Upon his return to Prince Albert he was detailed to a big prairie stretch of country where there was little to do but wait. On the first day of August he was at Hymers when the Limited plunged down the embankment into Blind Indian River. The first word of it came over the wire from Bleak House Station a little before midnight, while he and the agent were playing cribbage. Pink-cheeked little Gunn, agent, operator, and one-third of the total population of Hymers, had lifted a peg to make a count when his hand stopped in mid-air, and with a gasping break in his voice he sprang to his feet.
The instrument on the little table near the window was clicking frantically. It was Billinger, at Bleak House, crying out for headquarters, clear lines, the right of way. The Transcontinental— engine, tender, baggage car, two coaches and a sleeper, had gone to the devil. Those, in his excitement, where his first words. From fifty to a hundred were dead. Gunn almost swore Billinger's next words to the line. It was not an accident! Human hands had torn up three sections of rail. The same human hands had rolled a two-ton boulder in the right of way. He did not know whether the express car—or what little remained of it— had been robbed or not.
From midnight until two o'clock the lines were hot. A wrecking train was on its way from the east, another from division headquarters to the west. Ceaselessly headquarters demanded new information, and bit by bit the terrible tragedy was told even as the men and women in it died and the few souls from the prairies around Bleak House Station fought to save lives. Then a new word crept in on the wires. It called for Philip Steele at Hymers.
It commanded him in the name of Inspector MacGregor of the Royal Mounted to reach Bleak House Station without delay. What he was to do when he arrived at the scene of the wreck was left to his own judgment. The wire from MacGregor aroused Philip from the stupor of horror into which he had fallen. Gunn's girlish face was as white as a sheet.
“I've got a jigger,” he said, “and you can take it. It's forty miles to Bleak House and you can make it in three hours. There won't be a train for six.”
Philip scribbled a few words for MacGregor and shoved them into Gunn's nervous hand. While the operator was sending them off he rolled a cigarette, lighted it, and buckled on his revolver belt. Then Gunn hurried him through the door and they lifted the velocipede on the track.
“Wire Billinger I'm coming,” called back Philip as Gunn started him off with a running shove.
Chapter XVI. A Lock Of Golden Hair
As the sun was rising in a burning August glare over the edge of the parched prairie, Philip saw ahead of him the unpainted board shanty that was called Bleak House Station, and a few moments later he saw a man run out into the middle of the track and stare down at him from under the shade of his hands. It was Billinger, his English-red face as white as he had left Gunn's, his shirt in rags, arms bare, and his tremendous blond mustaches crisped and seared by fire. Close to the station, fastened to posts, were two saddlehorses. A mile beyond these things a thin film of smoke clouded the sky. As the jigger stopped Philip jumped from his seat and held out a blistered hand. “I'm Steele—Philip Steele, of the Northwest Mounted.”