BELL JUMPED TO THE ground and ran alongside the train to the front end. The engineer and fireman had dismounted from their locomotive and were standing on the ballast, rolling cigarettes. Bell showed them his Van Dorn identification, and ordered, "Get me as close to the wreck as you can."

"Sorry, Mr. Detective, I take my orders from the dispatcher."

Bell's derringer appeared in his hand suddenly. Two dark muzzles yawned at the engineer. "This is a matter of life and death, starting with yours," said Bell. He pointed at the cowcatcher on the front of the locomotive, and said, "Move this train to the wreck and don't stop until you hit debris!"

"You wouldn't shoot a man in cold blood," said the fireman.

"The hell he wouldn't," said the engineer, shifting his gaze nervously from the derringer to the expression on Isaac Bell's face. "Get up there and shovel coal."

The locomotive, a big 4-6-2, steamed six miles before a brakeman with a red flag stopped them where the tracks disappeared in a large hole in the ballast. Just beyond the hole, six Pullmans, a baggage car, and a tender lay on their sides. Bell dismounted from the locomotive and strode through the wreckage. "How many hurt?" he asked the railroad official who was pointed out to him as the wreck master.

"Thirty-five. Four seriously."

"Dead?"

"None. They were lucky. The bastard blew the rail a minute early. The engineer had time to reduce his speed."

"Strange," said Bell. "His attacks have always been so precisely timed."

"Well, this'll be his last. We got him."

"What? Where is he?"

"Sheriff caught him in Ogden. Lucky for him. Passengers tried to lynch him. He got away, but then one of them spotted him later, hiding in a stable."

Bell found a locomotive on the other side of the wreck to run him into Union Depot.

The jailhouse was situated in Ogden's mansard-roofed City Hall a block from the railroad station. Two top Van Dorn agents were there ahead of him, the older Weber-and-Fields duo of Mack Fulton and Wally Kisley. Neither was cracking jokes. In fact, both men looked glum.

"Where is he?" Bell demanded.

"It's not him," said Fulton wearily. He seemed exhausted, Bell thought, and for the first time he wondered if Mack should be considering retirement. Always lean, his face was shrunken as a cadaver's.

"Not who blew the train?"

"Oh, he blew the train all right," said Kisley, whose trademark three-piece checkerboard suit was caked with dust. Wally looked as tired as Mack but not ill. "Only he's not the Wrecker. Go ahead, you take a crack at him."

"You'll have a better chance of getting him to talk. He sure as hell won't admit a word to us."

"Why would he talk to me?"