The fireman's watch hung on a hook alongside and the hands showed twenty-five minutes past midnight. It was standard time both here and in Toronto; so that would be the time at the Recorder office also—12.25 a.m. They would be well into the rush of the night's work by now. The boys would be in from assignments and pounding out "copy" in the city room. The wires would be warming up and the "flimsy" arriving at the telegraph editor's desk in bunches, and old man Jeffreys would be reaching in the left bottom drawer of his scarred old desk for his little package of bread and cheese with an apple or a banana to top it off; he always ate that twenty-five minutes after midnight, just before the linotype men and the rest of the composing-room staff, who ate at the all-night restaurant around the corner, straggled back to their work.
Cristy began to go over the things she must do and to arrange them in the order she must do them. The very first thing would be the messages to McAllister and Brennan; there must be no delay in getting the police into action. If they could surprise their quarry over at Waring's house on the Island—catch them in the middle of it—it would provide a dramatic climax to the sensational story. She could trust her editor not to overlook any such opportunity and her eyes sparkled as she pictured the uproar that would follow those messages in the Recorder office. The old place would be buzzing and the whole staff on the jump like a bunch of excited kids!
Impatiently she peered out ahead, looked for lights down the track, glanced continually at the hands of the watch. She ran hastily over the strong features of the sensation, marshalling her facts, getting the general scheme of the story into her head in proper newspaper style and planning a strong "lead."
She became so engrossed in this that not until a vibrant shudder passed through the engine did she notice. The engineer was leaning out the window on his side of the cab, one hand on a lever. She threw a quick glance out the narrow window in front of her and saw that they were bowling down a straight stretch of track and that far ahead in the darkness were little specks of light.
A station! It must be the station at last!
Anxiously she watched the far-away dots arrange themselves slowly into switch lights beside the track. The larger lights on the right—those would be station windows. Another light, a red one—the order board was out against them and the train would have to stop!
She cried out in her excitement and satisfaction. She felt like opening the narrow window, rushing out along the running-board to the front of the engine and cheering!
They were beginning to slow up now. A man came out and stood on the platform, some papers in his hand. She could see him quite plainly in his shirtsleeves in the glare of the powerful headlight. That must be the night operator—the Mecca of all her hopes.
The hands of the fireman's watch indicated 12.30.
They rolled in beside the platform and the long string of freight cars bumped, groaned, squeaked and stopped. A lantern came bobbing along the tops of the cars from the rear. The conductor dropped off the caboose and jogged forward beside his train.