"There is a long-distance telephone to the Crow Gulch saw-mill; have you tried that?" he barked at Tarbell.
The big young fellow who looked like a cow-boy—and had really been one, they said—glanced up and nodded: "The call's in," he responded. "'Central' says she can't raise anybody."
"What was Four's report from Bauxite?"
"Four hours and fifty-two minutes off time."
"That will bring them together somewhere in the hill curves this side of Sand Creek," the boss said to Mr. Van Britt; "just where there is the least chance of their seeing each other before they hit." Then to Tarbell: "Try Bauxite and find out if there is a pusher engine there that can be sent out to chase the 'Flyer'."
Tarbell nodded without breaking his monotonous repetition of the Crow Gulch call.
"I did that first," he put in. "There's an engine there, and they're getting her out. But it's a slim chance; the 'Flyer' has too good a start."
For the next three or four minutes the tension was something fierce. The boss and Mr. Van Britt hung over the train desk, and Tarbell kept up his insistent clatter at the key. I had an eye on Durgin. He was still hunched up in the record-man's chair, and to all appearances had gone stone-blind crazy. Yet I couldn't get rid of the idea that he was listening—listening as if all of his sealed-up senses had turned in to intensify the one of hearing.
Just about the time when the suspense had grown so keen that it seemed as if it couldn't be borne a second longer, Morris, who was sitting in at the office phone, called out sharply: "Long-distance says she has Crow Gulch lumber camp!"
Mr. Van Britt jumped to take the phone, and we got one side of the talk—our side—in shot-like sentences: