Isaac Bell thought quickly. The Wrecker would see the smoke from the special's locomotive miles before he would see the train itself. Even if Bell stopped their train to block the main line, the Wrecker would smell a rat when his train stopped. Plenty of time to jump off. The terrain was gentler here south of the Cascade Range, less mountainous than up the line, and a man could disappear in the woods and hike his way out.

"How soon will that freight come through?"

"Less than an hour."

Bell leveled an imperious hand at Lillian's automobile.

"Unload that."

"But Miss Lillian--"

"Now!"

The train crew slid open the barn doors in the side of the baggage car, laid a ramp, and rolled the Packard down it and onto the buggy road beside the track. It was a tiny machine compared to Bell's Locomobile. Standing lightly on wide-spread airy wire wheels, the open car scarcely came up to his waist. A snug gray sheet-metal cowling over its motor formed a pointed snout. Behind the cowling was a steering wheel and a leather-backed bench seat, and little else. The cockpit was open. Below it, on either side of the chassis, bright copper tubes, arranged in seven horizontal rows, served as a radiator to cool the powerful four-cylinder motor.

"Strap a couple of gasoline cans on the back," Bell ordered, "and that spare wheel."

They quickly complied while Bell ran to his stateroom. He returned armed with a knife in his boot and his over-under two-shot derringer in the low crown of his wide-brimmed hat. Under his coat was a new pistol he had taken a shine to, a Belgian-made Browning No. 2 semiautomatic that an American gunsmith had modified to fire a .380 caliber cartridge. It was light, and quick to reload. What it lacked in stopping power it made up for with deadly accuracy.

Lillian Hennessy came running from her private car, tugging a silk robe over her nightdress, and Bell thought fleetingly that even the consequences of passing out from three bottles of champagne looked beautiful on her.

"What are you doing?"

"The Wrecker's up the line. I am going to intercept him."

"I'll drive you!" Eagerly, she jumped behind the steering wheel and called for the trainmen to crank her engine. Wide awake in an instant, eyes alight, she was ready for anything. But as the motor fired, Bell leashed all the power of his voice to shout, "Mrs. Comden!"

Emma Comden came running in a dressing gown, her dark hair in a long braid and her face pale at the urgency in his voice.

"Hold this!" he said.

Bell circled Lillian's slender waist in his long hands and lifted her out of the car.

"What are you doing?" she shouted. "Put me down!"

He thrust Lillian, kicking and shouting, into Mrs. Comden's arms. Both women went down in a flashing tangle of bare legs.

"I can help you!" Lillian shouted. "Aren't we friends?"

"I don't bring friends to gunfights."