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FOUR DAYS AFTER THE TUNNEL EXPLOSION, JOSEPH VAN DORN caught up with the fast-ood Hennessy in the Great Northern rail yard at Hennessyville The brand-new city on the outskirts of Spokane, Washington, near the Idaho border, reeked of fresh lu coal But it was already called the “Minneapolis of the Northwest” Van Dorn knew that Hennessy had built here as part of his plan to double the Southern Pacific’s trackage by absorbing the northern cross-continent routes

The founder of the illustrious Van Dorn Detective Agency was a large, balding, well-dressed man in his forties who looked e of the underworld He appeared convivial, with a strong Rohtly tempered by a hint of Irish melancholy in his eyes, and splendid red burnsides that descended to an even more splendid red beard As he approached Hennessy’s special, the sound of ragtiranized the lively, yearning ,” and the hter Lillian was nearby The cantankerous president of the Southern Pacific Railroad was a mite easier to handle when she was around

He paused on the platfor a rush fro the mayor of Spokane out the door “Get off my train! Hennessyville will never be annexed into your incorporated city I will not have my rail yard on Spokane’s tax rolls!”

To Van Dorn, he snapped, “Took your ti here”

Van Dorn returned Hennessy’s brusqueness with a war white teeth blazed in his nest of red whiskers as he enveloped the so, and you were all over the ood, if a little splenetic How is the beauteous Lillian?” he asked, as Hennessy ushered him aboard

“Still more trouble than a carload of Eye-talians”

“Here she is, now! My,lady, I haven’t seen you since-”

“Since New York, when father hired you to return me to Miss Porter’s School?”

“No,” Van Dorn corrected “I believe the last ti a suffragette parade that got out of hand”

“Lillian!” said Hennessy “I want notes of thistyped up and attached to a contract to hire the Van Dorn Agency”

The uished by a steady gaze that was suddenly all business “The contract is ready to be signed, Father”

“Joe, I assume you know about these attacks”

“I understand,” Van Dorn said noncommittally, “that horrific accidents bedevil the Southern Pacific’s construction of an express line through the Cascades You’ve had workers ”

“They can’t all be accidents” Hennessy retorted sternly “So your outfit to hunt down the saboteurs, whether anarchists, foreigners, or strikers Shoot ‘e ’em, do what you have to do, but stop them dead”