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“Sixty years ago, a group of pioneer fa themselves the Donner Party atteon train They were heading for San Francisco, but early snow blocked the pass they had chosen through the Sierra Nevada The Donner Party was trapped all winter They ran out of food Those who did not starve to death survived by eating the bodies of those who died”

“What the devil do cannibalistic pioneers have to do with my railroad?”

Isaac Bell grinned “Today, thanks to your railroad, if you get hungry in the Donner Pass it’s only a four-hour train ride to San Francisco’s excellent restaurants”

Osgood Hennessy’s stern face did not allow for much difference between scowls and smiles, but he did concede to Joseph Van Dorn, “You win, Joe Go ahead, Bell Speak your piece”

Bell indicated the map “In the past three weeks, you’ve had suspicious derail, here at Roseville and at Dunsmuir, and the tunnel collapse, which prompted you to call on Mr Van Dorn”

“You’re not tellingI don’t already know,” Hennessy snapped “Four track layers and a locoineer dead Ten off the job with broken liht days”

“And one railway police detective crushed to death in the pioneer tunnel”

“What? Oh yes I forgot One of my cinder dicks”

“His name was Clarke Aloysius Clarke His friends called him Wish”

“We knew the ency Crackerjack detective But he had his troubles”

Bell looked each person in the face, and in a clear voice spoke the highest compliment paid in the West “Wish Clarke was a man to ride the river with”

Then he said to Hennessy, “I stopped in hobo jungles on my way here Outside Crescent City on the Siskiyou line”-he pointed on the ht wind of a radical or an anarchist the hobos call the Wrecker”

“A radical! Just like I said”

“The hobos know little about hiain Froleaned so far, heagitator, a ht train south from Crescent City”

“Toward Eureka!” Hennessy broke in “Fro and Weed and onto the Cascades Cutoff Like I’ve been saying all along Labor radicals, foreigners, anarchists Did this agitator confess his crime?”