“Oh, nobody will get hurt,” declared Grizzly lightly. “What’s the matter with you? Haven’t you got any nerve? I said there was a thousand apiece in this, didn’t I?”
“I know you did.”
“So, don’t weaken about the knees when I give the word, but do just as I tell you. This affair to-night is a mere flyspeck to what’s coming along in a week.”
“Suppose--suppose we’re found out?” suggested Mason.
“We get out, isn’t that all? And we get out with good friends to take care of us, don’t we?”
“I suppose that’s so,” admitted Mason, but he shifted about in his seat as if he was a good deal disturbed.
Grizzly glanced again at the clock. Then he returned to his instrument. In a minute or two his fingers worked the key. Ralph watched and listened with all his might. What the operator did was to notify the dispatcher at Wellsville that he might go off duty, signing headquarters. Before he did this he spoke a few quick words that Ralph did not catch. Mason had selected some tools from his bag, and at once went nimbly aloft among the cable wires.
Ralph heard Mason fussing among the wires. He could only surmise what the two men were up to. The way he figured it out was that Mason had cut the wires running from the north branch through the relay into headquarters. He had thus completely blocked all messages from or to the north branch.
Mason came back to the operating room looking flustered and nervous.
“Nothing open north?” inquired Grizzly.