Though I still felt pretty dizzy and weak I started out to look about town. I found that the inside door of the bank safe was still tight shut, though the outer one was blown off. The building was wrecked and the drug store was not in much better shape. I could see that the bank had been afire, but that Joe had put it out with water from the well.
Outside the barn I found Dick and Ned and the pony the Indian had taken, with three of the gang’s horses which had been left behind, huddled together trying to keep out of the 215 snow, which was still coming down at a great rate and was being swirled about by the wind. I let them in, and they were all very glad to get some feed, as were likewise the cow and chickens. I found that the Indian had pried open the back door with a crowbar from among the blacksmith’s tools.
Night was already coming on and I was so tired and sleepy that I could scarce keep up. So I made Pike as comfortable as I could, and went to bed and slept like a log.
The first thing I knew in the morning was that the storm had turned into a raging blizzard. It was not yet very cold, but the snow was drifting as fast as it had any time during the winter. I found Pike more comfortable. I had hoped for the train, but the storm discouraged me. I began to wonder what I was going to do with him. That his leg was broken was certain, and I almost wished that I had let him go with the others.
It was Sunday, and the first thing I did after breakfast was to write my regular letter to my mother, telling her all that had happened the past week; and it was a good deal. Then I started out to take another look around 216 town. My sleep had done me a world of good, though I still felt stiff and lame.
It was impossible to do much in the storm, but I covered up the bank safe with some blankets, and nailed boards over some windows in other buildings which had been broken by the explosion. I finally turned up at the depot and went in to see about the fire.
As I opened the door I was astonished to hear the telegraph instrument clicking. I knew the line was down and could not make out what it meant. I understood no more about telegraphing than Kaiser, but in visiting Tom Carr during the fall I had learned to know the call for Track’s End, which always sounded to me like clicket-ty-click-click, clicket-ty, over and over again till Tom opened the switch and answered. Well, as I stood listening I heard this call for Track’s End, clicket-ty-click-click, clicket-ty. Then I saw that the line must have been repaired; but if this were so a train must have come nearly through; otherwise the repairmen could not have reached the break, which, I remembered, Tom said was just beyond Siding No. 15, fourteen miles east of Track’s End. 217
I went to the table and sat down and listened to the steady clicking, the same thing, nothing but the call. It gave me a good feeling even if I didn’t know where it came from. I could not understand why any other office should be calling Track’s End, as they must all know the station was closed for the winter. Then it came to me that a train must be on the way, and somebody thought it had got here.
Just to see if I could, I reached over, opened the switch and tried giving the Track’s End call myself. Of course I did it very slowly, with a long pause between each click; but I thought I would show the fellow at the other end that Track’s End wasn’t quite dead after all. Then I closed the switch, and instantly was surprised to hear the call repeated, but just as slowly and in the same way that I had given it. It came this way two or three times, then I gave it as best I could, then it came the same way once more.
After this there was a long pause, and then it began to click something else, very slowly, dot, dash, dash, dot, and so forth, with a long stop between each. I picked up a pencil and marked it down, slowly, just as it came. 218 Every two or three clicks there was a very long pause, and I would put down a monstrous big mark, thinking it might be the end of a letter; and when it stopped this is what I had, just as I wrote it down (I have the paper to this day), though it might as well have been Greek for all I knew of its meaning: