Lying on the floor in a heavy, leaden sleep, was Bryson. Crouching in a corner, with lurid eyes, physical strength exhausted, but raving in wild delirium, was Doc Bortree.
The telephone receiver was smashed, and the transmitter lay torn loose, wires and all, on the floor. Other parts of the tower equipment were in rare disorder. The west levers were set in all kinds of erratic and impracticable shapes.
It took the two railroad men fully half an hour to restore order from the chaos in the tower and along the tracks. It took them double that time to arouse Bryson, and to get Bortree into a state of partial coherency. They sent messengers to Bortree's home. They listened to Bryson's confused story. Then, putting this and that together, they finally got the truth of affairs. Doc Bortree, as Ralph knew, had been confined to his bed with a high fever for nearly a week. That was why, compelled to share two long shifts with Knight alone, Ralph happened to be on all-night duty at the present time.
It seemed that early in the evening, Bortree's sister had left her brother sleeping quietly. He appeared to be on the mend.
About ten o'clock the sick leverman must have had a relapse into delirium. Railroad service was his daily routine. His brain, running in that line, had suggested to him a whimsical and irrational course. This he had carried out with all the cunning of a real madman.
He had taken a bottle of cordial and had poured into it a sleeping potion. He had got into his clothes, left the room by opening a window, and, breasting the violent tempest, had made for and reached the limits tower.
Joe Bryson afterwards, in telling his story, said that the bedraggled appearance of Bortree was startling enough. His actions were quite lucid, however. All he noticed peculiar about his talk was the persistency and strange delight with which Bortree alluded to an order he expected to receive from the superintendent to take charge of the entire train dispatching service the next day.
When Bortree produced the bottle and told that it was a mild, pleasant wine the doctor had prescribed for him, Bryson indulged in a glass--"for companionship's sake." Then he remembered nothing further until awakened by the master mechanic and Jack Knight.
As soon as Bortree had disposed of his companion, he began his mad, riotous work.
All kinds of exaggerated ideas must have filled his mind. The reader has already seen how his crazy orders operated. His own work at the limits had ditched the midnight mail. His instructions to Ralph had sent the through freight crashing into the three freight empties at terminus.