go on.”
“What did they take?” Maxwell asked.
“Some little money and jewelry from the passengers, McCarty
says; not very much.”
“But from the express-car?”
The fat despatcher made a queer face and wiped the sweat from
his forehead.
“That’s the part of it that’s hard to believe. Galt was carrying
considerable money, but they didn’t try to blow his safe. They—they
smashed up a coffin and took the dead man out of it.”
“What!” ejaculated the superintendent; “Murtrie’s body?”
“I don’t know who it was—Mac didn’t say. But that’s what they
did. When the boys got together and pulled Galt out from under the
express stuff where they’d buried him, they found the coffin open
and the body gone.”
Sprague had been listening intently.
“This seems to be something worth while, Maxwell,” he cut in.
“How much time do we have to waste here?”
“Just a minute. Go on, Connolly.”
“That’s all,” said the fat despatcher. “The train’s at Corona now,
and they’ve put Johnny Galt off; and—and the coffin. Mac’s asking
for orders.”
“Give them their orders and let them go, and then clear for my
special. I’ve sent for Harding and a posse, and we’ll chase out after
this thing while the trail is warm. You’ll go along, won’t you, Calvin?”
turning to the stop-over guest.
The man from Washington laughed genially.
 “You couldn’t scare me off with a fire-hose—not until I have seen
this little mystery of yours cleared up. Let’s be doing.”
Five minutes farther along the two-car special train had been
made up and was clanking out over the switches in the eastern yard.
As the last of the switch-lights were flicking past the windows, a big
bearded man came in from the car ahead and Maxwell introduced
him.
“Sprague, this is Sheriff Harding. Harding, shake hands with my
friend, Mr. Sprague, of the Department of Agriculture, Washington,
and then sit down and we’ll thrash this thing out. You’ve heard the
story?”
The sheriff nodded. “I’ve heard what Tarbell could tell me. He
says the biggest part of the haul was a dead man. Is that right?”
“It seems to be. The dead man is Murtrie, who was supposed to
be representing the New York owners of the Molly Baldwin mine.
The report goes that he died last night, and his body was put on the
train at Little Butte to be taken east to some little town in Kentucky.
What’s your guess?”
“I’d guess that the whole blamed outfit was locoed—plumb
locoed,” said Harding. “You couldn’t carve it out any other way, could
you?”
It was Sprague who broke in with a quiet suggestion. “Try once
more, Mr. Harding,” he said.
The big sheriff put his head in his hands and made the effort.
When he looked up again there was the light of a new discovery in
his eye.
“Say!” he exploded. “Murtrie’s the last of a string of five or six
‘watchers’ they’ve had up at that cussed hole-in-the-ground gold
mine—and he’s dead. By gravy! I believe they killed him!”
Maxwell’s smile was grim.
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