He must have slept very soundly; the three-legged stool was tipped over; he remembered vaguely that he had picked himself off the floor to answer that call.
Drops of perspiration stood upon Phin's forehead when he returned to the waiting-room after that Cowaree fellow and the others had exhausted their eloquence.
He began a weary march around the room; it would not do to sit down again, even upon the three-legged stool. Did any one ever know, who had not tried it, what a terrible job it was to keep awake all night?
Another call! An order from the despatches to hold No. 39 express for orders, and run downward trains against it. That was a responsibility, for failure might involve serious accidents. There was no danger that he would fall asleep now!
And yet, after a long hour had dragged by, there was a heaviness upon his limbs, an oppression upon his brain. He forced himself to walk, but he remembered that he had read that sentries sometimes walked while fast asleep. Something must be done, and Phineas forced his wits to work; they were the wits that had floored the schoolmaster and helped to invent the skunk-trap.
He twined some cotton twine across the track at such a height that the train would break it. He fastened it to the platform railing, then drew it through the key-hole of the door; he tied a piece of zinc upon the end, and his coffee-can and the poker, and all these articles he placed upon the top of the stove. There were two trains to pass before the No. 39 express; there would certainly be a clatter that would awaken him to report the first one.
He lay down upon the lounge; he was conscious of a blissful, irresistible fall into a gulf of sleep, and then— There was no clatter, but a wild scream of pain and fright from the track. Phin sprang to his feet, his heart beating wildly; he had slept, and the accident he had dreaded had come! He rushed to the track. A man was scrambling to his feet, begging for mercy, and piteously demanding a temperance pledge; it was old Hosea Giddings, of Crow Hill, who never missed a night at the Junction saloon. He had tripped upon the string and broken it. It was evident that no train had passed, and Phin felt a thrill of relief. He stood back and let the old man scramble up unaided; it was well that he should find snares for his feet in the neighborhood of the saloon.
It grew still again, deadly still, after Hosea Giddings and his vows were out of hearing, and Phin felt that sleep was again settling down upon him. He found a ball of very stout linen twine—that was not a bad scheme if the string were strong enough; but this time he tied the end to his own wrist. A pull upon that would be more certain to awaken him than any noise. Two trains before the No. 39 express; after they had passed, a string would not serve, for that must be stopped with the red lantern.
He lay down again upon the lounge; the last thing that he remembered was feeling for the string about his wrist, to be sure that it was tight.
He was hurled violently across the floor; he felt an almost unendurable pain; there was a crash, as if heaven and earth came together, and then—was it a long time or only a moment afterwards that he saw Mary Jane's face bending over him? She had put water upon his face, and something redder than water was trickling from his wrist.