CHAPTER XXIII.
BLACK'S TRUMP CARD "You scoundrel---you unhung imitation of Satan himself!" gasped Reade, great beads of perspiration standing out on his face.
"Oho! We're fools, are we ?" sneered Black "We're people whom you can beat with your cheap little tricks about a different signature for each station on the line, are we?
For that was why the conductor refused the false order at Brewster's.

He has a code of signatures for train orders---a different signature to be used for messages at each station ?" Black's keen mind had solved the reason for the conductor's refusal to hold his train on a siding.

The conductor _had_ been supplied with a code list of signatures---a different one for each station along the line.
"Now, you know," mocked Black, enjoying every line of anxiety written on Tom Reade's face, "that we have you knocked silly.
You know, now, that your train can't get through by tonight---probably not even by tomorrow night.

You realize at last---eh ?---that you've lost your train and your charter---your railroad ?" "I wasn't thinking of the train, or of the road," Tom groaned.
"What I'm thinking of is the train, traveling at high speed, running into that blown-out place.

The train will be ditched and the crew killed.