Guilford was a heavy man for his weight, and he waddled back to the others, waving his arms as a signal for them to board the car.
Kent saw the vice-president of the Overland Short Line shake hands with Bucks and take his leave, and was so intent upon watching the tableau of departure that he failed to notice the small boy in Western Union blue who was trying to thrust a telegram, damp from the copying rolls, into his hand.
"It's a rush, sir," said the boy, panting from his quick dash across the track platforms.
It was Ormsby's message from Breezeland; and while Kent was trying to grasp the tremendous import of it, M'Tosh was giving Callahan the signal to go. Kent sprang past the gate-keeper and gave the square of damp paper to the train-master.
"My God! read that!" he gasped, with a dry sob of excitement. "It was our chance—one chance in a million—and we've lost it!"
M'Tosh was a man for a crisis. The red tail-lights of the private-car special were yet within a sprinter's dash of the trackhead, but the train-master lost no time chasing a ten-wheel flyer with "Red" Callahan at the throttle.
"Up to my office!" he shouted; and ten seconds later Kent was leaning breathless over the desk in the despatcher's room while M'Tosh called Durgan over the yard limits telephone.
"Is that you, Durgan?" he asked, when the reply came. Then: "Drop the board on the mail, quick! and send somebody to tell Tischer to side-track, leaving the main line Western Division clear. Got that?"
The answer was evidently prompt and satisfactory, since he began again almost in the same breath.
"Now go out yourself and flag Callahan before he reaches the limits. Tell him the time-card's changed and he is to run west with the special to Megilp as first section of the mail—no stops, or Tischer will run him down. Leg it! He's half-way down the yard, now!"