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The old man dropped his head in his hands “God in Heaven, where a?” He looked up angrily “Round up their ringleaders Clap a bunch in jail The rest’ll come around”

“May I suggest,” said Bell, “a more productive course?”

r />“No! I kno to crush a strike” He turned to Lillian, atching him intently “Get me Jethro Watt And wire the Governor I want troops here by ”

“Sir,” said Bell “I’ve just coripped with fear Watt’s police will, at best, provoke a riot and, at worst, cause vast numbers to drift away Troops will htened ht”

“What do you mean?”

“Bring in Jethro Watt Bring five hundred officers with hi the line Blanket it until it is apparent that you, not the Wrecker, control every inch of track between here and Tunnel 13”

“That’ll never work,” said Hennessy “Those agitators won’t buy it They just want to strike”

Lillian spoke up at last

“Try it, Father”

And so the old man did

Within a day, every uarded and every mile scoured for loose rails and buried explosives Just as had happened in Jersey City, where Van Dorn operatives had arrested various criminals swept up in the search for the Wrecker’s accoe, track crews discovered several weaknesses in the track and repaired them

Bell mounted a horse and rode the twenty-mile line He returned by locomotive, satisfied that this newest stretch of the cutoff had been transforerous in the West to the best uarded

THE WRECKER DROVE A trader’s wagon pulled by two strong mules It had a patched and faded canvas top stretched over seven hoops Under the canvas were pots and pans and woolen cloth, salt, a barrel of lard, another that held china dishes packed in straw Hidden under the trader’s cargo was an eight-foot-long, ten-by-twelve-inch freshly milled mountain hemlock railroad tie

The trader was dead, stripped naked and tossed off a hillside He was nearly as tall as the Wrecker, and his clothes fit the Wrecker reasonably well A hole bored the length of the squared timber was stuffed with dynamite

The Wrecker followed a buggy road that likely had started out as an Indian trail long before the railroad was built and a mule-deer track before then While steep and narrow, the road unerringly found the gentlest slopes in a land that was harsh Most of the remote settlements it touched upon were abandoned Those that weren‘t, he avoided Their hardscrabble residents on and wonder what had happened to its owner