"Do you face a deadline?" asked Bell.

Hennessy looked sharply at Joseph Van Dorn. "Joe, can I assume that confidences are as safe with your detectives as they are with my attorneys?"

"Safer," said Van Dorn.

"There is a deadline," Hennessy admitted to Bell.

"Imposed by your bankers?"

"Not those devils. Mother Nature. Old Man Winter is coming, and when he gets to the Cascades that's it for railroad construction 'til Spring. I've got the best credit in the railroad business, but if I don't connect the Cascades Cutoff to the Cascade Canyon Bridge before winter shuts me down even my credit will dry up. Between us, Mr. Bell, if this expansion stalls, I will lose any chance of completing the Cascades Cutoff the day after the first snowstorm."

Joseph Van Dorn said, "Rest easy, Osgood. We'll stop him."

Hennessy was not soothed. He shook the blueprint as if to throttle it. "If these saboteurs stop me, it'll take twenty years before anyone can tackle the Cascades Cutoff again. It's the last hurdle impeding progress in the West, and I'm the last man alive with the guts to clear it."

Isaac Bell did not doubt that the old man loved his railroad. Nor did he forget the outrage in his own heart at the prospect of more innocent people killed and injured by the Wrecker. The innocent were sacred. But foremost in Bell's mind at this moment was his memory of Wish Clarke stepping in his casual, offhanded way in front of a knife intended for Bell. He said, "I promise I will stop him."

Hennessy stared at him for a long time, taking his measure. Slowly, he settled into an armchair. "I'm relieved, Mr. Bell, having a top hand of your caliber."

When Hennessy looked to his daughter for agreement, he noticed that she was appraising the wealthy and well-connected detective like a new race car she would ask him to buy for her next birthday. "Son?" he asked. "Is there a Mrs. Bell?"

Bell had already noticed that the lovely young woman was appraising him. Flattering, tempting too, but he did not take it personally. It was an easy guess why. He was surely the first man she had seen whom her father could not bully. But between her fascination and her father's sudden interest in seeing her suitably married off, the moment was overdue for this particular gentleman to make his intentions clear.

"I am engaged to be married," he answered.

"Engaged, eh? Where is she?"

"She lives in San Francisco."

"How did she make out in the earthquake?"

"She lost her home," Bell replied cryptically, the memory still fresh of their first night together ending abruptly when the shock hurled their bed across the room and Marion's piano had fallen through the front wall into the street.

"Marion stayed on, caring for orphans. Now that most are settled, she has taken a position at a newspaper."

"Have you set a wedding date?" Hennessy asked.

"Soon," said Bell.