Lefever, if there was a table in the room, could never be got to sit on a chair; and being rotund he sat preferably sidewise on the edge of the table. One of his small feet--his feet were encased in tight, high-heeled, ill-fitting horsemen's boots--usually rested on the floor, the other swung at the end of his stubby leg slowly in the air. This idiosyncrasy his companion, de Spain, had learned to tolerate.

News of the wreck at Smoky Creek reached Medicine Bend from Point of Rocks at five o'clock. Sinclair, in person, was overseeing the making up of his wrecking train, and the yard, usually quiet at that hour of the morning, was alive with the hurry of men and engines. In the trainmaster's room of the weather-beaten headquarters building, nicknamed by railroad men "The Wickiup," early comers--sleepy-faced, keen-eyed trainmen--lounged on the tables and in chairs discussing the reports from Point of Rocks, and among them crew-callers and messengers moved in and out.