“Yes. And I’m not a doctor—not for forty years. But I’m the nearest thing to it in this shambles. Who are you?”
Banneker explained. “I’ll be back in five minutes,” he said and passed into the subdued and tremulous crowd.
On the outskirts loitered a lank, idle young man clad beyond the glories of Messrs. Sears-Roebuck’s highest-colored imaginings.
“Hurt?” asked Banneker.
“No,” said the youth.
“Can you run three miles?”
“I fancy so.”
“Will you take an urgent message to be wired from Manzanita?”
“Certainly,” said the youth with good-will.
Tearing a leaf from his pocket-ledger, Banneker scribbled a dispatch which is still preserved in the road’s archives as giving more vital information in fewer words than any other railroad document extant. He instructed the messenger where to find a substitute telegrapher.