Allan, examining the wound, saw that it was not a deep one.
“All right,” he said, wrapping his handkerchief about it. “I’ll wait for you at the office.”
Jack nodded and hastened away down the yards in the direction Hummel had taken. But search as he might, he found no trace of that worthy, who had dived in among a lot of box cars stored on the sidings, and made good his escape.
Allan, meanwhile, continued on to his office, and sat thoughtfully down before his desk. The incident of the evening, his own narrow escape, enlightened him as to the danger of the situation. Calm as it appeared on the surface, it was perilous enough underneath, like a vast bed of lava, apparently cool and firm, but ready, at any pin-prick, to burst forth into white-hot flame. He shivered a little at thought of the days to follow and the problems they would present.
But after a moment he shook such thoughts impatiently away. Time enough to cross a bridge when he came to it. Now there were other matters demanding his attention. For, as the night progressed, the load of sleet burdened the wires more and more heavily, until some gave way and the others sputtered and stuttered and sent operators and dispatchers alike to the verge of frenzy.
Nothing disorganizes a railroad more quickly than impeded or inefficient wires, for the reason that its operation depends wholly upon its telegraph system. To interfere with that means inevitably to interfere with traffic, to obstruct it is to obstruct traffic, and to stop it is to stop traffic, or to compel it, at best, to creep painfully along from station to station with one flagman walking in front of every train and another following it a hundred yards in the rear. It may be added that it was the telegraph which made modern railroading possible; and that it becomes impossible at the moment when the dispatcher at headquarters cannot, in some way, keep informed of the position of every train.
So to-night with the wires chattering unintelligible nonsense instead of the usual crisp orders and reports, operators and dispatchers were at their wits’ ends, traffic was delayed, the schedule abandoned and the only hope was that some way, somehow, they would get through the night without accident.
Allan stood for a moment at the door of the dispatchers’ office listening to the crazy instruments.
“I’ve only got one wire left,” announced the dispatcher in charge of the Parkersburg division, “and I might as well try to send a message over a piece of clothes line as over it. I haven’t any idea where that extra west is. It left Vigo half an hour ago, and hasn’t been seen since.”