“I don’t like that,” Sprague repeated, thus proving that he had entirely missed Starbuck’s comment on the excitement. Then he sat up suddenly. “There’s a boy just coming down from your offices, Maxwell; it’s the night watchman’s boy, isn’t it? Run across and head him, Starbuck; I believe that’s a telegram he has in his hand.”
Starbuck swung himself over the railing and caught the lad before he could disappear in the street throngs.
“You were plumb right,” he said, when he came back to take his place on the porch. “He did have a message; it’s for Dick. Here you are.”
Maxwell tore the envelope across and held the telegram up to the ceiling light.
“Here’s news,” he announced. “It’s from our man at Angels. He says: ‘Jennings’s force disbanded, and most of it gone east on Limited. Been shipping teams and outfit all afternoon. Too busy to wire sooner.’” The superintendent crumpled the telegram and smote fist into palm. “Bully for you, Sprague!” he exulted. “You pushed the right button just right! Jennings couldn’t stand the pressure; he’s given up the job and quit!”
There was no answering enthusiasm on the part of the big man who rose suddenly out of his chair and reached for the telegram. Quite the contrary, the hand which took the crumpled bit of paper was trembling a little.
“Dick,” he began, in his deepest chest tone, “you hike over to the despatcher’s office on the dead run and have Connolly clear for that special train. Don’t lose a minute! Starbuck, it’s up to you to find Smith, Tarbell, Williams, Colonel Baldwin, and two or three more good men whom you can trust—trust absolutely, mind you. Herd your crowd at the station in the quickest possible time; and you, Maxwell, make it your first business to tell the agent at Angels that there is a special train coming over the road. Don’t tell him its destination; just say it will leave Brewster, going east, in a few minutes. Don’t slip up on that—it may mean a dozen human lives! Get busy, both of you!”
After he was left alone, Sprague shouldered a path through the crowd in the lobby and had himself lifted to his rooms. When he came down a few minutes later he had changed his business clothes for the field rig which he wore on his soil-collecting expeditions. He had scarcely worked his way through the throng to the comparative freedom of the porch when Maxwell came hurrying across from the railroad building.
“Bad luck,” said the superintendent, with brittle emphasis. “There’s a freight-train off the steel half-way between Corona and Timanyoni, this side of the canyon, and the track is blocked.”
“And we can’t get by? There is nothing on the other side of the wreck that you could order down to meet us at the block?”