The governor planned it in a few curt sentences. Was there a weapon to be
had? Danforth, the private secretary, roused from his nap in the wicker
chair, was able to produce a serviceable revolver. Two minutes later, the
sleep still tingling in his nerves to augment another tingling less
pleasurable, the secretary had spanned the terrible gap separating the car
from the engine and was making his way over the coal, fluttering his
handkerchief in token of his peaceful intentions.

He was charged with a message to Callahan, mandatory in its first form,
and bribe-promising in its second; and he was covered from the forward
vestibule of the private car by the revolver in the hands of a resolute
and determined state executive.

"One of them's comin' ahead over the coal," warned James Shovel; and
Callahan found his hammer.

"Run ahead an' take a siding, is ut?" he shouted, glaring down on the
messenger. "I have me ordhers fr'm betther men than thim that sint you. Go
back an' tell thim so."

"You'll be paid if you do, and you'll be shot if you don't," yelled the
secretary, persuasively.

"Tell the boss he can't shoot two av us to wanst; an' the wan that's
left'll slap on the air," was Callahan's answer; and he slacked off a
little to bring the following train within easy striking distance.

Danforth went painfully and carefully back with this defiance, and while
he was bridging the nerve-trying gap, another station with the stop-board
down and red lights frantically swinging was passed with a roar and a