Donaldson caught his first call. Clear as a bell it was. And Donaldson had time to flag the freight.
But the particular night I’m speaking of, my side partner appeared a bit uneasy, which was enough to set my think-tank working. He’d drop down alongside the key for a moment; then he’d wander over to the windows, trying to pierce the blizzard.
He was a big man with a hearty laugh and a mouth full of teeth and a whiskered chin full of determination. His red hair, as brilliant as the glow in his corn-cob pipe, usually stood on end. But his eyes were gray and pleasant; that is, generally they were. Yet I’ve noticed ’em hard as rocks, drilling into you with a gleam in ’em like you see jumping across a spark-gap. Right now they were anxious.
Perhaps that wasn’t so strange, either, for all day long, from the length of the division, had come bunches of trouble. A snowshed out here; a freight ditched there; hell to pay everywhere.
Wires were down, too. Not a word could we get below Hastings or north of the junction. Toward night every siding was overflowing with deadheaded rolling stock. You see, the big grade—it’s four and a half per cent in places—handicaps us because even our best oil-burners won’t haul much tonnage on it in a blizzard. They can’t make steam.
And this particular frolic of the elements promised to beat anything that had struck us in twenty years. At 10 P.M. the chief dispatcher ordered the line cleared for the night, barring No. 77 southbound, which was to make her run as usual. I reckon you’ve heard of that train—the Cumberland Limited, all steel and solid Pullman? She was to follow a snow-plow, and headquarters gossip filtering to us hinted she might find the blizzard a bit of a teaser.
Suddenly Big Ben turned on me. “Jim,” said he, “I don’t like it. What’s the old man thinking of to let 77 through? Have you heard what she’s carrying to-night?”
I allowed I hadn’t.
“Well, there’s something like one hundred thousand in gold in her express-car. Government consignment. I got it straight. What a chance for a hold-up! Remember that cut below Hastings?” He shook his massive head dubiously. “It’s been done before.”
As if to emphasize his words, the storm swooped down with renewed energy until the tower swayed like a lighthouse. Great guns! how the wind shrieked at us. How the snow thudded against the windows. And when you hear snow, you know there’s a double-headed gale behind it.