“‘Between nine and ten,’ he said,” muttered Antrim, quoting the misplaced message. Then to Brant: “Maybe there is time enough. Can you run a typewriter, Brant?”
“Yes—after a fashion.”
“Then let me give you a letter. I couldn’t write it with a pen to save my life.”
Brant jerked the cover from the machine and thrust in a sheet of paper. “Go ahead.”
Antrim handed him the unfinished letter.
“Just copy that, if you will, and I’ll tell you what to add.”
“But, man alive! have we got to sit here and fool with red tape when every minute may be worth a dozen lives?”
“It isn’t so bad as all that,” said Antrim soberly enough. “The train can’t get past Lone Pine without orders for this division. But I’m a ruined man if Disbrow doesn’t get that letter before Lone Pine calls him up. Don’t you see?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Then I’ll explain. The general manager is on that train, and he wired me this morning for regardless orders over this division. I answered that they would be given—and they haven’t been. If there is a balk at Lone Pine, every operator on the line will know that some one has fallen down, and you can trust the general manager to find out who that some one is. And when he finds out, I’m done.”