Mr. Gannon, in his hip boots and mackintosh, was out in the snow and mud and up ahead in less than half a minute. The front of the locomotive was within thirty feet of the beginning of Williston cut. Tom Jackson had not stopped her a moment too soon. The heavy rain had washed down tons of earth and bowlders from the banks on to the track. The cut was blocked for fully thirty yards. What it was that whispered danger to the engineer he himself could not tell, but he had felt a sudden premonition that it was not safe to run through the cut.
Harry Sowerby saw the brakeman go back with a red lantern to protect the superintendent's special train from No. 576, the way freight that was due thirty minutes later. Suddenly the light flickered out. The wind and rain were too much for it. Harry knew that the same thing might happen just as the heavy freight train came along. It sickened him to think of what would follow. He thought of the train crew scattered on the snowy ground, bruised, perhaps killed.
The boy's head throbbed with excitement. If he only could do something to save the train! He had heard Ryan, the rear brakeman, say that there was not a danger torpedo on the car. He ran hopelessly up to the locomotive tender, knowing that there was none there either, but thinking that perhaps he might find something. And as he searched in the grimy tool-box he saw a long piece of heavy copper wire. There flashed across his mind the recollection of how Kline, the lineman, had once said it was possible for a "good man" to telegraph from any point on the line. Here was something worth trying.
"Bring a torch, Phil," he said to the fireman. Away he ran down the track, the coil of wire in one hand and a pair of pliers in the other. Throwing the coil around his neck and sticking the pliers in his pocket, Harry began to climb the nearest telegraph pole, while Phil helped him all he could with his free hand.
The young telegrapher soon threw his leg over the cross-arm, and braced himself securely. Fireman Phil held the flaring torch as high as he could, so that the light was only fifteen feet below the wire. The torch was so liberally soaked with petroleum that the wind could not blow it out.
Harry felt thankful when he saw, on the opposite end of the cross-arm from that which held the single telegraph line, a new glass insulator that had been placed for another line which was soon to be strung. That made his work easier. Using his pliers dexterously, he quickly spliced one end of the coil of copper wire around the wire of the telegraph line about six inches away from the cross-arm. He twined the copper wire around and around the live wire, so that it clung like a wild-grape vine tendril to a tree bough.
Then he took three turns of the copper wire around the empty insulator. Now was the trying moment. If he cut the line, would its sagging weight break his splice of copper wire? Yet if he was to carry out his plan he must separate the telegraph line into two parts, so that by bringing the ends together he could make the Morse signals. With a few nips of the pliers he cut the telegraph line, and although it fell away with a sharp snap, the copper-wire splice held it safely hung to the new insulator.
Now he was in possession of a rude but effective telegraph key. By touching the west end of the broken line, which was the jagged bit of wire that stuck up from the old insulator, against the east end of the line, which was the end of the copper wire leading back from the new insulator, he could complete the electric circuit. He tapped the end of the copper wire upon the line wire that stuck up. A tiny blue spark flashed out, and he felt sharp pains in his wet right hand as the current shot through it. But what mattered the pain? Because the current shocked him so, he felt sure that the line was "O K." Now he began tapping again. He let the wires barely touch to make dots, and held them together an instant to make dashes. He began to call up the station at Woodside, where No. 576 was due to pass within the next ten minutes. Then he held the wire ends together to receive an answer. He soon could feel the stinging, burning current bite the dots and dashes into his hand like this:
"— — — — — —— —— —— — —."
Now he telegraphed this order: