"No; let him stay in his bed," said the big man's voice. "He ain't sizable enough to make trouble. He couldn't live to go two miles to the nearest house for help."
"All right," said the strange voice. "Now, Mr. Price, we don't aim to bust your safe. If you was a polite gentleman you'd just skip over and open her for us. However, we've got the little implements here, and we'll have her open in less than an hour fair an' easy. Bill, you keep these folks quiet till we whistle for you."
Rufus heard two men go down stairs. Then he heard them stamping through the snow toward the grain-elevator. There was silence for five minutes or so, and then he heard the "bink! bink! bink!" of hammers falling on steel wedges. Rufus suddenly wondered if he couldn't call help in a way the robbers hadn't thought of. He stealthily got out of bed and put on his coat, trousers, and thick woollen stockings. His heart fluttered and jumped so hard that he was afraid he'd lose it as he crept inch by inch to the stairs that led down to the ticket and telegraph office. How glad he was when at last he stole in there as silently as a ghost! How glad he was that his father had encouraged him to learn how to telegraph! He wasn't a fine operator yet, but he thought he could manage to telegraph something useful. Very slowly he pulled out the plug in the switchboard that cut in the instrument on the telegraph line. He threw over a little brass lever so that the noisy "sounder" was cut off from the "relay" instrument. He screwed the points of the relay down so fine that the instrument ticked no louder than a watch. He tightened up the key, too. From upstairs he could hear the gruff voice of the big robber as he made jokes at the expense of his victims. Rufus knew that the night train-despatcher at Springfield was always at the wire, so he telegraphed,
"Sg—Sg—Wn!"
That meant, "Springfield, Winona is calling you!"
In a moment the relay ticked out, "Ay—ay—Sg." That meant that the despatcher heard the call. Then Rufus, his fingers stiff from the cold and clumsy with fright, bravely ticked this message:
"3 robrs hv held us up. 2 are brkg opn safe in elevator, and 1 is guardg our ppl. Pls send help qk. Do you 13?"
This meant: "Three robbers have held us up. Two are breaking open the safe in the elevator, and one is guarding our people. Please send help quickly. Do you understand!"
The despatcher gave a quick "Ay, ay!" closed his key, and rushed out into the railroad yard. Within two minutes a locomotive was running westward toward Winona, eighteen miles away. Besides the engineer and fireman, there were four freight brakemen in the cab. Each one had a rifle. The engineer kept the throttle wide open until he was within a mile of Winona. Then he shut off steam.
"Her headway'll carry her a long way," he remarked to his companions, "and it's all down grade from here."