Page:Cy Warman--The express messenger and other tales of the rail.djvu/225

Rh her to utter a falsehood. He had himself nearly told an untruth, at the very beginning of the examination, when he declared that he had every reason to believe that she held the secret. At first she was inclined to be obstinate, but when he appealed to her sense of honor and urged her to clear up a mystery, which was really no mystery, according to his belief, and thus prevent the employees from growing superstitious and relying too much upon an unseen power to take care of trains, she saw the wisdom and justice of his argument and gave way.

The superintendent was happy. He had promised to have an answer for the President by the end of the year, and this was the last week but one. Miss Morgan's story was all the more timely because the President would arrive on the morrow, and the superintendent was anxious to convince him that the average occult expert, who makes a specialty of "seeing things nights," knew about as much of the future, or of things unknown, as the codfish out in the Atlantic.

There was a sound of singing bells, and the low squeak of iron sleigh shoes upon the white