electric-car line the minute he hit the ground, Durgan says. Does he
count?"

"No," said Kent; but it is always a mistake to under-rate an enemy's
caliber--even that of his small arms.




XXVIII


THE NIGHT OF ALARMS

If Editor Hildreth had said nothing in his evening edition about the
impending strike on the Trans-Western, it was not because public interest
was waning. For a fortnight the newspapers in the territory tributary to
the road had been full of strike talk, and Hildreth had said his say,
deprecating the threatened appeal to force as fearlessly as he condemned
the mismanagement which was provoking it.

But it was Kent who was responsible for the dearth of news on the eve of
the event. Early in the morning of the last day of the month he had sought
out the editor and begged him to close the columns of the _Evening Argus_
to strike news, no matter what should come in during the course of the
day.

"I can't go into the reasons as deeply now as I hope to a little later,"
he had said, his secretive habit holding good to the final fathom of the
slipping hawser of events. "But you must bear with me once more, and