The longer I gazed down the barrel of that revolver the bigger it grew, and it looked to me as if it was loaded with buck-shot to the muzzle. When it had grown to about the size of a gatling gun (and it didn't take long to do it), I concluded that "discretion was the better part of valor," and reached up and turned my red-light. Meanwhile the door opened again, and three more men came in. They were masked and the minute I saw them I knew they were going to make an attempt to hold up the Overland Flyer. Often this train carried large amounts of bullion and currency east, and I supposed they had heard that there was a shipment to go through that night.
I was standing with my back to the table, and just then I heard the despatcher say that the Flyer was thirty minutes late from the west. I put my hands quietly behind me and let the right rest on the key. I then carefully opened the key and had just begun to speak to the despatcher when one of the men suspected me and said to the leader, "Bill, watch that little cuss. He's monkeying with the instrument and may give them warning."
I stopped, closed the key, and was trying to look unconcerned, when "Bill," said that "to stop all chances of further trouble," they would bind and gag me. Thereupon two of the men tied my hands in front of me, bound my legs securely, and thrust a villainously dirty gag in my mouth. When this was done, "Bill" said, "Throw him across those blamed instruments so they will keep quiet." They flung me upon the table, face downwards, so that the relay was just under my stomach, and of course my weight against the armature of the relay stopped the clicking of the sounder. As luck would have it, my left hand was in such a position that it just touched the key, and I found I could move the hand slightly. So I opened the key and pretended to be struggling quite a little. The leader came over and giving me a good stiff punch in the ribs, said with an oath, "You keep quiet or we'll find a way to make you." I became passive again, and then when the men were engaged in earnest conversation, I began to telegraph softly to the despatcher. The relay being shut off by my weight, there was no noise from the sounder, and I sent so slowly that the key was noiseless. Of course I did not know on whom I was breaking in, but I kept on. I told the exact state of affairs, and asked him to either tell the Flyer not to heed my red-light and go through, or, better still, to send an armed posse from Kingsbury, twelve miles up the road. I repeated the message twice, so that he would be sure to hear it, and then trusted to luck.
The cords and gags were beginning to hurt, and my anxiety was very great. The minutes dragged slowly by, and I thought that hour would never end; but it did end at last, and all of a sudden I heard the long calliope whistle of the engine on the Flyer as she came down the grade. This was followed by two short blasts, that showed she had seen my red-light and was going to stop. "My God!" I thought. "Has she been warned?" So soon as the train whistled the men went out leaving me helpless on the table. I heard the whistle of the air brakes and knew the train must be slowing up. My anxiety was intense. Presently I heard her stop at the tank, and then, in about a second, I listened to the liveliest fusillade that I had ever heard in my life. It was sweet music to my ears I can tell you, for it indicated to me, what proved to be a fact, that a posse were on board and that the robbers were foiled. One of them was shot, and two were captured, but "Bill," the leader, escaped. They had their horses hitched to the telegraph poles, and as "Bill" went running by the office I heard him say, "I'll fix that d—d operator, anyhow." Then, BANG! crash, went the glass in the window, and a bullet buried itself in the table, not two inches from my head. I was not exactly killed, but I was frightened so badly, and the strain had been so great, that when the trainmen came in to release me, I at once lost consciousness. When I came to, I was surrounded by a sympathetic crowd of passengers and trainmen, and a doctor, who happened to be on the train, was pouring something down my throat that soon made me feel better.
As soon as I had recovered myself sufficiently, I telegraphed the despatcher what had happened, and the chief, who in the meantime had been sent for, told me to close up my office, and come east on the flyer, to report for duty in the morning in his office as copy operator.
That is how I won my promotion.