twenty minutes past three o'clock
The mystery of the delay was solved at a point half-way between the two stations . A broken flange had derailed three cars of the freight , and the block was impassable . Armed with the general manager 's mandatory wire , Kent ran forward to the engine of the freight train and was shortly on his way again . But in the twenty-mile run to Gaston more time was lost by the lumbering freight locomotive , and it was twenty minutes past three o'clock when the county seat came in sight and Kent began to oscillate between two sharp-pointed horns of a cruel dilemma . By dropping off at the street-crossing nearest the Court House , he might still be in time to get a hearing with such documentary backing as he had been able to secure at the capital . By going on to the station he could pick up the Boston wire which , while it was not strictly evidence , might create a strong presumption in his favor ; but in this case he would probably be too late to use it . So he counted the rail-lengths , watch in hand , with a curse to the count for his witlessness in failing to have Loring repeat the Boston message to him during the long wait at Juniberg ; and when the time for the decision arrived he signaled the engineer to slow down , jumped from the step at the nearest crossing and hastened up the street toward the Court House .