“Yes, I think so,” said the boy, and the dispatcher, nodding, took up his lunch-basket and left the office.
The weight of responsibility weighed on the boy for a time, and it was with no little nervousness that he transmitted his first order; but this feeling gradually wore away and was replaced by one of confidence. After all, there was no cause to worry. The position of every train was marked there on the sheet before him; there was no excuse for mistake. And yet, as he thought of those mighty engines rushing through the night with their precious burdens, obedient to his orders, his pulses quickened with a sense of power.
Fortunately business was light and the trains were running on time, so he really had little to do; and when, at last, his relief came at seven o’clock, he arose from the desk with a sense of work well done, without mistake or accident. For two weeks, night after night, he sat at that desk, ordering the traffic over that hundred miles of track, and with every night he felt his confidence increase. Problems arose, of course, but his training had been of the very best; he never lost his head or his nerve, and when, at last, the dispatcher came back from his vacation, Allan returned to the operator’s desk conscious that he had “made good,” and that he would be strong enough to climb the ladder of promotion for some rounds, at least.
He had been kept at the office rather later than usual the evening after he had resumed his work as operator, for there happened to be a sudden rush of business to be attended to, and it was after six o’clock when he finally put on his coat and started home to supper. As he entered the dining-room, he saw that supper had not yet been served, and from the kitchen he heard Jack’s voice raised excitedly.
“That you, Allan?” called Jack. “Come on out here.”
The boy entered the kitchen and saw Jack standing near the lamp, the evening paper in his hand.
“Did ye see this?” he asked, holding out the paper, and pointing to some flaring headlines on the first page. They read:
DARING ESCAPE!
Four Convicts Scale the Wall of the
State Prison!
GUARD WHO TRIED TO STOP THEM
SERIOUSLY INJURED!