Held for Orders: Being Stories of Railroad Life

by Frank H. Spearman

"A head-ender, eh?" croaked Benedict Morgan from the counter, and with a frightful oath. "A head-ender!"

"Shut up, you brute!" hissed Carhart. Duffy's hands were creeping queerly up the sides of his head.

"Sure," growled Benedict Morgan, loweringly, "sure. Shut up. Of course. Shut up."

Carhart was a quick man. He started for the wrecker, but Duffy, springing, stopped him. "For God's sake, keep cool, everybody," he exclaimed, piteously. There was no one else to talk, to give the orders. Bucks and Callahan both on the Special—maybe past order-giving now. Only Martin Duffy to take the double load and the double shame. He stared, dazed again, into the faces around as he held to the fiery surgeon. "Morgan," he added steadily, looking at the surly wrecker, "get up your crew, quick. Doubleday, make up all the coaches in the yard for an ambulance train. Get every doctor in town to go with you. Tracy, clear the line."

The Master Mechanic and Benedict Morgan clattered down stairs. Carhart, running to the telephone, told Central to summon every medical man in the Bend, and hurried out. Before he had covered a block, roundhouse callers, like flaws of wind before a storm, were scurrying the streets, and from the tower of the fire-house sounded the harsh clang of the emergency gong for the wreckers.

Caught where they could be caught, out of saloons, beds, poker joints, Salvation barracks, churches,—the men of the wrecking crew ran down the silent streets, waking now fast into life. Congregations were dispersed, hymns cut, prayers forgotten, bars deserted, hells emptied, barracks raided at that call, the emergency gong call, fell as a fire-bell, for the Mountain Division wrecking gang.

While the yard crews shot up and down the spurs switching coaches into the relief train, Benedict Morgan with solid volleys of oaths was organizing his men and filling them at the lunch counters with huge schooners of coffee. Carhart pushed again through the jam of men and up to the despatchers' office. Before and behind him crowded the local physicians with instrument bags and bandages. The ominous baggage deposited on the office floor, they sat down about the room or hovered around Carhart asking for details. Doubleday, tall and grim, came over from the roundhouse. Benedict Morgan stamped up from the yard—the Mountain Division was ready.

All three despatchers were in the room. John Mallers, the day man, stood near Tracy, who had relieved Giddings. The line was clear for the relief run. Elcho had been notified of the impending disaster, and at Tracy's elbow sat the Chief looking fixedly at the key—taking the bob of the sounder with his eye. A dozen men in the room were talking; but they spoke as men who speaking wait on the life of a fuse. Duffy, with suspense deepening into frenzy, pushed Tracy's hand from the key and, sliding into the chair, began once more to call his brother at Rat River.

"R, T—R, T—R, T—R, T—" clicked the River call. "R, T—R, T—R, T—Bob—Bob—Bob," spelled the sender. "Answer me, answer, answer. R, T—R, T—R, T—R, T—"

And Barnes Tracy edged away and leaned back to where the shadow hid his face. And John Mallers, turning from the pleading of the current, stared gloomily out of the window across the yard shimmering under the double relay of arc lights; and young Giddings, who couldn't stand it—just couldn't stand it—bending on his stool, shook with gulping sobs.