The spectator., 1921-05-27
CHAPTER Xl-Continued.

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 "Good Lord" exclaimed the little millionaire; you don't have to tell me that! If we can't stop 'em. Uncle Dunton will have plenty of good req sons for cleaning us all out, lock, stock, and barrel! l was talking with Carter, in the claim office, this morn ing. Our loss and damage account for the past month Is something frightfull"
 "It is," said the boss gravely. And then: Upton. we're not altogether as bright as we might be. Has it never occurred to you that we are having too much bad luck to warrant us in charging 1t all up to the chapter of accidentsT
 Mir. Van Britt blew his cheeks out until the stubby, cropped mustache bristled like porcupine quills.
 "So you've been getting your point CT, too, have you?" he threw In.
 Mir. Norcross didn't answer the ques- tion directly.
 Put Tarbell on the job, and if he needs help. let him pick his own men,. he directed. we want to know why that boulder tumbled down ahead of Number Seventeen. and 1 want to see Tarbell's report on it. Keep at It night and day, Upton. The infection Is getting into the rank and file and it's spreading like sickness. If 1t becomes psychological. we shall have all the trouble we need.'
 T know." nodded the superinten- dent" ''I went through a siege of that kind on the Great Southwestern. one winter. It was horrible. Men who had been running trains year in and year out, and never knowing that they had any nerves. went to pieces 1T you'd snap your fingers at them"
 That's It," said the boss. we don't want to fall into that ditch. Things are quite bad enough, as they are"
 This ended 1t for the time. The Petrolite Canyon wreck was picked up, the track was cleared, and once more our trains were moving on time. But anybody could see that the entire Short Line had case of nerves Kirgan, Kirgan the cold-blooded, showed 1t one afternoon when l went over to his office to return a bunch of blue-prints sent in for the boss ap- proval The big master-mechanic had a round-house foreman "on the carpet and was marrying him like the dickens for letting an engine go out with one of her truck safety chains hanging loose.
 Ever since we had gone together on the rescue run to Timber Mountain, Mart and l had been sort of chummy, and after the foreman had gone away with his foot in his hand, Joshed Kirgan little about the way he had hammered the round-house man.
 Bad medicine" told him. Its worrying the bosses, too. Whats do- ing 1t, Mart?"
 Maybe you can tell" he growled. "It's hoodoo-that's what it is. Seven engines in the shops in the last nine days, and three more that haven't been fished out-a the ditch yet. wish MT. van DIltt u uIe tne Wuoie JuHps outfit"
 It.didn't seem as though firing was needed so much as Q- dose of nerve tonic of some sort. Tarbell was work ing hard on the problem, quietly, and without making any talk about 1t. and Kirgan was giving him all the men he asked for from the shops; quick-witted. fellows who were up in all the me chanicah details. and who made bet ter spotters than outsiders would be- cause they knew the road and the ropes. But 1t was no use. l saw some of Tarbelrs reports. and they didn't show any crookedness. It seemed to be just bad luck--one land- slide after another of 1t.
 Meanwhile, New York had walked up again. President Dunton had been off the job somewhere. I guess. but now he WAS back, and the things he wired to the boss were enough to make your hair stand on end. looked every day to see Mir. Norcross pitch the whole shooting-match into the fire and quit, cold.
 He'd never taken anything like Mir. Dunton's abuse from anybody before, and he couldn't seem to get hardened to 1t. But he was loyal to Mir. Chad wick; and. of course. he knew that Mir. Dunton's hot wires were meant