"Why didn't you take it at Pee-Wee?" asked the old man, holding his temper beautifully.
The driver lifted his torch and stared almost rudely into the face of the official in front of him. "Why, Mr. Skidum," said he slowly, "I didn't hear no signal."
The superintendent was blocked.
As he turned and followed the conductor into the telegraph office, the driver, gloating in his high tower of a cab, watched him.
"He's an old darling," said he to the fire-boy, "and I'm ready to die for him any day; but I can't stop for him in the face of bulletin 13. Thirty days for the first offence, and then fire," he quoted, as he opened the throttle and steamed away, four minutes late.
The old man drummed on the counter-top in the telegraph office, and then picked up a pad and wrote a wire to his assistant:—
"Cancel general order No. 13."
The night man slipped out in the dawn and called the day man who was the station master, explaining that the old man was at the station and evidently unhappy.
The agent came on unusually early and endeavored to arrange for a light engine to carry the superintendent back to the Junction.
At the end of three hours they had a freight engine that had left its train on a siding thirty miles away and rolled up to rescue the stranded superintendent.