From apparently just without came a low, ominous rumble, then a crash. Alex started to his feet and ran to the window. He could see nothing but fog, and hastily securing a lantern, went out onto the station platform.
As he closed the door there was a second terrific crash, from the darkness immediately opposite, and a rain of stones rattling against iron.
“The bank above the siding!” cried Alex, and springing to the tracks, he dashed across, and with an exclamation brought up before a mound of earth six feet high over the siding rails.
As he gazed Alex felt his heart tighten. The westbound Sunset Express was due to take the siding in less than half an hour, to await the Eastern Mail, and at once he saw that if the engineer misjudged the distance in the fog, and ran onto the siding at full speed, there would be a terrible calamity.
And suppose the cars were thrown onto the main line track, and the Mail crashed into them! And, apparently, he could not reach the despatcher, to give warning of her danger!
What could he do to stop them? Helplessly Alex looked at the lantern in his hand. Its light was smothered by the fog within ten feet of him.
Running back to the operating room he seized the key and once more sought to attract the attention of the despatcher. It was useless. The despatcher did not hear him. He sank back in his chair, sick with dread.
But he must attempt something! Determinedly he sprang to his feet. A lantern was useless. Then why not a fire? A big fire on the track? Hurrah! That was it! But—he gazed at the coal box, and thought of the rain soaked wood outside, and his heart sank. Then came remembrance of the big woodshed at the farm-house where he boarded, three hundred yards away, and in a moment he had recovered the lantern, and was out, and off through the darkness, running desperately.
On arriving at the house Alex found all in silence, and the family retired, but without a moment’s hesitation he threw himself at the front door, pounding upon it with his fists.
It seemed an age before a window was raised. “Mr. Moore,” he cried, “there has been a landslide in the cut at the station, and there is danger of the Sunset running into it. May I have wood from the shed to make a fire on the track to stop her?”