Ralph called over the wire and repeated.
“Something has shut out Tipton,” he reported.
“Wires down or cut,” observed Glidden. “Try Maddox.”
Ralph did so.
“Maddox not open,” he said. His mind ran over the situation. He recalled a night like this when he and Fireman Fogg had run alone a battered locomotive over the same stretch of road on a Special for President Grant of the Great Northern. It had been a hairbreadth experience, and he wondered if No. 83 would get through.
One o’clock--two o’clock. The young dispatcher and his first trick man found it hard to endure the irksome monotony of those two anxious hours. It was like a tensioned cord breaking when at last the welcome call from Fairview came over the wires.
“83,” the message ticked out, “crippled; six feet of snow ahead, and will have to lay over. Send orders.”
“She’s got through safe, that’s a consolation,” said Glidden, with a vast sigh of satisfaction.
Ralph simply clicked an “O. K.” It had been arranged that at Fairview the conductor would wire for instructions. These had been purposely withheld for secrecy’s sake. A transfer of two pay safes was due at the next station and Ralph waited, knowing that as soon as he could leave his train the conductor would send a personal message.
Suddenly the instrument began to click again.