Come out, my dear."
Shirley came out, dry-eyed, but white and trembling. The Colonel
placed his arm around her, and she hid her face on his shoulder and
shuddered. "There, there!" he soothed her affectionately. "It's all
over, my dear. All's well that ends well."
"The train," she cried in a choking voice. "Where is it?"
"In little pieces--down in Mad River." He laughed happily. "And the
logs weren't even mine! As for the trucks, they were a lot of ratty
antiques and only fit to haul Cardigan's logs. About a hundred yards
of roadbed ruined--that's the extent of my loss, for I'd charged off
the trucks to profit and loss two years ago."
"Bryce Cardigan," she sobbed. "I saw him--he was riding a top log on
the train. He--ah, God help him!"
The Colonel shook her with sudden ferocity. "Young Cardigan," he
cried sharply. "Riding the logs? Are you certain?"
She nodded, and her shoulders shook piteously.
"Then Bryce Cardigan is gone!" Pennington's pronouncement was solemn,
deadly with its flat finality. "No man could have rolled down into
Mad River with a trainload of logs and survived. The devil himself
couldn't." He heaved a great sigh, and added: "Well, that clears the
atmosphere considerably, although for all his faults, I regret, for
his father's sake, that this dreadful affair has happened.
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