“Some unexpected business,” answered Myles, evasively, as they jumped on the car, and, hanging a lantern in the forward end, began to turn the cranks that set it in motion. Myles’ thoughts were still too unpleasant and too full of his recent mortification for him to care to talk, and he found relief in the active exertion necessary to propel the car. It furnished an ample excuse for silence, but his companion wondered at the tremendous energy with which he toiled.
They rolled quickly out of the railroad yard, and in a few minutes were beyond the limits of the town. Faster and faster they flew over the ringing lines of steel. Now they roared like a train of cars through a stretch of dark forest, then they skirted the base of a tall mountain, and again skimmed the edge of some deep valley lying black and mysterious far beneath them. They sped round sharp curves, rattled noisily over bridges that spanned swift rushing streams, rumbled over the hollow arches of culverts, and every now and then plunged through the breathless blackness of echoing tunnels. As they were on a down grade their speed increased with each turn of the cranks, until they seemed fairly to fly, and the wind of the their own progress nearly took away their breath as it whistled keenly past them.
Occasionally they caught the gleam of a charcoal-burner’s fire, sometimes close beside the track and again far up on a mountain-side or glowing like an angry eye from the depths of a ragged ravine; but these vanished almost as soon as seen. Once they were stopped by a red light swung furiously across the track but a short distance ahead of them. Somebody was waving the danger signal, and their iron-shod brake was applied so vigorously that a train of sparks flew hissing from it. As they came to a stand-still two rough-looking fellows stepped within the circle of light thrown by their lantern and demanded to know who they were and what was their business. They were members of a guard posted by the strikers to see that no one left or entered Mountain Junction during the night.
“Hello, Ned! is that you?” said the operator, recognizing one of them. “We are all right. You know me, don’t you? I’m only going to Station No. 1 to send a dispatch for this Phonograph reporter. We’ve got a permit from——” Here the operator lowered his voice so that Myles did not catch the name he mentioned. It was evidently satisfactory, for the man stepped aside, saying:
“Go on, then. If he says so it must be all right.”
So on they went, speeding through the darkness and waking the sleepy echoes of the night until the ten miles had been left behind, and the light of Station No. 1 shone out clear and bright, only a hundred yards away.
Here another swinging red lantern warned them to stop. As they pulled up in front of the little station and sprang from their car breathless, and wringing wet with perspiration, they were surrounded by a curious crowd of railroad men who seemed to be making this their head-quarters. The operator answered all their questions satisfactorily, and, at the mention of the magical name which Myles still failed to catch, they readily fell back, making way for the new-comers to enter the station. Here an operator of but limited experience was slowly sending and receiving short dispatches concerning the progress of the great strike. The change in the sound of the electric notes as the skilled operator who accompanied Myles sat down to the instrument was wonderful. The sluggish wire seemed to spring into wide-awake activity, and the sharp clicking of the key as the nimble fingers rattled off thirty-five words to the minute was like the continuous buzz of some great insect. At the end of an hour the column-long message had been sent and received without a break.
As the operator leaned back in his chair after this feat he remarked:
“That fellow at the other end is a lightning taker. I don’t know him, and he must be a new hand; but he’s a daisy, and I guess I’ll send him a 73 any how.”[1]
“I wish you would also send this to the Phonograph for me,” said Myles, handing the operator a slip of paper on which was written: