“Now what?” she cried, bewildered.
“The wire’s dead!” Quigley exclaimed. Anxiously he glanced toward the storage batteries, fearing that water had damped them out. However, the boxes were high above the floor and still dry.
“What can be wrong?” Penny asked the operator.
“Anything can happen in a mess like this.”
Reaching across the table with his good hand, Quigley tested the wire by opening and closing the lifeless telegraph key.
“It’s completely out,” he declared with finality.
“Isn’t there anything we can do?”
Quigley got to his feet. “There’s just one chance. The wire may have grounded when the bridge was swept away. Then if it tore loose again we’d be out of service.”
“In that case we’re up against it.”
“Maybe not,” Quigley replied. He splashed across the room to the switchboard. “If that should happen to be the trouble, we can ground it here.”