The two men at the stove stared at one another. "How did you hear your call?" asked the despatcher. Again their ears were on edge.
And Rucker answered, "I always come down once in the night to put coal on the fire."
"Another illusion destroyed," smiled Morris Blood. "Hang him, I'll promote him, anyway, for attending to his fire."
"But you couldn't do that again in a thousand years, Mr. Blood," ventured a young and enthusiastic operator who had helped to lay out poor Bud Cawkins.
The mountain man looked at him coldly. "I sha'n't want to do that again in a thousand years. In the railroad life it always comes different, every time. Go to your key."
"I'm glad we got that particular train out of trouble," he added, turning to Glover when they were alone.
"What train?"
"That Special 833 is the Brock special. You didn't know it? We've been looking for them from the coast for two days."