THE YOUNG TRAIN DISPATCHER

The Works of

Burton E. Stevenson

The Boys’ Story of the Railroad Series

Other Works

THE PAGE COMPANY

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	The Boys’ Story of the Railroad Series THE YOUNG TRAIN DISPATCHER By BURTON E. STEVENSON Author of “The Young Section-Hand,” “The Holladay Case,” etc. ILLUSTRATED BY A. P. BUTTON Boston THE PAGE COMPANY Publishers

Copyright, 1907
By The Page Company
Entered at Stationers’ Hall, London
All rights reserved
Made in U. S. A.

First Impression, June, 1907
Second Impression, October, 1907
Third Impression, April, 1909
Fourth Impression, August, 1910
Fifth Impression, September, 1911
Sixth Impression, May, 1913
Seventh Impression, April, 1915
Eighth Impression, February, 1918
Ninth Impression, March, 1920
Tenth Impression, March, 1923
Eleventh Impression, May, 1926
Twelfth Impression, June, 1931

PRINTED BY C. H. SIMONDS COMPANY
BOSTON, MASS., U.S.A.

[Translation of Morse Code: in appreciation of their assistance and kindly interest]

[CONTENTS]

[LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS]

THE
YOUNG TRAIN DISPATCHER

[CHAPTER I]

THE NEW POSITION

Stretching from the Atlantic seaboard on the east to the Mississippi River on the west, lies the great P. & O. Railroad, comprising, all told, some four thousand miles of track. Look at it on the map and you will see how it twists and turns and sends off numberless little branches; for a railroad is like a river and always seeks the easiest path—the path, that is, where the grades are least and the passes in the mountains lowest.

Once upon a time, a Czar of Russia, asked by his ministers to indicate the route for a railroad from St. Petersburg to Moscow, placed a ruler on the map before him and drew a straight line between those cities, a line which his engineers were forced to follow; but that is the only road in the world constructed in so wasteful a fashion.

That portion of the P. & O. system which lies within the boundaries of the Buckeye State is known as the Ohio division, and the headquarters are at the little town of Wadsworth, which happens, by a fortunate chance of geographical position, to be almost exactly midway between the ends of the division. A hundred miles to the east is Parkersburg, where the road enters the State; a hundred miles to the southwest is Cincinnati, where it gathers itself for its flight across the prairies of Southern Indiana and Illinois; and it is from this central point that all trains are dispatched and all orders for the division issued.

Here, also, are the great division shops, where a thousand men work night and day to repair the damage caused by ever-recurring accidents and to make good the constant deterioration of cars and engines through ordinary wear and tear. It is here that the pay-roll for the division is made out; hither all complaints and inquiries are sent; and here all reports of business are prepared.

In a word, this is the brain. The miles and miles of track stretching east and west and south, branching here and there to tap some near-by territory, are merely so many tentacles, useful only for conveying food, in the shape of passengers and freight, to the great, insatiable maw. In fact, the system resembles nothing so much as a gigantic cuttle-fish. The resemblance is more than superficial, for, like the cuttle-fish, it possesses the faculty of "darting rapidly backward" when attacked, and is prone to eject great quantities of a “black, ink-like fluid,”—which is, indeed, ink itself—to confuse and baffle its pursuers.

The headquarters offices are on the second floor of a dingy, rectangular building, the lower floor of which serves as the station for the town. It is surrounded by broad cement walks, always gritty and black with cinders, and the atmosphere about it reeks with the fumes of gas and sulphur from the constantly passing engines. The air is full of soot, which settles gently and continually upon the passers-by; and there is a never-ceasing din of engines “popping off,” of whistles, bells, and the rumble and crash of cars as the fussy yard engines shunt them back and forth over the switches and kick them into this siding and that as the trains are made up. It is not a locality where any one, fond of quiet and cleanliness and pure air, would choose to linger, and yet, in all the town of Wadsworth, there is no busier place.

First of all, there are the passengers for the various trains, who, having no choice in the matter, hurry in and hurry out, or sit uncomfortably in the dingy waiting-rooms, growing gradually dingy themselves, and glancing at each other furtively, as though fearing to discern or to disclose a smut. Then, strange as it may seem, there are always a number of hangers-on about the place—idlers for whom the railroad seems to possess a curious and irresistible fascination, who spend hour after hour lounging on the platform, watching the trains arrive and depart—a phenomenon observable not at Wadsworth only, but throughout this broad land at every city, town, or hamlet through which a railroad passes.

Across one end of the building is the baggage-room, and at the other is the depot restaurant, dingy as the rest notwithstanding the valiant and unceasing efforts made to keep it clean. The sandwiches and pies and pallid cakes are protected from the contamination of the atmosphere by glass covers which are polished until they shine again; the counter, running the whole length of the room, is eroded by much scrubbing as stones sometimes are, and preserves a semblance of whiteness even amid these surroundings. Behind it against the wall stand bottles of olives, pickles, and various relishes and condiments, which have been there for years and years, and will be there always—for who has time for food of that sort at a railway restaurant? Indeed, it would seem that they must have been purchased, in the first place, for ornament rather than for use.

At one end of the counter is a glass case containing a few boxes of stogies and cheap cigars, and at intervals along its length rise polished nickel standards bearing fans at the top, which are set in motion by a mechanism wound up every morning like a clock; but the motion is so slow, the fans revolve with such calm and passionless deliberation, that they rather add to the drowsy atmosphere of the place, and the flies alight upon them and rub the jam from their whiskers and the molasses from their legs, and then go quietly to sleep without a thought of danger.

How often has this present writer sat before that counter in admiring contemplation of the presiding genius of the place as he sliced up a boiled ham for sandwiches. He was a master of the art; those slices were of more than paper thinness. It was his peculiar glory and distinction to be able to get more sandwiches out of a ham than any other mere mortal had ever been able to do, and he was proud of it as was Napoleon of the campaign of Austerlitz.

The greater part of the custom of the depot restaurant was derived from “transients;” from passengers, that is, who, unable to afford the extravagance of the diner, are compelled to bolt their food in the five minutes during which their train changes engines, and driven by necessity, must eat here or nowhere. And they usually got a meal of surprising goodness; so good, in fact, that there were and still are many men who willingly plough their way daily through smoke and cinders, and sit on the high, uncomfortable stools before the counter, in order to enjoy regularly the entertainment which the restaurant offers—a striking instance of the triumph of mind over environment.

These, then, are the activities which mark the lower floor of the building; those of the upper floor are much more varied and interesting, for it is there, as has been said, that the division offices are located. A constant stream of men pours up and down the long, steep flight of stairs which leads to them. Conductors and engineers must report there and register before they take out a train and as soon as they bring one in; trainmen of all grades climb the stair to see what orders have been posted on the bulletin-board and to compare their watches with the big, electrically adjusted clock which keeps the official time for the division.

Others ascend unwillingly, with downcast countenances, summoned for a session “on the carpet,” when trainmaster or superintendent is probing some accident, disobedience of orders, or dereliction of duty. Still others, in search of employment, are constantly seeking the same officials, standing nervously before them, cap in hand, and relating, more or less truthfully, the story of their last job and why they left it;—so that the procession up and down the stair never ceases.

The upper floor is not quite so dingy as the lower. It is newer, for one thing, its paint and varnish are fresher, and it is kept cleaner. But it is entirely inadequate to the needs of the business which is done there; for here are the offices of the division engineer, the division passenger and freight agents, the timekeeper, the division superintendent, the trainmaster—and dominating them all, the dispatchers’ office, whence come the orders which govern the movements of every train. Near by is a lounging-room for trainmen, where they can loiter and swap yarns, while waiting to be called for duty. It is a popular place, because if one only talks loud enough one can be overheard in the dispatchers’ office across the hall.

So the men gather there and express their opinions of the dispatchers at the top of the voice—opinions, which, however they may differ in minor details, are always the reverse of complimentary. For the dispatchers are the drivers; they crack the whip over the heads of the trainmen by means of terse and peremptory telegraphic orders, which there is no answering, and which no one dares disobey; and the driver, however well-meaning, is seldom popular with the driven.

Such is the station and division headquarters at Wadsworth: unworthy alike as the one and the other. The whole effect of the building is of an indescribable, sordid dinginess; it is a striking example of that type of railroad economy which forbids the expenditure of money for the comfort and convenience of its patrons and employees—a type which, happily, is fast passing away.

On a certain bright spring morning—bright, that is, until one passed beneath the cloud of smoke which hung perpetually above the yards at Wadsworth—a boy of about eighteen joined the procession which was toiling up the stair to the division offices, and, after hesitating an instant at the foot, as though to nerve himself for an ordeal which he dreaded, mounted resolutely step after step. As he pushed open the swinging-door at the top, the clamour of half a dozen telegraph instruments greeted his ears. He glanced through the open window of the dispatchers’ office as he passed it, pushed his way through a group of men gathered before the bulletin-board, and, after an instant’s hesitation, turned into an open doorway just beyond.

There were two men in the room, seated on either side of a great desk which stood between the windows looking down over the yards. They glanced up at the sound of his step, and one of them sprang to his feet with a quick exclamation of welcome.

“Why, how are you, Allan!” he cried, holding out his hand. “I’m mighty glad to see you. So you’re ready to report for duty, are you?”

“Yes, sir,” answered the boy, smiling into the genial gray eyes, and returning the warm handclasp, “I’m all right again.”

“You’re a little pale yet, and a little thin,” said the trainmaster, looking him over critically; “but that won’t last long. George,” he added, turning to his companion, “this is Allan West, who saved the pay-car from that gang of wreckers last Christmas Eve.”

“Is it?” and the chief-dispatcher held out his hand and shook the boy’s heartily. “I’m glad to know you. Mr. Schofield has told us the story of that night until we know it by heart. All the boys will be glad to meet you.”

The boy blushed with pleasure.

“Thank you,” he said.

“Allan’s to take a job here as office-boy,” added Mr. Schofield. “When will you be ready to go to work?”

“Right away, sir.”

“That’s good. I was hoping you’d say that, for there’s a lot of work piled up. The other boy was promoted just the other day, and I’ve been holding the place open. That will be your desk there in the corner, and your principal business for the present will be to see that each official here gets promptly the correspondence addressed to him. That basketful of letters yonder has to be sorted out and delivered. In this tray on my desk I put the messages I want delivered at once. Understand?”

“Yes, sir,” answered Allan, and immediately took possession of the pack of envelopes lying in the tray.

He sat down at his desk, with a little glow of pride that it was really his, and sorted the letters. Three were addressed to the master mechanic, three to the company’s freight agent, two to the yardmaster, and five or six more to other officials. As soon as he got them sorted, he put on his hat and started to deliver them.

The trainmaster watched him as he left the office, and then smiled across at the chief-dispatcher.

“Bright boy that,” he commented. “Did you notice—he didn’t ask a single question; just went ahead and did as he was told—and he didn’t have to be told twice, either.”

The chief dispatcher nodded.

“Yes,” he said; “he’ll be a valuable boy to have about.”

“He’s already proved his value to this road,” added Mr. Schofield, and turned back to his work.

No one familiar with Allan West’s history will dispute the justice of the remark. It was just a year before that the boy had secured a place on the road as section-hand—a year fraught with adventure, which had culminated in his saving the pay-car, carrying the men’s Christmas money, from falling into the hands of a gang of desperate wreckers. The lives of a dozen men would have been sacrificed had the attempt succeeded. That it did not succeed was due to the ready wit with which the boy had managed to defeat the plan laid by the wreckers, and to the sheer grit which had carried him through a situation of appalling danger. He had barely escaped with his life; he had spent slow weeks recovering from the all-but-fatal bullet-wound he had received there. It was during this period of convalescence, spent at the little cottage of Jack Welsh, the foreman under whom he had worked on section, that the trainmaster had come to him with the offer of a position in his office—a position not important in itself, but opening the way to promotion, whenever that promotion should be deserved. Allan had accepted the offer joyfully—how joyfully those who have read the story of his adventures in “The Young Section-Hand” will remember—and at last he was ready to begin his new duties, where yet other adventures awaited him.

[CHAPTER II]

A RESCUE

With the packet of envelopes in his hand, Allan descended the stair and came out upon the grimy platform. Just across the yards lay the low, dark, brick building which was the freight office, and he made his way toward it over the tangle of tracks and switches, where the freight-trains were being “made up” to be sent east or west. After some inquiry, he found the freight agent gazing ruefully at a barrel of oil which had just been smashed to pieces by a too vigorous freight-handler. Allan gave him the letters addressed to him and hurried away to deliver the others.

Farther down the yards was the office of the yardmaster, a little, square, frame building, standing like an island amid the ocean of tracks which surrounded it. Here was kept the record of every car which entered or left the yards—the road it belonged to, its number, whence it came, whither it went, by what train, at what hour. This dingy little building was one link in that great chain of offices which enables every road in the country to keep track of the cars it is using, to know where they are, what progress they are making, and what service they are performing.

Every one who has seen a freight-train has noticed that it is almost always composed of cars belonging to many different roads, and must have wondered how these cars were kept accounted for. Every road would prefer to use only its own cars, and to keep them on its own system, but this is impossible. A car of sugar, for instance, sent from New York to Denver, must pass over at least two different lines. It can go from New York to Chicago over the New York Central, and from Chicago to Denver over the Santa Fé. Now, if the car belonging to the New York Central in which the sugar was loaded at New York be stopped at Chicago, the sugar must be reloaded into another car belonging to the Santa Fé, a long and expensive process to which neither the shipper nor the road would agree.

To avoid this loading and unloading, freight in car-load lots is always sent through to its destination without change, no matter how many roads the car must traverse, and when it reaches its destination and is emptied, it is usually held until it can be loaded again before it is sent back whence it came. When the traffic is not evenly balanced,—when there is more freight, that is, being sent one way than another,—the “empties” must be hauled back, and as “empties” produce no revenue, this is a dead expense which cuts deeply into the earnings. The roads which use a car must pay the road which owns it a fee of fifty cents for every day they keep it in their possession, whether loaded or empty; hence the road holding it tries to keep it moving, and when business is slack and it is not needed, gets it back to its owner as quickly as possible. If it is damaged in an accident on a strange road, it must be repaired before it is returned to its owner; if it is totally destroyed, it must be paid for.

It is the duty of the conductor of every freight-train, as soon as he reaches a terminal, to mail to the superintendent of car service at headquarters, a report giving the initial and number of every car in his train, its contents, destination, and the hour of its departure from one terminal and arrival at another. These reports, as they come in from day to day, are entered in ledgers and enable the superintendent of car service to note the progress of every car, and to determine the per diem due its owner. These accounts are balanced every month.

The books at headquarters are always, of necessity, at least three days behind, since the conductors’ reports must come in from distant parts of the road; but reports so old as that are of small service in tracing a car, so it is the duty of the employees of the yardmaster’s office to keep a daily record of the movement of cars, which shall be up-to-date and instantly available. Every train which enters the yards is met by a yard-clerk, book in hand, who makes a note of the number and name of every car as it passes him. The men who do this gain an amazing facility, and as the cars rush past, jot down numbers and initials as unconcernedly as though they had all the time in the world at their disposal. Allan had observed this more than once, and had often wondered how it was possible for a man to write down accurately the number of a car which had flashed past so rapidly that he himself was not able to distinguish it.

There was a train coming in at the moment, and Allan paused to watch the accountant with his note-book; then he went on to the office to leave the two letters addressed to John Marney, the yardmaster, a genial Irishman with bronzed face and beard tinged with gray, who knew the yards and the intricacies of “making up” better than most people know the alphabet. Allan knew him well, for many an evening had he spent in the little shanty, where conductors and brakemen assembled, listening to tales of the road—tales grave and gay, of comedy and tragedy—yes, even of ghosts! If I stopped to tell a tenth of them, this book would never be. finished!

“How are ye, Allan?” the yardmaster greeted him, as he opened the door. “So ye’ve got a new job?”

“Yes, sir; official mail-carrier,” and he handed him the letters.

“Hum,” grunted Marney; “this road never was over-liberal. You’re beginnin’ at th’ bottom, fer sure!”

“Just where I ought to begin! I’ve got to learn the ropes before I can begin to climb.”

“Well, it won’t take ye long, my boy; I know that,” said Marney, his eyes twinkling. “You’ll soon begin t’ climb, all right; they can’t kape ye down!”

“I fully expect to be superintendent some day,” said Allan, laughing.

“Of course ye will!” cried the other. “I don’t doubt it—not fer a minute. Yes—an’ I’ll live t’ see it! I’ll be right here where I’ve allers been; an ye mustn’t fergit old Jack Marney, me boy.”

“I won’t,” Allan promised, still laughing. “I’ll always speak to you, if I happen to think of it.”

“Let me give you one piece of advice,” went on Marney, with sudden earnestness. "You’ll be knockin around these yards more or less now, all th’ time, an’ if ye want t’ live t’ be suprintindint, you’ve got t’ kape your eyes open. Now moind this: when you’re crossin’ th’ yards, niver think of anything but gittin’ acrost; niver step on a track without lookin’ both ways t’ see if anything’s comin; an’ if anything is comin’ an’ you’re at all doubtful of bein’ able t’ git acrost ahead of it at an ordinary walk, don’t try. Give it th’ right o’ way. I’ve been workin’ in these yards goin’ on forty year, an’ I’ve managed t’ kape all my arms an’ legs with me by allers rememberin’ that rule. Th’ boys used t’ laugh at me, but them that started in when I did are ayther sleepin’ in th’ cimitery, or limpin’ around on one leg, or eatin’ with one hand. A railroad yard is about th’ nearest approach to a human slaughter-house there is on this earth. Don’t you be one o’ th’ victims."

“I’ll certainly try not to,” Allan assured him, and went out with a livelier sense of the dangers of the yard than he had ever had before; and, indeed, the yardmaster had not overstated them, though the crushing and maiming and killing which went on there were due in no small degree to the carelessness and foolhardiness of the men, who grew familiar with danger and contemptuous of it from looking it every day in the face, and took chances which sooner or later ended in disaster.

The person Allan had next to find was the master-mechanic, whose office was a square, one-storied building behind the great shops which closed in the lower end of the yards. He knew the shops thoroughly, for he had been through them more than once under Jack Welsh’s guidance, and had spent many of his spare moments there, for there was a tremendous fascination about the intricate and mammoth machinery which filled them, almost human in its intelligence, and with which so many remarkable things were accomplished.

So on he went, past the great roundhouse where stood the mighty engines groomed ready for the race, or being rubbed down by the grimed and sweaty hostlers after a hundred-mile run; past the little shanty with “21” in big figures on its door—headquarters of Section Twenty-One, and receptacle for hand-car and tools,—the hand-car which he had pumped along the track so many times, the tools with which his hands had grown familiar. The door of the “long-shop” lay just beyond, and he entered it, for the shortest path to the master-mechanic’s office lay through the shops; and Allan knew that he would probably find the official he was seeking somewhere among them, inspecting some piece of machinery, or overseeing some important bit of work.

The “long-shop,” so named from its peculiar shape, very long and narrow, is devoted wholly to repairing and rebuilding engines. Such small complaints as leaking valves and broken springs and castings may be repaired in the roundhouse, as the family medicine-chest avails for minor ailments; but for more serious injuries the engines must be taken to the experts in the long shop, and placed on one of the operating-tables there, and taken apart and put together and made fit for service again. When the injuries are too severe—when, in other words, it would cost more to rebuild the engine than the engine is worth—it is shoved along a rusty track back of the shop into the cemetery called the “bone-yard,” and there eventually dismantled, knocked to pieces, and sold for “scrap.” That is the sordid fate, which, sooner or later, overtakes the proudest and swiftest empress of the rail.

In the long-shop, four or five engines are always jacked up undergoing repairs; each of them has a special gang of men attached to it, under a foreman whose sole business it is to see that that engine gets back into active service in the shortest possible time.

To the inexperienced eye, the shop was a perfect maze of machinery. Great cranes ran overhead, with chains and claws dangling; shafting whirred and belts rattled; along the walls were workbenches, variously equipped; at the farther end were a number of drills, and beyond them a great grindstone which whirred and whirred and threw out a shower of sparks incessantly, under the guidance of its presiding genius, a little, gray-haired man, whose duty it was to sharpen all the tools brought to him. There was a constant stream of men to and from the grindstone, which, in consequence, was a sort of centre for all the gossip of the shops. Once the grindstone had burst, and had carried the little man with it through the side of the shop, riding a great fragment much as Prince Feroze-shah rode his enchanted horse; and though there was no peg which he could turn to assure a safe landing, he did land safely, and next day superintended the installation of a new stone, from which the sparks were soon flying as merrily as ever.

And even if the visitor was not confused by this tangle of machinery, he was sure to be confounded by the noise, toward which every man in the shop contributed his quota. The noise!—it is difficult to give an adequate idea of that merciless and never-ceasing din. Chains clanked, drills squeaked, but over and above it all was the banging and hammering of the riveters, and, as a sort of undertone, the clangour from the boiler-shop, connected with the long-shop by an open arch. The work of the riveters never paused nor slackened, and the onlooker was struck with wonder and amazement that a human being could endure ten hours of such labour!

Allan, closing behind him the little door by which he had entered, looked around for the tall form of the master-mechanic. But that official was nowhere in sight, so the boy walked slowly on, glancing to right and left between the engines, anxious not to miss him. At last, near the farthest engine, he thought that he perceived him, and drew near. As he did so, he saw that an important operation was going forward. A boiler was being lowered to its place on its frame. A gang of men were guiding it into position, as the overhead crane slowly lowered it, manipulated by a lever in the hands of a young fellow whose eyes were glued upon the signalling hand which the foreman raised to him.

“Easy!” the foreman shouted, his voice all but inaudible in the din. “Easy!” and the boiler was lowered so slowly that its movement was scarcely perceptible.

“‘LOOK OUT!’ HE CRIED, AND SEIZING HIM BY THE ARM, DRAGGED HIM SHARPLY BACKWARDS.”

There was a pause, a quick intaking of breath, a straining of muscles—

“Now!” yelled the foreman, and with a quick movement the young fellow threw over the lever and let the boiler drop gently, exactly in place.

The men drew a deep breath of relief, and stood erect, hands on hips, straightening the strained muscles of their backs.

There was something marvellous in the ease and certainty with which the crane had handled the great weight, responsive to the pressure of a finger, and Allan ran his eyes admiringly along the heavy chains, up to the massive and perfectly balanced arm—

Then his heart gave a sudden leap of terror. He sprang forward toward the young fellow who stood leaning against the lever.

“Look out!” he cried, and seizing him by the arm, dragged him sharply backwards.

The next instant there was a resounding crash, which echoed above the din of the shop like a cannon-shot above the rattle of musketry, and a great block smashed the standing-board beside the lever to pieces.

[CHAPTER III]

A NEW FRIEND

The crash was followed by an instant’s silence, as every man dropped his work and stood with strained attention to see what had happened; then the young fellow whose arm Allan still held turned toward him with a quick gesture.

“Why,” he cried, “you—you saved my life!”

“Yes,” said Allan; “I saw the block coming. It was lucky I happened to be looking at it.”

“Lucky!” echoed the other, visibly shaken by his narrow escape, and he glanced at the splintered board where he had been standing. “I should say so! Imagine what I’d have looked like about this time, if you hadn’t dragged me out of the way!”

The other men rushed up, stared, exclaimed, and began to devise explanations of how the accident had occurred. No one could tell certainly, but it was pretty generally agreed that the sudden rebound from the strain, as the boiler fell into place, had in some way loosened the block, thrown it away from its tackle, and hurled it to the floor below.

But neither Allan nor his companion paid much attention to these explanations. For the moment, they were more interested in each other than in anything else. A sudden comradeship, born in the first glance they exchanged, had arisen between them; a mutual feeling that they would like to know each other—a prevision of friendship.

“My name is Anderson,” the boy was saying, his hand outstretched; “my first name is James—but my friends call me Jim.”

“And my name is Allan West,” responded Allan, clasping the proffered hand in a warm grip.

“Oho!” cried Jim, with a start of surprise, “so you’re Allan West! Well, I’ve always wanted to know you, but I never thought you’d introduce yourself like this!”

“Always wanted to know me?” repeated Allan in bewilderment. “How could that be?”

“Hero-worship, my boy!” explained Jim, grinning at Allan’s blush. “Do you suppose there’s a man on this road who hasn’t heard of your exploits? And to hero-worship there is now added a lively sense of gratitude, since you arrived just in time to save me from being converted into a grease-spot. But there—the rest will keep for another time. Where do you live?”

“At Jack Welsh’s house,” answered Allan; “just back of the yards yonder.”

“All right, my friend,” said Jim. “I’ll take the liberty of paying you a call before very long. I only hope you’ll be at home.”

“I surely will, if you’ll let me know when to look for you,” answered Allan, heartily. “But I’ve got some letters here for the master-mechanic—I mustn’t waste any more time.”

“Well!” said Jim, smiling, “I don’t think you’ve been exactly wasting your time—though of course there might be a difference of opinion about that. But there he comes now,” and he nodded toward the tall figure of the master-mechanic, who had heard of the accident and was hastening to investigate it.

Allan handed him his letters, which he thrust absently into his pocket, as he listened with bent head to the foreman’s account of the mishap. Allan did not wait to hear it, but, conscious that the errand was taking longer than it should, hurried on to deliver the other letters. This was accomplished in a very few minutes, and he was soon back again at his desk in the trainmaster’s office.

He spent the next half-hour in sorting the mail which had accumulated there. The trainmaster was busy dictating letters to his stenographer, wading through the mass of correspondence before him with a rapidity born of long experience. Allan never ceased to be astonished at the vast quantity of mail which poured in and out of the office—letters upon every conceivable subject connected with the operation of the road—reports of all sorts, inquiries, complaints, requisitions—all of which had to be carefully attended to if the business of the road was to move smoothly.

There was no end to it. Every train brought a big batch of correspondence, which it was his duty to receive, delivering at the same time to the baggage-master other packets addressed to employees at various points along the road. The road took care of its own mail in this manner, without asking the aid of Uncle Sam, and so escaped a charge for postage which would have made a serious hole in the earnings.

As soon as he had received the mail, Allan would hasten up-stairs to his desk to sort it. Always about him, echoing through the office, rose the clatter of the telegraph instruments. The trainmaster had one at his elbow, the chief-dispatcher another, and in the dispatchers’ office next door three or four more were constantly chattering. It reminded Allan of nothing so much as a chorus of blackbirds.

Often Mr. Schofield would pause in the midst of dictating a letter, open his key and engage in conversation with some one out on the line. And Allan realized that, after all, the pile of letters, huge as it was, represented only a small portion of the road’s business—that by far the greater part of it was transacted by wire. And he determined to master the secrets of telegraphy at the earliest possible moment. It was plainly to be seen that that way, and that way only, lay promotion.

He was still pondering this idea when, the day’s work over, he left the office and made his way toward the little house perched high on an embankment back of the yards, where he had lived ever since he had come to Wadsworth, a year before, in search of work. Big-hearted Jack Welsh had not only given him work, but had offered him a home—and a real home the boy found it. He had grown as dear to Mary Welsh’s heart as was her own little girl, Mamie, who had just attained the proud age of seven and was starting to school.

Allan found her now, waiting for him at the gate, and she escorted him proudly up the path and into the house.

“Well, an’ how d’ you like your new job?” Mary asked, as they sat down to supper.

“First rate,” Allan answered, and described in detail how he had spent the day.

Mary sniffed contemptuously when he had finished.

“I don’t call that sech a foine job,” she said. “Why, anybody could do that! A boy loike you deserves somethin’ better! An’ after what ye did fer th’ road, too!”

“But don’t you see,” Allan protested, “it isn’t so much the job itself, as the chance it gives me. I’m at the bottom of the ladder, it’s true, just as John Marney said; but there is a ladder, and a tall one, and if I stay at the bottom it’s my own fault.”

Jack nodded from across the table.

“Right you are,” he agreed. “And you’ll git ahead, never fear!”

“I’m going to try,” said Allan, and as soon as supper was over, he left the house and hastened uptown to the Public Library, where he asked for a book on telegraphy. He was just leaving the building with the coveted volume under his arm, when somebody clapped him on the shoulder, and he turned to find Jim Anderson at his side.

“I say,” cried the latter, “this is luck! Where you going?”

“I was just starting for home,” said Allan.

“I’ll go with you,” said Jim, promptly wheeling into step beside him and locking arms. “That is, if you don’t mind.”

“Mind!” cried Allan. “You know I’m glad to have you.”

“All right then,” said Jim, laughing. “That’s a great load off my mind. What’s that book you’re hugging so lovingly?”

“It’s a book on telegraphy,” and Allan showed him the title.

“Going to study it?”

“Yes; it didn’t take me long to find out that to amount to anything in the offices, one has to understand what all that chatter is about.”

“Right you are,” assented Jim, “but you’ll find it mighty hard work learning it from a book. It’ll be a good deal like learning to eat without any food to practise on. Have you got an instrument?”

“No. But of course I’ll get one.”

“Look here!” cried Jim, excitedly, struck by a sudden idea; "I have it! My brother Bob has two instruments stored away in the attic, batteries and everything. He’s the operator at Belpre now, and hasn’t any more use for them than a dog has for two tails. He’ll be glad to let us have them—glad to know that his lazy brother’s improving his spare time. Why can’t we rig up a line from your house to mine, and learn together? I’m pretty sure I can get some old wire down at the shops for almost nothing."

“That’s a great idea,” said Allan, admiringly; “if we can only carry it out. Where do you live? Is it very far?”

“Well, it’s quite a way; but I think we can manage it,” said Jim. “Suppose we look over the ground.”

“All right; only wait till I take this book home; I live just over yonder,” and a moment later they were at the gate. “Won’t you come in?”

“No, not this time; it’ll soon be dark and we’ll have to step out pretty lively.”

“I won’t be but a minute,” said Allan; and he wasn’t.

The two started up through the yards together, arm in arm. Jim’s house was, as he had said, “quite a way;” in fact, it was nearly a mile away, straight out the railroad-track. The house was a large brick, which stood very near the track, so near, indeed, that one corner had been cut away to permit the railroad to get by. The house had been built there nearly a century before by some wealthy farmer who had never heard of a railroad, and never dreamed that his property would one day be wanted for a right of way. But the day came when the railroad’s surveyors ran their line of stakes out from the town, along the river-bank, and up to the very door of the house itself. Condemnation proceedings were begun, the railroad secured the strip of land it wanted, and tore down the corner of the house which stood upon it. Whereupon the owner had walled up the opening and rented what remained of the building to such families as had nerves strong enough to ignore the roar and rumble of the trains, passing so near that they seemed hurling themselves through the very house itself.

Allan knew it well. He had passed it many and many a time while he was working on section. Indeed, it was this old house, when he learned its history, which made him realize for the first time, how young, how very modern the railroad was. Looking at it—at its massive track, its enduring roadway carried on great fills and mighty bridges—it seemed as old, as venerable, as the rugged hills which frowned down upon the valley; it seemed that it must have been there from the dawn of time, that it was the product of a force greater than any now known to man. And yet, really, it had been in existence scarce half a century. Many men were living who had seen the first rail laid, who had welcomed the arrival of the first train, and who still recalled with mellow and tender memory the days of the stage-coach—a mode of travel which, seen through the prism of the years, quite eclipsed this new fashion in romance, in comfort, and in good-fellowship.

This leviathan of steel and oak had grown like the beanstalk of Jack the Giant-killer—had spread and spread with incredible rapidity, until it reached, not from earth to heaven, but from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from the Lakes to the Gulf. It had brought San Francisco as near Boston as was Philadelphia in the days of the post rider. The four days’ stage journey from New York to Boston it covered in four hours. It had bound together into a concrete whole a country so vast that it equals in area the whole of Europe. And all this in little more than fifty years! Verily, there are modern labours of Hercules beside which the ancient ones seem mere child’s play!

“It’s a long stretch,” said Allan, looking back, through the gathering darkness, along the way that they had come. “It must be nearly a mile from here to the station.”

“Just about,” agreed Jim. “But I know Tom Mickey, the head lineman, pretty well, and I believe that I can get him to let us string our wire on the company’s poles. You see there’s three or four empty places on the cross-bars.”

“Oh, if we can do that,” said Allan, “it will be easy enough. Do you suppose he will let us?”

“I’m sure he will,” asserted Jim, with a good deal more positiveness than he really felt. “I’ll see Mickey in the morning—I’ll start early so I’ll have time before the whistle blows.”

“It seems to me that you’re doing it all, and that I’m not doing anything,” said Allan. “You must let me furnish the wire, anyway.”

“We’ll see about it,” said Jim. “Won’t you come in and see my mother?” he added, a little shyly.

“It’s pretty late,” said Allan. “Do you think I’d better?”

“Yes,” Jim replied. “She—she asked me to bring you, the first chance I had.”

“What for?” asked Allan, looking at him in surprise.

“No matter,” said Jim. “Come on,” and he opened the door and led him into the house.

They crossed a hall, and beside a table in the room beyond, Allan saw a woman seated. She was bending over some sewing in her lap, but she looked up at the sound of their entrance, and as the beams of the lamp fell upon her face, Allan saw how it lighted with love and happiness. And his heart gave a sudden throb of misery, for it was with that selfsame light in her eyes that his mother had welcomed him in the old days.

“Mother,” Jim was saying, “this is Allan West.”

She rose with a little cry of pleasure, letting her sewing fall unheeded to the floor, and held out her hands to him.

“So this is Allan West!” she said, in a voice soft and sweet and gentle. “This is the boy who saved my boy’s life!”

“It was nothing,” stammered Allan, turning crimson. “You see, I just happened to be there—”

“Nothing! I wonder if your mother would think it nothing if some one had saved you for her!”

A sudden mist came before Allan’s eyes; his lips trembled. And the woman before him, looking at him with loving, searching eyes, understood.

“Dear boy!” she said, and Allan found himself clasped close against her heart.

[CHAPTER IV]

THE YOUNG OPERATORS

Tom Mickey, chief lineman of the Ohio division of the P. & O., was, like most other human beings, subject to fluctuations of temper; only, with Tom, the extremes were much farther apart than usual. This was due, perhaps, to his mixed ancestry, for his father, a volatile Irishman, had married a phlegmatic German woman, proprietress of a railroad boarding-house, where Mickey found a safe and comfortable haven, with no more arduous work to do than to throw out occasionally some objectionable customer—and Mickey never considered that as work, but as recreation pure and simple. It was into this haven that Tom was born; there he grew up, alternating between the chronic high spirits of his father and the chronic low ones of his mother, and being, on the whole, healthy and well-fed and contented.

He had entered the service of the road while yet a mere boy, preferring to go to work rather than to school, which was the only alternative offered him; and he soon became an expert lineman, running up and down the poles as agile as a monkey and dancing out along the wires in a way that earned him more than one thrashing from his boss. Advancing years had tempered this foolhardiness, but had only served to accentuate the eccentric side of his character. He would be, one day, buoyant as a lark and obliging to an almost preposterous degree, and the next day, ready to snap off the head of anybody who addressed him, and barely civil to his superior officers.

These vagaries got him into hot water sometimes; and more than once he was “on the carpet” before the superintendent; but the greatest punishment ever meted out to him was a short vacation without pay. The road really could not afford to do without him, for Tom Mickey was the best lineman in the middle west. The tangle of wires which were an integral part of the system was to him an open book, to be read at a glance. Was any wire in trouble, he would mount his tricycle, a sort of miniature hand-car, spin out along the track, and in a surprisingly short time the trouble was remedied and the wire in working order. Tom was a jewel—in the rough, it is true, and not without a flaw—but a jewel just the same.

Luckily he was in one of his buoyant moods when Jim Anderson approached him on the morning following his conversation with Allan. Perhaps it is only right to say that this was not wholly luck, for Jim had reconnoitred thoroughly beforehand, and had not ventured to approach the lineman until assured by one of his helpers that he was in a genial humour.

Mickey was just loading up his tricycle with wire and insulators, preparatory to a trip out along the line, when Jim accosted him.

“Mr. Mickey,” he began, “another fellow named Allan West and myself want to rig up a little telegraph line from my house, out near the two bridges, to his, just back of the yards here, and we were wondering if you would let us string our wire on the company’s poles. There seem to be some vacant places, and of course we’d be mighty careful not to interfere with the other wires.”

He stopped, eying Mickey anxiously, but that worthy went on with his work as though he had not heard. He was puffing vigorously at a short clay pipe, and with a certain viciousness that made Jim wonder if he had approached him at the wrong moment, after all.

“What ’d ye say th’ other kid’s name is?” Mickey asked, after what seemed an age to the waiting boy.

“Allan West.”

“Is that th’ kid that Jack Welsh took t’ raise?”

“Yes; he lives with the Welshes. He worked in Welsh’s section-gang last year—took Dan Nolan’s place, you know.”

“Yes—I moind,” said Mickey, and went on smoking.

“How does it happen,” he demanded at last, “that he wants t’ learn t’ be a operator?”

“He’s got a job in th’ trainmaster’s office,” Jim explained. “He wants to learn the business.”

Mickey nodded, and knocking out his pipe against his boot-heel, deliberately filled it again, lighted it, and turned back to his work. Finally the tricycle was loaded and he pushed it out on the main line, ready for his trip. Jim followed him anxiously. He watched Mickey take his seat on the queer-looking machine, spit on his hands and grasp the lever; then he turned away disappointed. That line was not going to be possible, after all.

“Wait a minute,” called Mickey. “What th’ blazes are ye in such a hurry about? Do ye see that wire up there—th’ outside wire on th’ lowest cross-arm?”

“Yes,” nodded Jim, following the direction of the pointed finger.

“Well, that’s a dead one. We don’t use it no more, an’ I’m a-goin’ t’ take it down afore long. Ye kin use it, if ye want to, till then—mebbe it’ll be a month ’r two afore I git around to it.”

“Oh, thank you, Mr. Mickey,” cried Jim, his face beaming. “That will be fine. We’re a thousand times obliged—”

But the lineman cut him short with a curt nod, bent to the lever, and rattled away over the switches, out of the yards.

Jim hurried on to his place in the long-shop, getting there just as the whistle blew, and went about his accustomed work, but he kept an eye out for Allan, who, he knew, would be coming through before long in search of the master-mechanic. Allan, you may be sure, did not neglect the chance to say good-morning to his new friend, and listened with sparkling eyes while Jim poured out the story of his success with Mickey.

“And now,” he concluded, “all we’ll have to do is to run a wire into our house from the pole just in front of it, and then run another across the yards here to your house. We can do it in a couple of evenings.”

“And we’ll have it for a month, anyway,” added Allan.

“A month! We’ll have it as long as we want it. That was just Mickey’s way. He didn’t want to seem to be too tender-hearted. He’ll never touch the wire as long as we’re using it. I’ll get some old wire to make the connections with, and fix up the batteries.”

“All right,” agreed Allan, and went on his way.

The work of stringing the wires was begun that very evening; the batteries were overhauled and filled with dilute sulphuric acid, and the keys and sounders were tested and found to be in good shape. Three evenings later, one of the instruments was clicking on the table in Allan’s room, and Jim was bending over the other one in his room a mile away. Only, alas, the clicks were wild and irregular and without meaning.

But that did not last long. The book on telegraphy helped them; Allan himself, in the dispatchers’ office, had ample opportunity to observe how the system worked, and each of the boys copied out the Morse alphabet and set himself to learn it, practising on his key at every spare moment.

They found that telegraphic messages are transmitted by the use of three independent characters: short signals, or dots; long signals, or dashes; and dividing intervals or spaces between adjacent signals. Thus, a dot followed by a dash represents the letter a; a dash followed by three dots represents the letter b, while two dots, space, dot, represents the letter c, and so through the alphabet, which, according to the Morse code, is written like this: a, .-; b, -...; c, .. .; d, -..; e, .; and so on. Longer spaces or pauses divide the words, and longer dashes are also used in representing some of the letters.

The dots and dashes are made by means of a key which opens and closes the electric circuit, and causes the sounders of all the other instruments connected with the wire to vibrate responsively. When an operator desires to send the letter a, he depresses his key for a short interval, then releases it, and, after an interval equally brief, depresses it again, holding it down three times as long before releasing it. All the other sounders repeat this dot and dash, and the listening operators recognize the letter a. Every word must be spelled out in this manner, letter by letter.

As may well be believed, the boys found the sending and receiving of even the shortest words difficult and painful enough at first, but in a surprisingly short time certain combinations of sounds began to stand out, as it were, among their surroundings. The two combinations which first became familiar were - .... . and .- -. -.., representing respectively “the” and “and.” Following this, came the curious combination of sounds, ..—.., which represents the period, one of the most difficult the learner has to master. Other combinations followed, until most of the shorter words began to assume the same individuality when heard over the wire that they have when seen by the eye. It was no longer necessary to listen to them letter by letter; the ear grasped them as a whole, just as the eye grasps the written word without separating it into the letters which compose it.

But even then, Allan still found the clicking of the instruments in the office an unsolvable riddle. This was due largely to the system of abbreviation which railroad operators use, a sort of telegraphic shorthand incomprehensible to the ordinary operator; but the sending was in most cases so rapid that even if the words had been spelled out in full the boy would have had great difficulty in following them. Train-dispatchers, it may be said in passing, have no time to waste; their messages are terse and to the point, and are sent like a flash. And woe to the operator who has to break in with the . .. . .. which means “repeat!” The dispatchers themselves, of course, are capable of taking the hottest ball or the wildest that ever came over the wires. Indeed, most of them can and do work the key with one hand while they eat their lunch with the other; and the call or signal for his office will instantly awaken him from a sleep which a cannon-shot would not disturb. Telegraphy, in a word, develops a sort of sixth sense, and the experienced operator receives or sends a message as readily as he talks or reads or writes. It is second nature.

It was about this time that one of the old dispatchers resigned to seek his fortune in the West, and a new one made his début in a manner that Allan did not soon forget. He was a slender young fellow, with curly blond hair, and he came on duty at three o’clock in the afternoon, just when the rush of business is heaviest. The induction of a new dispatcher is something of a ceremony, for the welfare of the road rests in his hands for eight hours of every day, and everybody about the offices is always anxious to see just what stuff the newcomer is made of. So on this occasion, most of the division officials managed to have some business in the dispatchers’ office at the moment the new man came on.

He glanced over the train-sheet, while the man he was relieving explained to him briefly the position of trains and what orders were outstanding. His sounder began to click an instant later, and he leaned over, opened his key, and gave the signal, .. .., which showed that he was ready to receive the message. Then, as the message started in a sputter which evidenced the excited haste of the man who was sending it, he turned away, took off his coat, and hung it up, deliberately removed his cuffs, and lighted a cigar. Then he sat down at his desk, and picked up a pen. Something very like a sigh of relief ran around the office. But the pen did not suit him. He tried it, made a wry face, and looked inquiringly at the other dispatcher.

“The pens are over yonder in that drawer,” said that worthy, with assumed indifference, and went on sending a message he had just started.

The newcomer arose, went to the drawer, opened it, and selected a pen with leisurely care. Allan watched him, his heart in his mouth. He could see that the chief-dispatcher was frowning and that the trainmaster looked very stern. He knew that neither of these officials would tolerate any “fooling,” when the welfare of the road was in question. But at last the newcomer was in his seat again. He reached forward and opened his key, and every one waited for the . .. . .., which would ask that the message, a long and involved one, be repeated. But instead, a curt “Cut it short,” flew over the line, followed by an order so terse, so admirable, so clean-cut, that the trainmaster turned away with a sudden relaxation of countenance.

“He’ll do,” he murmured, as he got out a match and lighted his forgotten cigar. “He’ll do.”

And, indeed, at a later day, Allan saw the same dispatcher receive and answer two messages simultaneously. But these were merely the trimmings of the profession. They savoured of sleight of hand, and had little to do with the real business of train-dispatching.

So Allan did not despair. Every evening, he and Jim laboured at their keys. First, Allan would send an item, perhaps, from the evening paper, and Jim would receive it. Then he would send it back, and Allan would write it out, as his sounder clicked along, and compare his copy with the original, to detect any errors. At first, errors were the rule; but as time went on, they became more and more infrequent; and at the end of two months, both the boys had acquired a very fair facility in sending and receiving. Indeed, one evening, after an unusually satisfactory bout, Jim was moved to a little self-approval.

“I think we’re both pretty good,” he clicked out. “Let’s apply for a job as operator.”

“Not yet,” Allan answered. “This line hasn’t done all it can for us yet.”

Nor for the road, he might have added, could he have foreseen the events of the next twenty-four hours.

[CHAPTER V]

“FLAG NUMBER TWO!”

The snow was falling steadily, a late spring snow, but as heavy as any of the winter. It had started in the early morning as sleet, which clung to everything it touched with a vise-like grip. Then, the wind veering to the north had turned the sleet to snow, soggy, tenacious, and swirling fast and faster, until now, as night closed in, nearly six inches had fallen.

It was a bad night for railroading, and the instruments in the office clicked incessantly as the dispatchers laboured, with tense faces, to keep their trains straight. The wires were working badly under the burden of snow and sleet; some were crossed, some were down, and the instruments slurred the dots and dashes which rattled over them in a way that brought a line of worry between the eyes of the men upon whom rested so great a responsibility.

As for the less experienced operators along the line, they were—to use the expressive phrase usually applied to them—“up in the air.” They knew that a single mistake might cost the lives of a score of people, and yet how were mistakes to be avoided when the instruments, instead of their usual clear-cut enunciation, stuttered and stammered and chattered meaninglessly. It was one of those crises which grow worse with each passing moment; when nerves, strained to snapping, finally give way; when brains, aching with anxiety, suddenly refuse to work; when, in a word, there is a break in the system to which even the smallest cog is necessary.

So it was that the trainmaster, having swallowed his supper hastily, had hurried back to the office, and stood now peering out into the night, chewing nervously the end of a cigar which he had forgotten to light, and listening to the instruments clattering wildly on the tables behind him. Although there were two of them, and their clatter never ceased, he followed without difficulty the story which each was telling, for he had risen to his present position after long years at the key.

Allan West had also hurried back to the office as soon as he had eaten his supper. It seemed to him that disaster was in the air; besides, he might be needed to carry a message, or for some other service, and he wanted to be on hand. It had been a hard day, for he had toiled back and forth across the slippery yards a score of times, but he forgot his fatigue as he sat there and listened to the crazy instruments and realized the tremendous odds against which the dispatchers were fighting.

For the trains must be moved, and as nearly on time as human effort could do it. There is no stopping a railroad because of unfavourable weather. The movement of trains ceases only when an accident breaks the road in two or wreckage blocks the track, and then only until arrangements can be made to détour them past the place where the accident has occurred. When this cannot be done, a train is run to the spot from either side, and passengers, mail, and baggage transferred.

And then the passengers get a fleeting and soon-forgotten glimpse of how the road is struggling to set things right again. For as they hurry past the place, they see a gang of men—a hundred, perhaps—toiling like the veriest galley-slaves to repair the damage; they see a huge derrick grappling with wrecked cars and engines and swinging them out of the way; they see locomotives puffing and hauling, and in command of it all, two or three haggard and dirt-begrimed men whom no one would recognize as the well-dressed and well-groomed gentlemen who fill the positions of superintendent, trainmaster, and superintendent of maintenance of way. All this the passengers pause a moment to contemplate, as one looks at a play at the theatre; then they hasten on and forget all about it. As for the labourers, they do not even raise their heads. It is no play for them, but deadly earnest. They have been toiling in just that fashion for hours and hours; they will keep doggedly at it until the road is open.

To-night a dozen passengers in the luxuriantly appointed Pullmans of the east-bound flyer were fuming and fretting because their train was ten minutes late. They complained to the conductor; they expressed their opinion of the road at length and in terms the most uncomplimentary. They vowed one and all that never again would they travel by this route. Not that the delay really made any difference to any of them; but average human nature seems to be so constituted that it is most deeply annoyed by trifles. And the conductor reassured them, talked confidently of making up the lost time, did his best to keep them cheerful and contented, joked and laughed and seemed to be thinking about anything rather than the storm which swirled and howled outside. Only for an instant, as he passed from one coach to another, and found himself alone, did the careless smile leave his lips. His face lined with anxiety as he glanced out through the door of the vestibule at the driving snow, and he shook his head. Then he resumed his jaunty air and passed on into the next coach.

Every profession has its ethics—some citadel, some point of honour, which must be defended to the death. The physician may not refuse a call for aid, may not hesitate to risk his own life in the work of saving others—that is the implied agreement he makes with humanity when he accepts his diploma. The captain may not leave his ship until the last passenger has done so; his life is negligible and worthless in comparison with that of any passenger on board; if his passengers cannot be saved, he must go down with them; to think of his own life at such a time is to confess himself a coward and a traitor to a noble calling. The conductor of a passenger-train occupies much the same position. He is responsible for his train and his passengers; never must he seem worried, or admit that there is any danger; he must front death with a smile on his lips, and when the crash comes, his first duty is to the men and women entrusted to his charge. And what a glorious commentary it is on human nature that so few, brought face to face with that duty, seek to evade it!

Back in the dispatchers’ office, the situation grew worse and worse. The dispatcher in charge of the east end had lost a freight-train. He supposed that it was somewhere between two stations, but it was long overdue, and the conviction began to be forced upon him that it had somehow got past a station unnoticed and unreported, in the snow and storm. The operator swore it hadn’t; swore that he had not slept a second; swore that he had kept a sharp lookout for the train, and hazarded the opinion that it had run off the track somewhere. The dispatcher retorted that when he wanted his opinion he would ask for it; and in the meantime that section of track was closed until the missing train could be found.

A missing train! The words send a shiver through the bravest. Somewhere, out yonder in the storm, it is careening along the rails; its crew is confident that its passage has been noted by the operator at the last station, and that the dispatcher will keep clear the track ahead. They do not suspect their peril; they do not know that another train may be speeding toward them, and that, in a few minutes, there will be a roar, a crash, the shriek of escaping steam, and then the cruel tongues of flame licking around the wrecked cars. So the fireman bends to his task, the engineer stares absently out into the night, his hand on the throttle, the front brakeman dozes upon the fireman’s box, and back in the caboose, the conductor and hind-end brakeman engage in a social game of seven-up—

In safety, this time; for the dispatcher is one who knows his business and takes no chances. Proceeding on the theory that the train has got past, he keeps the track clear and holds up the road’s traffic until the missing train can be found. Which, of course, is as soon as it reaches the next station—for on that end of the road, every operator, knowing what is wrong, has his eyes wide open. A mighty sigh of relief goes up as it is reported; traffic starts again with a rush. And the next day, the operator who swore so positively that the train had not got past was hunting another job.

The dispatcher in charge of the west end was doing his best to keep the track clear for Number Two, the east-bound flyer, the premier train of the road, with right of way over everything; but there was no telling what any train would do on such a night, and the flyer had already been held ten minutes at Vienna because a freight-train had stuck on the hill east of there and had to double over. The dispatcher set his teeth and vowed that there should be no more delay if he had to hold every other train on the division until the flyer passed. But freight conductors have a persuasive way with them, and when Lew Johnson reported from Lyndon at 8.40 that his train was made up, engine steaming finely, and that he could make Wadsworth easily in half an hour, the dispatcher yielded and told him to come ahead.

But Johnson had exaggerated a little, for his wife was sick and he was anxious to get home to her; the engine was not steaming so well, after all, the flues got to leaking, and when the train finally coasted down the grade into the yards at Wadsworth, the flyer was only ten minutes behind. Still, a miss is as good as a mile, and the dispatcher heaved a sigh of relief, as he looked out from the window and saw the freight pull into the yards. He stood staring a moment longer, then sprang to his key and began calling Musselman.

The trainmaster swung around sharply.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

“An extra west has just pulled out of the yards,” gasped the dispatcher. “It had orders to start as soon as Number Two pulled in. The engineer must have thought that freight was the flyer,” and he kept on calling Musselman.

In a moment came the tick-tick, tick-tick, which told that the operator at Musselman had heard the call.

“Flag Number Two!” commanded the dispatcher, “and hold till arrival extra west.”

There was an instant’s suspense; then the reply came ticking slowly in:

“Number Two just passed. Was just going to report her.”

The dispatcher leaned back in his chair, his face livid, and stared mutely at the trainmaster.

“There’s no night office between here and Musselman,” he said, hoarsely. “There’ll be a head-end inside of ten minutes.”

Allan had listened with white face. He shut his eyes for an instant and fancied he could see the passenger and freight rushing toward each other through the night. Then, suddenly, he sprang erect.

“Do you know the number of that outside wire on the lower cross-arm?” he asked the trainmaster.

“Yes—fifteen—”

“Can you cut it in?”

“Of course—but what—”

“No matter—do it!” cried Allan, and sat down at the key, while the trainmaster went mechanically to the switchboard and pushed the proper plug into place.

“J—J—J!” Allan called. “J—J—J!”

Would Jim hear? Was he within call of his instrument? Perhaps he was in some other part of the house; perhaps he was not at home at all. Even if he were, how would he be able—

Then, suddenly, the circuit was broken, and as Allan held down his key, there came the welcome tick-tick, tick-tick, which told that Jim had answered.

“Flag Number Two!”

Allan’s hand was trembling so that he could scarcely control the key.

“R—R,” clamoured Jim. “Repeat—repeat!”

Small wonder that he doubted he had heard correctly!

“Flag Number Two—quick—collision!”

This time Allan controlled the trembling of his hand and sent the message clearly.

“O. K.,” flashed back the answer, and Jim was gone, forgetting in his agitation to close his key.

“Who is it?” demanded Mr. Schofield, who had listened to this interchange with strained attention.

“It’s Jim Anderson,” Allan explained. “He lives in that house right by the track about a mile west of here. He and I rigged up a private line—Mr. Mickey let us use that old wire. Perhaps he’ll be in time.”

“Perhaps—perhaps,” agreed the trainmaster; but he did not permit himself to hope. The chance was too slender. How was the boy to flag the train? How could he make the engineer see him through that driving snow? It was absurd to suppose it could be done.

“I think we’d better order out the wrecking-train,” he said, to the chief-dispatcher. “Call up a couple of doctors, too; we’ll probably need them; and tell the hospital to have its ambulance at the station here before we get back. As for that fool who made the mistake—”

He stopped abruptly. For, in the driving snow, the mistake was not so surprising, after all—the flyer was running ten minutes late, and the freight had come in exactly on her time—two facts with which the crew of the extra west could not have been familiar.

“Perhaps he’s paid for it with his life by now,” added the trainmaster, after a moment, and started toward the telephone to order the wrecking-train got ready.

Then, suddenly, he stopped, rigid with expectancy, for the instrument on the table in front of Allan had begun to sound.

“A—A,” it called. “A—A.”

“Tick-tick, tick-tick,” Allan answered, instantly.

“I have Number Two, also extra west stopped here,” came the message. “What shall they do?”

“I guess I’ll have to turn this over to you, sir,” said Allan, looking at Mr. Schofield, his eyes bright with emotion. “Don’t send too fast,” he added, with a little, unsteady laugh, as the trainmaster took the key. “Neither Jim nor I is very expert, you know.”

[CHAPTER VI]

A PRIVATE LINE

The conductor of Number Two, having consoled and encouraged his passengers to the best of his ability, went forward into the smoker and sat down in a corner seat to sort his tickets and make up his report. From time to time, he glanced out the window, and though the driving snow shut off any glimpse of the landscape, he could tell, by a sort of instinct, just where the train was. He knew the rattle of every switch, the position of every light. The quick rattle of a target told him that the train had passed Harper’s. He recognized the clatter of the switches at Roxabel as the train swept over them; then, from the peculiar echo, he knew that it had entered a cut and that Musselman was near. Then the train struck another cut, whirred over a bridge, and began to coast down a long grade, while the shrill blast of the whistle sounded faintly through the storm, and he knew that they were approaching Wadsworth. The lights of the city would have been visible upon the right but for the swirling snow. There was a sharp repeated roar as the train shot over the two iron bridges at the city’s boundary—and then there came a shock which shook the train from end to end, and sent the parcels flying from the wall-racks.

Instantly the conductor swung up his feet and braced himself against the seat in front of him. He knew that that sudden setting of the brakes meant danger ahead, and he wanted to be prepared for the crash which might follow. It is a trick which every trainman knows and which every passenger should know. The passengers who are injured in a collision are usually those who were sitting carelessly balanced on the edge of their seats, and who, when the crash came, were hurled about the car, with the inevitable result of broken bones. To trainmen and experienced travellers, the unmistakable shock which tells of brakes suddenly applied is always a signal to brace themselves against the more violent one which may follow in a moment. Often this simple precaution means all the difference between life and death.

But in this case, the train came shrieking to a stop without any shock more violent than the first, and the conductor hastened out to investigate. He found the engineer and fireman standing in front of the engine, staring at a fusee burning red in the darkness, and questioning a young fellow who stood near by.

“What is it?” demanded the conductor, hurrying up.

“This here youngster says he had orders t’ flag th’ train,” answered the engineer.

“Orders from whom?” asked the conductor sharply, turning to the boy.

“Orders from—”

The boy stopped and turned red.

“Well, go on. Who gave the orders?”

“A chum of mine,” burst out the boy desperately. “He works in the trainmaster’s office. He wired me a minute ago to flag Number Two and be quick about it. I just had time to get that fusee lighted when you whistled for the crossing.”

The conductor frowned. The whole affair savoured of a boyish prank.

“And do you mean to say,” he demanded, sternly, “that because another boy told you to, you stopped this train—”

He paused, his mouth open, and listened, hand to ear. Then he stooped, snatched up the fusee, and fairly hurled himself down the track, waving the blazing torch above his head. And an instant later, his companions caught the sound of an engine pounding up the grade toward them.

The red light disappeared through the snow; then two sharp whistles testified that the signal had been seen; and a moment later, a great mogul of a freight-engine loomed through the darkness and came grinding to a stop not thirty feet away.

Her engineer swung himself to the ground and came running forward.

“SNATCHED UP THE FUSEE, AND FAIRLY HURLED HIMSELF DOWN THE TRACK”

“What’s all this?” he demanded; and then he saw the headlight of the other engine, almost obscured by the snow which encrusted it, and turned livid under his coat of tan. “What train’s that?”

“That’s Number Two,” answered the conductor, who had returned with the smoking fusee still in his hand.

“Number Two!” echoed the engineer, and a cold sweat broke out across his forehead. “Nonsense! I saw Number Two pull into the yards ten minutes ago!”

“No you didn’t,” retorted the conductor, grimly, “for there’s Number Two back there.”

The engineer passed his hand before his eyes and stared, scarce able to understand. Then his face hardened and his lips tightened.

“There must have been a freight ahead of you,” he said. “It came in just on your time.”

“We’re ten minutes late—and getting later every minute,” the conductor added, and stamped impatiently.

Just then the conductor of the freight came hurrying up. The engineer turned to him with a little sardonic laugh.

“Well, Pete,” he said, “I guess this is our last run over this road.”

The conductor’s face turned ghastly white.

“Wha-what do you mean?” he stammered.

The engineer answered with a wave of the hand toward the headlight glaring down at them.

“That’s Number Two,” he said.

“Number Two!” echoed the conductor, blankly. “But then—why weren’t we smashed to kindling wood?”

“Blamed if I know,” answered the engineer, turning to clamber back on his engine. “And I don’t much care. I reckon we’re done, anyway.”

And they were, for a railroad never forgives or overlooks a mistake so serious as this.

Jim Anderson came out of the house a moment later with an order from the trainmaster for the freight to back into the yards, and the flyer to follow.

Only the driving storm had kept the passengers on the flyer from coming out to inquire what the matter was; and when the conductor swung himself on board again, he was greeted with a volley of questions. What was the trouble? What had happened?

“Trouble?” he repeated, with a stare of surprise. “There wasn’t any. We had to stop for orders, that was all.”

“You stopped pretty sudden, it seems to me,” growled one old traveller.

“The engineer didn’t see the stop signal till he was right on it,” answered the conductor, blandly.

“Snow so thick, you know.”

And the passengers returned to their seats satisfied, and none of them ever knew how narrow their escape had been—for it is the policy of all railroads that the passengers are never to know of mistakes and dangers, if the knowledge can by any means be kept from them.

However, the employees in the yards at Wadsworth had realized the mistake almost as soon as the dispatchers had—and there was quite a crowd waiting to greet the trains—a crowd which even yet did not understand how a terrible accident had been averted. It was not until the conductor of the flyer stepped off upon the platform and told the story in a few words, with voice carefully lowered lest some outsider should hear him, that they did understand; and even then, it was not as clear as it might have been until Tom Mickey came along and told how he had permitted the boys to use the old wire.

As for the engineer of the freight, he dropped off his engine the moment it stopped, and hurried away to his home without even pausing to remove his overalls. Six hours later, he was boarding a train on the N. & W., to seek a job in the south. The conductor remained for the inquiry and tried to brazen it through, but the evidence showed that, instead of staying out in the storm to watch for the arrival of Number Two and give the engineer the signal to go ahead, he had told the latter to start as soon as the passenger pulled in, and had ensconced himself in his berth in the caboose and gone comfortably to sleep. So he, too, was informed that the P. & O. no longer required his services.

When Jim Anderson reported for work next morning, his foreman told him he was to go at once to the office of Mr. Heywood, the division superintendent. He obeyed the order with some inward trepidation, crossed the yards to the division headquarters, mounted the stairs, and knocked tremulously at the door of the superintendent’s office. A voice bade him enter. He opened the door, and saw, sitting at a great desk, a small, dark, dapper man who was dictating at fever heat to a stenographer. He paused for an instant, looking inquiringly at Jim.

“I’m Jim Anderson,” said the boy. “My foreman told me—”

The superintendent nodded.

“That will do, Graves,” he said to the stenographer. “Send young West in here at once.”

“Very well, sir,” answered the stenographer, and went out.

Mr. Heywood turned abruptly in the direction of his visitor.

“So you’re Jim Anderson?” he began.

“Yes, sir.”

“It was you who flagged Number Two last night?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Tell me about it.”

Jim told the story as briefly as he could. Allan came in before he had finished.

“Now let’s hear your story,” added the superintendent, turning to Allan, and the latter related his share in the adventure.

“There’s only one thing I don’t understand,” said the superintendent, when Allan had finished, turning back to Jim, “and that is how you came to have that fusee.”

Jim reddened.

“I found it, sir,” he explained. “You remember when the caboose of Number Ninety-seven was derailed about a month ago, near the bridges, and rolled down the bank and was smashed to pieces?”

“Perfectly,” answered the superintendent, dryly.

“Well,” Jim continued, “I suppose the box of fusees in the caboose must have been broken open and scattered about. Anyway, I found this one the next day in some bushes at the foot of the embankment. I suppose I should have returned it to the company—but—well—I thought I’d keep it for the Fourth of July.”

His voice trembled and stopped, and he stood with hanging head, like a criminal waiting his sentence.

Let it be explained here that a fusee is a paste-board tube filled with powder—the same sort of powder which produces the red fire which forms a part of every exhibition of fire-works. At one end of this tube is a spike which can be thrust into the ground. The other end of the tube is closed by a cap containing a piece of emery-paper. To light the powder it is only necessary to remove the cap and scrape it on the end of the tube till a spark falls into it. A fusee burns with a bright red light for exactly ten minutes, and no train may run past one which is burning.

Its uses are manifold. It makes a brilliant danger signal, and one which no engineer can fail to see, which no mist nor snow can obscure, and which no wind can extinguish. But it is usually used by night—as torpedoes are by day—to protect the rear of a train which has been temporarily disabled and delayed between stations.

If a train is stopped by a hot-box, for instance, a brakeman is at once sent out to protect the rear. He walks to a distance of two or three hundred yards, carrying a flag in the daytime or a lantern by night, with which to stop any train which may happen to come along before his train is ready to proceed. Ordinarily, there is no danger to be apprehended from in front, because the dispatcher will permit no train coming toward them to pass the next station until the train which is in trouble arrives there.

As soon as the heated journal has been cooled sufficiently to allow the train to proceed, the engineer blows four blasts on the whistle to recall the brakeman. But, obviously, during the time that he is walking back to the train and the train itself is getting under way, another train may come along at full speed and run into it. So, before he returns, the brakeman sticks a fusee in the middle of the track and lights it. It will burn for ten minutes, and during that time no train may run past the spot, so all danger of accident is avoided. If the breakdown occurs during the daytime, the brakeman will affix two torpedoes to the track instead of using the fusee. The first train which runs over these torpedoes explodes them, and the engineer must at once get his train under control, reduce speed, and look out for a stop signal. A single torpedo is a signal to stop.

It was one of these fusees, a number of which are carried in every caboose, which had enabled Jim Anderson to flag Number Two, and lucky it was that he had it, for on a night such as the one before had been, a lantern would almost certainly have failed to be seen. But Jim did not think of that, as he stood there with hanging head. His only thought was that he should not have kept the fusee, that it belonged to the company—that he might be thought a thief. He looked up at last to find the superintendent smiling at him.

“My boy,” said Mr. Heywood, “if, as you go through life, you never do anything worse than you have done in keeping possession of that fusee, you will never have any reason for remorse. It had been abandoned there by the company; you found it. You were under no obligation to return it. We had lost it through our own carelessness; it may have been missed, but was thought not worth searching for. So dismiss that from your mind. I called you boys before me for a very different purpose than to reproach either of you. In the first place, I want to thank you for your prompt and intelligent action, which saved the road what would probably have been one of the worst wrecks in its history. It is the sort of thing the road never forgets.”

There were four cheeks now, instead of two, that were flaming red. The praise was almost more embarrassing than the expected blame.

“In the second place,” continued the superintendent, “I have ordered Lineman Mickey to overhaul your private line and to equip it with up-to-date instruments.”

He smiled as he looked at the beaming countenances before him.

“In the third place,” he went on, "I have ordered a box of fusees and another of torpedoes left at your home, Anderson. And they’re not to be used on the Fourth of July, either—at least, not more than one or two. They say lightning never strikes twice in the same place, but it’s just possible that some day we may want you to flag another train out there, and so we provide you with the means to do it.

“In the fourth place,” he added, rising and glancing at his watch, “I’m going to offer you the first positions as operator that are vacant. Now don’t thank me,” he protested, as exclamations of pleasure burst from the young lips before him. “I don’t deserve any thanks. I’m simply looking out for the best interests of the road. We want operators who are more than mere telegraphers—we want men who are equal to an emergency, who have their wits about them, who can think quickly, and who don’t get rattled—men like that are a good deal harder to find than you might think. That’s the reason we want you two. I don’t believe that one boy in a hundred would have had the wit to act as promptly and intelligently as you did last night. Now, I’ll let you know—”

The door burst suddenly open and a girl rushed in—a girl of perhaps seventeen, with flushed, excited face—the loveliest face, Allan thought, that he had ever seen.

“Oh, papa!” she cried. “Our train will start in a minute! We mustn’t miss it!”

Mr. Heywood laughed and glanced at his watch again.

“We won’t miss it, Bess,” he said. “We’ve got three minutes and a half. No train has ever started ahead of time on this road since Mr. Round took charge of it. Good-bye, boys,” he added, and shook hands with them heartily. "Hold yourselves ready for orders—and meanwhile get all the practice you can. Come, Bess," and the father and daughter went out together, leaving the boys staring after them with a mixture of emotions difficult to describe.

[CHAPTER VII]

THE CALL TO DUTY

One can easily understand with what enthusiasm Jim Anderson and Allan West continued the study of telegraphy. Here was something worth while, something vital, something with which great things might be accomplished; for surely there are few things in this world greater than the saving of human life.

Then, too, there was the protection of the company’s property. A collision such as that which had been averted would have demolished engines and cars worth a hundred thousand dollars. Damage suits, destroyed freight, the interruption of traffic, the cost of repairing the right of way, the loss of prestige which attends every great wreck—all these might easily have carried the total loss to a quarter of a million.

Yet neither in this accident nor in any other was it the money loss to the company of which the officials thought. They thought only of the danger to the passengers, for the passenger is the road’s most sacred trust. In his behalf, the road exacts eternal vigilance from every man in its employ. His safety comes first of all. For it, no railroad man must hesitate to risk his life; nay, if need be, to throw his life away. He enters the service of the road on that condition—and rarely does he fail when the moment of trial comes, as it is sure to come, sooner or later.

The boys, then, had reason to be pleased with what they had accomplished. The superintendent kept his word, and instruments of the latest pattern were soon installed by Lineman Mickey, while the current for the line was furnished by the company’s batteries, and was stronger and more constant than their own little battery had been able to give them. Nor was that all the help they had, for the trainmaster and the dispatchers took an interest in their work, and drilled them in the various abbreviations and code signals in use on the road, as well as the calls for the various offices.

They were permitted to “cut in” with the main line whenever they wished; the messages which flashed over it were then repeated on their own sounders, and they could try their hands at transcribing them. Needless to say, they progressed rapidly under this tuition, which was the very best they could have had; and the day came at last when Allan, sitting at his desk sorting the mail, could understand perfectly what all the instruments about him were saying.

There is within us, so scientists say, a sort of second-self which takes care of all actions which become habitual, without troubling us to think of them, or to will their performance. Thus we breathe without any effort of consciousness—a wise provision of nature, else we should die of asphyxiation as soon as we went to sleep. The muscles which control the heart keep on working of themselves from birth to death. Thus, too, while the baby must distinctly will every step it takes, the child soon learns to walk or run automatically, without thinking about it at all, the muscles moving of themselves at the proper instant. So the fingers of the piano-player come to perform the duties required of them instinctively; and so, at last, the ear of the telegrapher recognizes a certain combination of sounds as having a certain meaning, and the brain has no need whatever to puzzle them out. The sounds are recorded mechanically, and the brain furnishes the translation.

Nay, more than that. The operator, worn out by long hours, sometimes goes to sleep beside his key. His slumber is so deep that the roar of passing trains does not disturb it, nor the clicking of his sounder, as messages flash over the wire. But let his call be sounded, that short and insistent combination of dots and dashes which means his office—a single letter usually—and he will start awake. The ear has caught the call, has sent it into the brain, and some second-self there rouses the sleeper and tells him he is wanted. Operators are not supposed to go to sleep on duty; to be caught asleep means a “lay-off,” if not dismissal. Yet they do go to sleep, for the long hours of the night pass slowly, and there are times when the weary eyes refuse to remain open. If it were not for the little monitor within which stays awake, on guard, listening for its call, accidents on the rail would be of much more frequent occurrence, and few operators but would, sooner or later, lose their jobs. And there is nothing especially peculiar or remarkable in this. Almost any one, worn out with fatigue, will go to sleep with the buzz of conversation about him; but let some one speak his name insistently over and over and the sound of it will somehow waken him. An operator’s call is as familiar to him as his name, and will attract his attention just as surely.

It was to this sixth sense, this second-self, that Allan was at last able to assign the duty of listening to the instruments in the office. He knew what they were saying, without having to stop all other work to listen; nay, without consciously listening at all. He had reached the place where he was competent to “take a trick”—much more competent, indeed, than young operators usually are.

But still there came no opening for a regular position. A railroad does not “play favourites,” no matter how deserving they may be. So long as a man does his work well, his position is his; and he stands in regular line for promotion. Incompetency brings its punishment, swift and sure; just as signal services, in time, bring their reward; but reward and punishment are according to an established rule.

For the record of every man is kept minutely from the hour he enters the employ of the road. What he may have been or done before that does not matter, once employment is given him—he starts square. But even the smallest thing he does after that does matter, as he finds out, in course of time, to his amazement and chagrin. The trainmaster keeps, in a drawer of his desk, a little book bound in red leather, wherein entries are made every day; and the heart of the trainman who is “on the carpet” falls when he sees it produced. It affects him a good deal as the book wherein the Recording Angel writes will affect most of us at the Day of Judgment.

It happened, at this particular moment, that all the operators’ positions on the road were filled by competent men, and so Allan had to wait until some one of them was promoted or resigned. As for Jim, he had reconsidered his decision to become an operator. He had a natural love and aptitude for machinery, and he finally determined to remain in the branch of the service where he was, and seek promotion where he would probably deserve it most. But Allan’s mind was made up, and he lost no opportunity to perfect himself. Often, after supper, he would return to the dispatchers’ office and prevail upon the night operator to permit him to attend to his work for awhile, and in this way he got valuable practice; but he longed for the day when he should be given a key of his own—when the responsibility would be all his.

The chance came at last. He was just finishing up his work, one evening, preparatory to going home to supper, when the instrument on the chief-dispatcher’s desk began to call. Allan, without really listening, heard the message:

“Night man at Byers Junction reported sick. Send substitute.”

The chief-dispatcher clicked back “O. K.,” and closed the key. Then he wheeled about in his chair and met Allan’s eager eyes.

“There’s a job for you,” he said, “if you want it.”

“Want it!” echoed Allan. “I certainly do!”

“And if you think you can fill it,” the chief added. “The work at Byers is pretty heavy.”

“I’ll do my best,” Allan promised.

The chief looked at him for a moment longer, then nodded quickly and glanced at his watch.

“You’ll do,” he said. “And you’ve only got thirty minutes. You’ll have to catch Number Sixteen.”

“All right, sir; I’ll catch it,” said Allan, and he went down the steps two at a time.

Mary Welsh was just spreading the cloth preparatory to getting supper when Allan raced up the steps leading from the street below and burst in at the door.

“Why!” cried Mary. “What ails th’ boy!”

“Hooray!” yelled Allan, and seized her and danced around with her in his arms. “I’m going to be an op-e-ra-tor!”

“Well, I’m sure,” gasped Mary, releasing herself and reaching up to push the loosened hairpins back into place, “that ain’t so wonderful. You’d ought t’ been a oppeyrator long ago! A railroad ain’t got no sense o’ gratitude!”

“There, there!” cried Allan. “The road’s all right—and I’ve got to catch Number Sixteen—and I wonder if there’s a crust of bread or a cold potato, or anything of that sort handy?”

“Crust o’ bread, indade!” snorted Mary, glancing at the clock. “You’ll have your supper. Go an’ git washed, an’ I’ll have it ready fer ye in a jiffy.”

“All right,” said Allan, “but I warn you I’ll be back in just a minute and a half.”

Indeed, it was not much longer than that; but when he came in again, his face shining from a vigorous rubbing, supper was almost ready—an egg fried to a turn, with a bit of broiled ham beside it, bread and butter, blackberry jam, a glass of milk, and a piece of apple-pie—just the sort of toothsome, topsy-turvy meal a healthy boy likes.

“Mary,” he said, “you’re a jewel!” and he stopped to hug her before he sat down.

“None o’ yer blarney!” she retorted, and affected to push him away, as she gave the last touches to the table.

Allan pulled up his chair and fell to with an appetite born of health and good digestion—an appetite unspoiled by over-indulgence, or by French confections, requiring no stimulus but that which work honestly done gave it. He ate with one eye on the clock, for he was not going to run any risk of missing his train, and at the end of five minutes, pushed back his chair and rose with a sigh of satisfaction.

“That was great!” he said. “Now if I may have one of those luscious doughnuts of yours, or a piece of that pie, to keep the wolf from the door to-night—”

“Doughnut, indade!” cried Mary. “What do you suppose I’ve been doin’ all this toime! Here’s your lunch,” and she set on the table a little basket, covered with a snowy napkin.

Allan’s eyes were shining at this new proof of her thoughtfulness for him.

“Mary,” he began.

“There, there,” she interrupted; “git along or you’ll miss your train. Good-bye. An’ take good keer o’ yerself, my dear.”

Allan snatched up hat and basket.

“Good-bye,” he said. “I’m certainly a lucky boy!”

She stood at the door watching him as he crossed the yards.

“Yes,” she murmured to herself, turning back into the house as he passed from sight, “an’ I’m a lucky woman!”

Dan Breen, the caller, met Allan as he stepped upon the station platform.

“Here’s yer card,” he said, and held out a little envelope.

“My card?” repeated the boy, taking the envelope mechanically.

“Yes, yer card; how did ye expect t’ ride—pay yer way?”

“Oh,” said Allan, understanding suddenly; “my pass. Yes; thank you,” and he swung aboard Number Sixteen just as it was pulling out.

When the conductor came through to collect the tickets, the boy proudly produced the card, which commanded all employees of the road to “pass the bearer, Allan West, on all trains, over main line and branches, Ohio Division, P— & O— Railway.” The conductor glanced at it and then at the boy, nodded, and passed on.

Half an hour later, with fast-beating heart, Allan dropped off the train at the little frame shanty which served as the operator’s office at Byers Junction. The day operator had been compelled to work thirty-five minutes overtime, and was in no very genial humour in consequence, for if there is one point of honour upon which all operators agree, it is that they shall relieve each other promptly. So the day operator, whose name was Nevins, and who knew that his supper would probably be cold when he got to it, merely nodded to the boy when he appeared in the doorway, put on his coat and hat, picked up his lunch-basket, and went out without saying a word.

Allan, his pulses racing, set his basket on the table, took off coat and hat, hung them on a nail near the window, and looked about the little room. The instrument was calling, but not for him, so he had leisure to examine the orders which fluttered from a hook on the wall near by. One was for a train which would be due in a few minutes, and Allan went to the door to see that the signals were properly set and burning.

White is no longer a safety signal on any of the larger railroads. The colours now in use are red for danger, and green for safety. Under the old system, the red lens of the lantern might drop out or a tramp might smash it, leaving the lantern showing a white light past which the engineer would run, thinking everything all right. So green was substituted for white, and now white means danger just as much as red does. The only light past which an engineer may run is a green one. In fact, the first rule under the “Use of Signals” is that a signal imperfectly displayed, or the absence of a signal from a place where one is usually shown, must be regarded as a stop signal.

The railroads are trying all the time to find some third colour which can be used satisfactorily in signalling. Red for danger and green for safety are very well, as far as they go; but a caution signal is badly needed—one which will not absolutely stop a train, but which will warn the engineer to get it under control and proceed carefully. No such signal which will do the work required of it under all conditions has as yet been devised, although yellow is now used on some roads for this purpose.

Of course there are one or two other colours used. A combined green and white signal, for instance, is used to stop a train at a flag station; and a blue flag by day, or a blue light by night, displayed at one or both ends of an engine, car, or train, indicates that workmen are under or about it. When thus protected, it must not be coupled to or moved, and no man may remove these signals but the one who placed them there. This rule is enforced absolutely to safeguard, as far as possible, the lives of the employees of the road.

The only fault in the system—as in all systems—is that human beings are not infallible, and mistakes are sometimes bound to happen. The signals may be wrongly set, or when rightly set, may not be seen. Fog or smoke may obscure them, and the engineer rushes by, trusting that all is well. If he obeyed the rules, he would stop and make sure; but that would delay the train, perhaps needlessly, and trains must be run on time. The engineer who fails to run on time, either through timidity or overcaution, is very soon relegated to the work-train or the yard-engine—a humiliating fall for the master of the queenly flyer.

As Byers was a junction, there were two signals there for the government of trains, one a train-signal on the front of the shanty, and the other a semaphore just outside the door. The train-signal was merely an arm or signal-blade, operated by a lever inside the shanty. Normally, this arm hung down in a perpendicular position and showed green, which meant proceed; but when the operator wanted an approaching train to stop, he pulled the lever, raising the arm to a horizontal position. At night, of course, it would not be possible for an engineer to see the position of this arm, so at the inner end of it was a large casting with two holes in it, one fitted with a green lens and the other with a red one. Behind this a lamp was placed, and when the arm hung down for safety, the light shone through the green lens. When it was raised, the red lens was thrown before the light and indicated danger.

The semaphore was a tall pole just outside the door. At its top was a cross-arm, bearing at either end red lanterns at night, to indicate its position, and operated by a lever at the foot of the pole. When the arm at the top stood in a perpendicular position, displaying the signals one above the other, it indicated that P. & O. trains could pass; when the arm was thrown to a horizontal position, displaying the signals one beside the other, it cleared the track for the connecting road. A ladder on the side of the pole enabled the person in charge of it to mount and attach the lanterns at nightfall. He was supposed to take them down and fill and clean them sometime during the day. There is, it may be added, a semaphore at every railroad-crossing which is worked on just this principle.

Allan had, of course, in preparing himself for the duties of operator, familiarized himself with all the signals used; and, as has been said, he stepped to the door of the shanty to assure himself that the train-signal was raised and showing red and that the lanterns on the semaphore were burning properly, so that the train which was almost due would stop to receive the orders intended for it. Then his heart gave a sudden sickening leap, for the light of neither train-signal nor semaphore was showing at all!

Already he fancied that, far down the road, he could hear the hum of the approaching train! The day operator, despite the lateness of the hour, had not taken the trouble to light the signals. It was not his duty, strictly speaking, but there are times when more is expected of a man than his mere duty. It might not have really mattered, of course; the absence of any signal would bring the train to a stop, if the engineer obeyed the rules; but at the very least, it would have been his duty to report at headquarters that the signals at Byers were not burning, and Allan would have incurred a reprimand, and a severe one, in the first half-hour in his new position.

All this flashed through the boy’s mind much more rapidly than it can be set down here. In an instant, he had sprung to the train-signal, lowered it, touched a lighted match to the wick of the lamp, and then, as the flame flared up, hoisted the signal into place. Then, with a single glance, he assured himself that the semaphore lanterns were not in the shanty. Evidently the day man had not taken the trouble to bring them down and clean them; and the boy, without pausing to take breath, started to climb the pole. As he neared the top, he saw the lanterns swinging in place; but to light them, especially for the first time, was a ticklish job.

He heard the train whistle for the crossing half a mile away, and his hands began to tremble a little, despite all effort to steady them. He reached out, drew one lantern to him, snapped it open, and, after an instant’s agony, got it lighted. Then he grabbed for the other. It swung for a moment beyond his reach, and the effort nearly overbalanced him; but he caught himself, got it at last, drew it to him, lighted it, and snapped it shut again, just as the headlight of the approaching engine flashed into view. He ran hurriedly down the ladder. As he reached the door of the office, he heard his call. He jumped to the instrument and answered.

“Where have you been—asleep?” came the question.

“I was fixing the lanterns on the semaphore,” Allan answered.

“Hasn’t first ninety-seven reached Byers?”

“There’s a train just pulling in,” Allan answered, and at that moment the conductor appeared in the doorway.

“Are you first ninety-seven?” Allan asked him.

“Yes,” replied the newcomer. “Any orders?”

Allan handed them to him with a sigh of relief that all was well, and notified the dispatcher that first ninety-seven had reached Byers at 7.16.

It may be well to explain, at this point, that the regular freight-trains on every road are usually run in sections, the number of sections depending upon the amount of freight to be moved. For instance, if, toward the middle of the afternoon, there has accumulated in the yards at Wadsworth only enough west-bound freight for a single train, the cars are made up, and at seven o’clock, immediately following the accommodation, regular west-bound freight-train No. 97 is started toward Cincinnati, and runs as nearly as possible on the schedule given it in the time-table.

If, however, there are too many cars for one engine to handle, they are made up into two trains, and the first one that goes out is called the first section, and displays at the front of the engine two green lights to show that another section is following. Ten minutes later, the second section is sent out, displaying no signals. Theoretically, both sections constitute one train, and the track cannot be used by any other train until both get by; but this is a theory which is constantly broken in practice. Sometimes, when freight business is heavy—in the fall, for instance, when the grain crops are being moved and the merchants throughout the country are laying in their supplies for the holidays—there will be three or four sections of each of the regular freight-trains.

But while this system allows for a certain expansion of traffic to suit the road’s business, by far the greater part of the freight in the busy season is handled by “extras”—that is, by trains which have no place on the time-card and no regular schedules, but which must run from station to station, whenever the track happens to be clear. For instance, as soon as Number Two, the east-bound flyer, pulls into the yards at Wadsworth, an extra west-bound freight will be started out, with orders to run extra to the end of the division. The conductor is armed with the time-card, and must keep out of the way of all trains which appear on it. He is also provided with meeting orders for all the other extras which happen to be going over the road at the same time, and must take care to comply with them. As he goes from station to station, he is kept informed as to whether any of the regular trains are behind time, so that he need not wait on any of them unnecessarily, but may get over the road as rapidly as possible. The actual conduct of the train is left largely to him and to the engineer, so that their responsibility is no light one.

All of this sounds much easier than it really is. As a matter of fact, the task of carrying on the business of a single-track road, where it is practically impossible for all trains to run on time, where meeting-points must be provided for all freight-trains, without delaying them unduly, and where the passenger-trains must have always a clear track and opportunity to make up as much time as possible, if they happen to be late, is one of the most delicate and nerve-racking that could be imagined, though under the new double-order system it is not so bad as it was under the old single-order one.

The burden of keeping things moving and of getting the trains over the road in the shortest possible time, falls principally upon the dispatcher at headquarters, but every operator along the road bears his part, and an important part. He must keep awake and alert for any orders the dispatcher may wish to send him; he must note the passage of every train and report to the dispatcher the exact moment at which it passed; and he must be sure that the station signals are properly displayed, and that all orders are properly delivered. Upon the faithful fulfilment of these duties does the safety of trains depend; but especially upon the second, for unless the dispatcher knows accurately the exact position of every train, disaster is sure to follow.

Only once that night did Allan have any trouble. That was about three o’clock in the morning. There had not been many orders for Byers, for traffic was light, and he had passed the time listening to the orders sent the other operators and studying the time-card and book of rules with which all operators are provided. But at last his sounder began to clatter out the already familiar "-..., -..., B, B," which was the call for Byers. He answered it and took down the following message on his manifold sheet:

“Hold extra east, eng. 632, at B.”

Allan repeated it at once from his copy, and a moment later, “Com 3.10 C R H” was flashed back to him.

The “com” meant “complete,” showing that the order had been accurately repeated; the “3.10” was the time the order was sent, and the “C R H” were the initials of the superintendent, which are signed to all train-orders. Three copies must be made of every such order, one for the conductor, one for the engineer, and the other for preservation by the operator. This is done by using tissue-paper for the orders—which are usually called “flimsies” for that reason—between the sheets of which carbon-paper has been placed. A steel-pointed instrument called a stylus is used to write with, instead of pen or pencil, in order that the impression through the three sheets may be clear and distinct.

A few minutes after Allan had taken the order, the extra east pulled in, and the conductor, Bill Higgins, stalked into the office.

“Any orders?” he asked.

Allan handed him two copies of the order just received, then waited, his own copy in his hand, for Higgins to read the order aloud to him, as required by the rules. But instead, the conductor merely glanced at it, then, with a savage oath, crumpled it up in his hand and started to leave.

“Aren’t you going to read it?” Allan asked.

“Read it? I have read it!” answered Higgins, savagely.

“Not aloud to me,” Allan pointed out.

“What do you mean, you young fool?” demanded Higgins, turning upon him fiercely. “D’ you think I don’t know my business?”

“I only know,” replied Allan, paling a little as he saw that Higgins had been drinking and was in a very ugly mood, “that the rules require you to read that order aloud in my presence.”

“Well, what of it? That rule was made, mebbe, by th’ same fool that just sent this order holdin’ me here fer an hour, when I could git into Hamden easy as pie afore Number Ten was due! What do I care fer th’ rules? This here road’s goin’ t’ blazes, anyway!” and he turned to go.

“Very well,” said Allan, evenly; "you will do as you think best, of course. But if you don’t obey the rules, I shall have to report you."

At the words, Higgins sprang around again, purple with rage.

“Report me!” he shouted. “Why, you young whipper-snapper, I’ll spoil that putty face o’ your’n,” and he raised his fist.

“Hello, here,” called a voice from the door. “What’s the trouble?” and Allan glanced past the irate conductor to see the engineer standing in the doorway. “What’s up, Bill?” he repeated, coming in. “What’s the kid done?”

“Threatened to report me if I don’t read this here order to him,” answered Higgins sullenly.

The engineer glanced sharply from one to the other.

“Is that all?” he said. “And you were going to fight about a little thing like that, Bill?”

“No kid shall report me!” growled Bill, but he looked a little foolish.

“Well, then, read the order,” advised the engineer, easily.

Bill hesitated an instant, then smoothed out the crumpled paper.

“’Hold extra east, engine 632, at Byers,’” he snapped out, and handed the engineer his copy.

“’Hold extra east, engine 632, at Byers,’” repeated the latter. “Correct.”

The conductor turned without another word and left the office. The engineer followed him with his eyes until he disappeared in the darkness, and then turned back to Allan.

“Would you really have reported him?” he asked, eying the boy curiously.

“Yes,” answered Allan, slowly. “I think I should. He was drunk.”

“He has been drinking,” admitted the engineer. “Personally, I detest him. But he’s got the sweetest little wife you ever saw, and three kids that worship him; so he can’t be wholly bad. What would become of them if he’d lose his job? Of course, you can report him yet, if you want to. But I’d think it over first,” and the engineer followed Higgins out into the night.

Allan did think it over, and the result was that the superintendent never heard of that encounter in the little Byers office.

[CHAPTER VIII]

AN OLD ENEMY

Every night must end, although that one, as it seemed to Allan, was at least forty hours long. His greatest difficulty was to keep awake, for he had been working all day before he came on duty. More than once he caught himself nodding, until, at last, he dared not sit still in his chair, but went out upon the stretch of cindered path before the shanty and tramped up and down it, pausing now and then at the door to make sure his instrument was not calling him. The cool air of the night blew sleepiness from his eyes, at last, and he stood for a long time gazing out over the silent fields. Away in the distance a cock crew; others answered it, hailing the dawn; for the eastern sky began to show a tinge of gray. From every tree and coppice came sleepy twitterings, which, as the east grew brighter, burst into songs of joy to greet the rising sun.

Birds never make the mistake that some boys and girls do, of rising with sour faces—"wrong end first." They know how much it adds to the day’s happiness to start the day right; they are always glad when morning comes, and they never forget to utter a little song of praise and gratitude for another sunrise. Then they fly to the brook and take their bath, and hunt cheerfully for breakfast. Nor do they lose their tempers if they can’t find some particular worm or bug of which they are especially fond. Truly, bird-ways are worth imitating.

Allan sat down in the door of the shanty to watch the daily miracle which was enacting before him, but which most people have come to regard as a matter of course. It was the first sunrise he had seen for many months—in fact, since the days, seemingly years ago, when he had risen every night to take his trick at guarding the track from train-wreckers. Now, as he sat here, watching the brightening east, all the adventures of that time came vividly back to him, and he smiled to himself as he reviewed them one by one. He had made many firm friends—and one enemy, Dan Nolan, the vicious and vindictive scoundrel who had tried in so many ways to injure him; and had finally joined the gang of desperate tramps who had given the road so much trouble, and who, caught in the very act of trying to wreck the pay-car, had been sentenced to a term in the penitentiary.

Allan had incurred Nolan’s enmity the very first day of his service with the road. Nolan had been a member of Jack Welsh’s section-gang, and had been discharged for drunkenness. He knew, however, that the place on the gang would be hard to fill, and expected to be taken back again. But that very day, Allan, who had walked all the way from Cincinnati in search of employment, came along, and Welsh, impressed by the boy’s frank and honest face, had given him the place. Nolan had blustered, threatened, and even tried to kill him; and had ended by being sent to the State prison.

Allan’s face darkened as he recalled Nolan’s many acts of enmity, and the thought came to him that he had not yet heard the last of the scoundrel. But this gloomy mood did not endure long, for suddenly a radiant yellow disk peeped over the hills to the east, and flooded the world with golden splendour. The birds’ songs of praise burst forth afresh, and every tree, every plant, every flower and blade of grass, seemed to lift its head and bow toward the east to greet the luminary upon which all life upon the earth depends. Its warm rays drank the dew from the meadows, and over the brook, which ran beside the road, a filmy mist steamed upward from the water. Away off, across the fields, Allan could see a man ploughing, and a herd of cows wandered slowly over a near-by pasture, cropping the fresh grass and blowing clouds of warm and fragrant breath out upon the cool air. Allan resolved that so long as he held this trick, every dawn should find him at the door watching for the sunrise, the wonder and mystery and beauty of which he was just beginning to understand.

A call from his instrument summoned him back into the office. There were a number of orders to take for trains from east and west, which were to meet and pass at Byers, and by the time these had been duly received, repeated, and O. K.’d, six o’clock had come and gone. Six o’clock was the hour of relief, but Nevins did not appear. After that, every minute seemed an hour, and Allan began to understand Nevins’s feelings the night before, when his own relief did not arrive. He began to fear that he would miss the morning accommodation train to Wadsworth. If he did, he could not get home before noon, and he was desperately tired and sleepy. He went to the door and looked out, but saw no sign of Nevins, and was just turning back into the office, when a low, sneering laugh almost at his elbow caused him to start around. It was Nevins, who stood there grinning maliciously. He had evidently come around the corner of the house, while Allan was looking out across the fields.

“Well,” he sneered, “how d’ ye like it?”

“I don’t like it at all,” said Allan.

“After this,” added Nevins, pushing past him, “you be on time and I will. That’s all I want of you.”

“We’ll have to rearrange our tricks,” said Allan, his cheek flushing at the other’s tone. "I can’t get here until the evening accommodation at six-thirty; so suppose you come on half an hour later in the morning. That will even things up."

Nevins growled a surly assent, and turning his back ostentatiously, he hung up his coat and flung himself into the chair.

“There are three orders,” added Allan. “One of them—”

“Oh, shut up!” snarled Nevins. “I can read, can’t I?”

“Yes; no doubt you can. But the rules require that I explain outstanding orders to you before I go off duty.”

Nevins looked up at him, an ugly light in his eyes.

“So you’re that kind, are you?” he queried. “Little Sunday-school boy. Ain’t you afraid your mamma’s worryin’ about you?”

“Don’t you want me to—”

“I don’t want you to do nothin’ but get out!” Nevins broke in, and took the orders from the hook and looked over them. “As I said before, I can read. I suppose you can, too. So don’t bother me.”

An angry retort rose to Allan’s lips, but he choked it back; and at that instant a whistle sounded down the line, and the roar of an approaching train. He had just time to grab coat and lunch-basket and swing aboard, and in a moment was off toward Wadsworth.

He sank into a seat, his heart still hot at Nevins’s insolence; and yet, on second thought, he was glad that he had not yielded to the impulse to return an angry answer. It was natural that Nevins should have been provoked, though the delay of the night before was not Allan’s fault in the slightest degree; and, in any event, there was no use making an enemy of a fellow who might be able to do a great deal of mischief. But one thing Allan resolved on, his lips set: he would explain outstanding orders to Nevins, whether the latter chose to listen or not.

Mary Welsh was waiting for him at the door.

“You poor boy,” she said. “You’re half-dead fer sleep!”

“Only a quarter dead,” Allan corrected, “and I’ll soon be good as new. What’s that I smell?” he added, wrinkling his nose, as he stepped inside the door. “Hot biscuits?”

“You go git washed,” retorted Mary, with affected sternness, “an’ you’ll see what it is when ye git t’ table. Hurry up, now!”

“All right,” laughed the boy. “I know you, Mary Welsh.”

And when he sat down, he found that his nose had told him correctly. The biscuits were flaky and white and piping hot, with golden butter melting over them; and there were three slices of bacon cut very thin and browned to a turn; and potato-cakes—not those soggy, squashy potato-cakes which are, alas! too familiar—but crisp and brown, touching the palate in just the right way. Ah, Mary, you have achieved something in this world that many of your more “cultured” sisters may well envy you! How few of them could create potato-cakes like yours!

It was after eight o’clock when Allan finally climbed the stair to his little room under the roof, and went to bed. Mary had darkened the windows, so that the light should not disturb him, and he dropped off to sleep almost at once. I know the physiologists tell us that sound sleep is impossible after a hearty meal, but, candidly, I don’t believe it. Healthy animals, at least, have no difficulty in sleeping after eating; in fact, a nap almost always follows a meal. Watch your cat or dog after you have fed them. The cat will make a hasty toilet and curl up for a snooze; the dog will drop down behind the stove or in a sunny corner out-of-doors without even that formality. It is only when the stomach has been ruined by long years of overfeeding that one must use all the precautions which physical culturists and health-food advocates and cranks of that ilk advise—must eschew biscuits for bread two days old, and half-starve oneself in order to live at all. But the healthy boy may eat whatever he pleases, in moderation, and be none the worse for it.

So all the day Allan slept, never once so much as turning over, hearing nothing of the comings and goings in the house. Indeed, Mary Welsh took care that there should be little noise to disturb him. Mamie, when she came home from school at noon, was promptly warned to keep quiet, and ate her dinner as silently as a mouse. Not until the sun was sinking low in the west and a glance at the clock assured her that he must be awakened, did she climb the stair which led to his little room and tap gently at his door.

“Allan!” she called. “Allan!”

“Yes?” he answered sleepily, after a moment.

“You must be gittin’ up, if you’re goin’ t’ ketch your train,” she said.

“All right; I’ll be down in a minute,” and he sprang out of bed and into his clothes in a jiffy.

Mary had his supper smoking hot on the table, and Mamie, who had just come home from school, sat down with him to keep him company.

“I don’t like your new position very well, Allan,” she said, as she poured out his coffee for him.

“Why not?” he asked, smiling down into the serious little freckled face.

“Why, you’re going to be away from home every evening,” she explained. “Who’s going to help me get my lessons, I’d like to know?”

Allan laughed outright.

“So that’s it? Well, we’ll have to make some arrangement about it. Maybe in the morning, as soon as I get in—”

“You’ll do no such thing,” broke in Mrs. Welsh, sharply. "When you git home in th’ mornin’ you’re goin’ straight t’ bed, jest as soon as you git your breakfast. Mamie kin git her own lessons. It’ll do her good. You’re fair spoilin’ th’ child."

“I’ll tell you,” said Allan, “I’ll get up half an hour earlier in the afternoon. There’s no sense in my sleeping so long, anyway. It’ll make me stupid. You hurry straight home from school, and we’ll have plenty of time.”

Mamie clapped her hands. Then she sprang from her chair, flew around the table, threw her arms around his neck and kissed him.

“Allan, you’re a dear!” she cried. “A perfect dear!”

It was at this moment that the door opened and Jack Welsh came in, grinning broadly as he saw the tableau at the table.

“Mary,” he said, “it seems to me that Mamie’s gittin’ t’ be a very forrerd sort o’ body. It’s scandalous th’ way she runs arter th’ boys.”

“Only arter one boy, Jack,” corrected his wife, “an’ I don’t care how much she runs arter him. But how did ye happen t’ git home so early?”

“I was hungerin’ fer a sight o’ your black eyes, me darlint,” answered Jack, winking at Allan, and he passed his arm about his wife’s trim waist and gave her a tremendous hug.

“Go way, ye blarney!” she cried, beating him off. “Do ye wonder your child’s forrerd when her father sets her sich an example? An’ I s’pose you’ll be wantin’ your supper now. Well, it ain’t ready!”

“No,” said Jack, releasing her, “I’ve got t’ go back t’ th’ yards first t’ see th’ roadmaster. I’ll be back in about half an hour. Come along, Allan, if you’re goin’.”

Allan put on coat and hat, picked up the luncheon-basket, which Mary had already packed for him, kissed Mamie again, and followed Jack down the steep path which led to the street. He turned at the gate to wave good-bye to Mary and Mamie, who stood watching them from the door above, then followed Jack across the maze of tracks toward the station.

“Th’ fact o’ th’ matter is, Allan,” said Jack, in a low voice, as the boy caught up with him, “I come home early on purpose t’ see you.”

“To see me?” Allan repeated, and when he glanced at Jack, he saw that his face was very grave.

“Yes, t’ see you,” said Jack again, and hesitated, as though reluctant to impart the news which he knew would be unwelcome.

“What is it?” asked Allan, and a little shiver ran through him, for he knew that Jack would not speak so without good reason.

The elder man hesitated yet a moment.

“Dan Nolan’s loose,” he said, at last, his voice hoarse with emotion.

[CHAPTER IX]

AN UNWELCOME GUEST

“Dan Nolan’s loose,” repeated Jack, as though his companion had not heard, and then walked on in silence.

Allan’s heart gave a sickening leap—not in the least of fear, for he had never been afraid of Nolan, but of anxiety for the property of the company. He knew Nolan’s revengeful and vindictive nature; he knew that he would never rest content until he had avenged himself upon the company for sending him to the penitentiary. For himself he did not fear; Nolan, who was a coward at heart, a lazy, overgrown bully, had never dared attack him openly. He recalled how the thought of Nolan had oppressed him that morning. There was something prophetic in it!

“But I don’t understand,” he said, at last. “I thought Nolan had been sent to the penitentiary for three years.”

“So he was,” growled Jack, "an’ he’d got a stiffer dose than that if he hadn’t been the coward an’ traitor he was. You know he turned State’s evidence an’ testified agin his pals, an’ so managed t’ git hisself off with three year, while all th’ others got ten. I’d hate t’ be in Nolan’s shoes when they do git out. They’ll certainly never rest till they git even with him."

“But how did he get out?” asked Allan, again. “He hasn’t been in the penitentiary more than six months.”

“Only five months,” corrected Jack, grimly. “Purty justice I call that! It’s enough t’ disgust an honest man! What’s th’ use o’ being honest, anyway, if that’s all they do to a dirty scoundrel like Dan Nolan? No wonder they’s lynchin’ parties every now an’ then!”

“Jack,” laughed Allan, “you don’t believe a word you’re saying, and you know it!”

“Well, anyway,” said Jack, “it makes me fair sick at heart t’ think of it! Here’s this cowardly blackguard loose agin, an’ y’ know he’s got it in fer ye!”

“Oh, I can take care of myself,” said Allan, easily.

“In a fair fight ye could,” agreed Jack. “But ye know as well as I do that he won’t fight fair. He’ll be tryin’ some of his cowardly tricks on ye, jest like he did afore. I won’t be able t’ sleep fer worritin’ about it!”

“Oh, nonsense, Jack! You don’t need to worry, at all. I’ll keep my eyes open. But you haven’t told me yet how he got out. Was he pardoned?”

“Oh, wuss’n that!” answered Jack, disgustedly. “They went an’ put him on th’ pay-roll!”

“On the pay-roll!” repeated Allan. “Oh, you mean he’s been parolled?”

“Yes; what’s that mean?”

“It means that he’s released during good behaviour. As soon as he does anything wrong he’ll be whisked back into the penitentiary, and won’t get out again till his term’s out.”

“Much good that’ll do,” commented Jack, “arter th’ mischief’s done! That’s like lockin’ th’ stable door arter th’ hoss is stole!”

“He’s probably promised to be good.”

“He’d promise anything,” said Jack; “why, he’d sell his soul t’ th’ devil, t’ git another chance at ye. Ye must look out fer yourself, me boy.”

“I will,” promised Allan, with a laugh, as he swung himself aboard the train. “Don’t worry.”

But when the train had started and he was alone with his thoughts, without the fear of Jack’s sharp eyes seeing what was passing in his mind, the smile faded from his lips. After all, seek to evade it as he might, there was some danger. Nolan was vindictive—he would seek revenge first of all, unless his nature had been completely changed, which was scarcely to be expected. If he would fight fairly, there was very little to apprehend from him; but Allan knew perfectly well that he would not do this. He would work in the dark, undoubtedly; he would watch for a chance to injure his enemy without running any risk himself.

So it was in a decidedly serious frame of mind that Allan left the train at Byers Junction and entered the little frame building which was his office. Nevins, the day man, grunted the gruffest kind of a greeting, caught up his coat and lunch-basket, and hastened away, while Allan sat down, looked over the orders, and familiarized himself with the condition of things. There was an order or two to acknowledge, and a report to make, and half an hour passed almost before he knew it.

As he leaned back in his chair to rest a moment, he happened to glance through the window, and was surprised to see Nevins walking up and down the track, at a little distance, as though waiting for some one. He still had his lunch-basket in his hand, and evidently had not yet gone home to supper. Allan watched him, with a feeling of uneasiness which he could not explain. At last, he saw Nevins make an impatient gesture, and after looking up and down the track again, walk rapidly away in the direction of the little village where he boarded.

First Ninety-eight pulled in at that moment and stopped for orders; orders for an extra west had to be received, and a train on the connecting road had to be passed on its way, and by the time he was at leisure again he had forgotten all about Nevins. He got out his copy of the book of rules, and looked through it to be sure that he was familiar with the rules which governed each emergency.

The book opened with a “General Notice,” to the effect that “to enter or remain in the service is an assurance of willingness to obey the rules; obedience to the rules is essential to the safety of passengers and employees; the service demands the faithful, intelligent, and courteous discharge of duty; to obtain promotion, capacity must be shown for greater responsibility; and employees, in accepting employment, assume its risks.”

The general rules which followed were easily remembered. Among other things they prohibited the use of intoxicants by employees, while on duty, and the warning was given that “the habitual use of intoxicants, or the frequenting of places where they are sold, is sufficient cause for dismissal.” The officials of the railroads all over the country have come to realize the need for a cool head, steady nerves, and unimpaired judgment in every man who holds a railroad position, from the lowest to the highest, and conditions which were only too common a generation ago would not now be tolerated for a moment. The standard of character, of intelligence, and of conduct required from their employees by railroads, and by almost every other industrial enterprise, has been steadily growing higher, and while skill and experience, of course, still count for much, character and habits also weigh heavily in the scale.

A whistle down the line told him that the extra west, for which he had an order, was approaching. He went to the door and assured himself that the signal was properly set, then, as the train pounded up, called up the dispatchers’ office and reported its arrival. A moment later, a heavy step sounded on the platform and Bill Higgins entered. Allan handed him the order silently, and stood waiting for him to read it, wondering if there would be another quarrel like that of the night before. But Higgins read the order aloud, without protest, then folded it up, put it in his pocket, and turned to go. Allan sat down again at his key; but after a moment he realized that Higgins was still standing beside his chair. He glanced up in surprise, and saw that the big conductor was fiddling nervously with his lantern.

“Fact is,” he burst out, catching Allan’s eye, “I made a fool o’ myself last night. I want you to fergit it, m’ boy.”

“I will,” said Allan, heartily, and held out his hand.

Bill grasped it in his mammoth palm and gave it a mighty squeeze.

“’Tain’t fer my own sake,” he added, and his voice was a little husky.

“I know,” said Allan, quickly. “It’s all right. I’ve forgotten it.”

“Thank’ee,” said Bill, awkwardly, and turned away.

Allan watched his burly figure until it disappeared through the door. He was glad that he had taken the engineer’s advice and not reported him. After all, the man was good, at heart; and besides, there were the wife and children.

He waited until he heard the train puff away, reported its departure, and then picked up the book of rules again. He ran over the definitions—definition of “train,” “section,” “extra,” and so on, which there is no need to repeat here—with which, indeed, the readers of this series ought already to be familiar.

Following the definitions came the train-rules, with instructions as to the time-card, and the signal rules. The latter are especially interesting, for every one who has travelled on a railway has noticed the signals made by hand, flag, or lantern, and has no doubt wondered what they meant. A hand, flag, or lantern swung across the track means stop; raised and lowered vertically, proceed; swung vertically in a circle across the track, when the train is standing, back; and there are other signals to indicate when the train has broken in two, and to order the release or application of the air-brakes. Rule No. 13 is that “any object waved violently by any one on or near the track is a signal to stop,” and a stop signal must always be obeyed, no matter at what cost—to run by such a signal means instant dismissal.

There are other signals, too, which are of interest to passengers, particularly the whistle signals. There are sixteen of these, but the more important ones are: one short blast, stop; one long blast on approaching stations, junctions, or railroad-crossings at grade; two long blasts followed by two short ones on approaching public crossings at grade, which is the signal most frequently heard by the travelling public. A succession of short blasts means danger ahead—and is used, too, to scare cows and horses off the track.

There is yet another class of signals, which are given with the signal-cord which runs overhead through every passenger-coach. Every one, of course, has seen this cord, and has also seen the conductor use it to signal to the engineer. It is connected with a little valve over the door of the car, and every time the conductor pulls it, there is a little hiss from the valve as of escaping steam. This is the compressed air escaping. The valve is connected with a compressed-air line which runs through the entire train, and every pull on the cord blows a little whistle in the cab of the engine. Two pulls at this cord, when the train is moving, means stop at once; when the train is standing, two pulls is the signal to start. Four pulls means reduce speed, and five, increase speed. Three pulls is the signal usually heard, and indicates that the train is to stop at the next station. It is always answered by two toots from the whistle to show that the engineer understands. This compressed-air line long ago replaced the old signal-cord which rang a bell in the cab.

A call sounded on his instrument, and Allan laid down the book again to answer it. There was a short order to be taken, and just as he repeated it and snapped his key shut, he heard a step at the door behind him. He glanced around carelessly, then started suddenly upright, for on the threshold peering in at him stood Dan Nolan.

[CHAPTER X]

A PROFESSION OF FRIENDSHIP

For a moment, neither of them spoke. Then Nolan drew back as though to go away, but thought better of it, entered the little room slowly, and without waiting for an invitation, sat down in the remaining chair.

“Howdy,” he said, and smiled at Allan in a manner intended to be amiable.

“How are you?” Allan answered, striving vainly to guess what object Nolan could have had in coming here.

Nolan coughed dismally.

“You see I’m out,” he said, grinning sheepishly.

“Yes; I heard this evening that you had been parolled.”

Nolan coughed again.

“It’d have been murder to keep me in any longer,” he said. “One lung’s gone as it is. Th’ doctor told th’ board I’d be dead inside o’ six months if I wasn’t let out.”

And, indeed, as Allan looked at him more closely, he could see the change in him. He was thinner and his face had a ghastly pallor, revolting to see. An experienced police officer would have recognized the prison pallor at a glance—the pallor which all criminals acquire who serve a term in jail; but to Allan it seemed proof positive of the progress of his old enemy’s disease, and his heart was stirred with pity.

“That’s too bad,” he said. “I hope you’ll get well, now you’re out again.”

Nolan shook his head lugubriously.

“Not much hope o’ that, I guess,” he answered. “Arter all, it’s no more’n I deserve fer treatin’ you th’ way I did.”

Allan stared at him in astonishment. Repentance was the last thing he had ever expected of Nolan, and he scarcely knew how to answer.

“Oh, it wasn’t so bad as that,” he managed to say, at last.

“It’s mighty kind o’ you t’ say so,” replied Nolan, humbly, “but I know better. I tell you, durin’ th’ last three months, arter I was locked up in my cell every night, I had plenty o’ time t’ think things over, an’ I begun t’ see what a blamed skunk I’d been.”

There was a whine in his voice not wholly genuine. Allan would have doubted its genuineness still more could he have seen the grimace which Nolan made at his back as he turned away to take an order. He was vaguely troubled. If Nolan was sincerely repentant, he did not wish to be unjust to him, yet, at the same time, he could not wholly believe in the reality of a change so at variance with Nolan’s character. Something of this hesitation was visible in his face, as he looked up from taking the message.

“I don’t blame you fer doubtin’ me,” Nolan added. “If I was in your place, I’d kick me out.”

“Oh, I’m not going to do that,” protested Allan, laughing at the twisted pronouns. “How did you happen to come to Byers?”

Nolan’s face wrinkled a little, but the answer came readily enough.

“I’d been to Wadsworth,” he explained. “Th’ people at th’ pen. bought me a ticket an’ sent me back—but I was ashamed t’ stay there—I was ashamed fer anybody t’ see me. They all knowed what I’d done. So I thought I’d go t’ Parkersburg, where I’ve got an uncle who kin git me work, an’ give me a chance t’ earn an honest livin’.”

“And you’re going to walk?” asked Allan.

“Sure,” answered Nolan. “How else? I ain’t a-goin’ t’ jump no train—that’s agin th’ law. An’ I knows mighty well none o’ th’ trainmen ’d let me ride.”

Allan was silent a moment. He remembered vividly the time when he himself had walked from Cincinnati to Wadsworth in search of work; he remembered how long and weary each of those hundred miles had seemed. And he had been strong and healthy, while Nolan was evidently weak and sick, not fit at all for such a journey.

Nolan, who had been watching Allan’s face intently, rose suddenly to his feet.

“Don’t you worry about me,” he said. “I ain’t wuth it. Besides, I’ll git along all right.”

“But maybe I can help you,” Allan began.

“No, you can’t; I won’t let you. I ain’t got that low,” and Nolan, crushing his hat fiercely down upon his head, strode to the door. “Good-bye,” he called over his shoulder, “an’ good luck.”

“Good-bye,” answered Allan, and watched him with something almost like respect until his figure was swallowed up in the darkness.

Outside in the night, Nolan was striding up and down, waving his clenched fists wildly in the air, his face convulsed with passion.

“Th’ fool!” he muttered, hoarsely. “Th’ fool! Th’ goody-goody ape! Wanted t’ help me! Oh, I couldn’t ’a’ stood it—I’d ’a’ been at his throat in a minute more. I’ll show him! I’ll show him!”

He circled the shanty cautiously until he reached a spot whence, through the window, he could see Allan bending over his key. He shook his fist at the unconscious boy in a very ecstasy of rage.

“I’ll fix ye!” he cried. “I’ll fix ye!”

He saw Allan stir uneasily in his chair, as though he had heard the threat, and for an instant he stood motionless, with bated breath, his clenched fist still in the air. Then he realized the impossibility of being overheard at such a distance, and laughed weakly to himself.

“You’ve lost yer nerve, Dan,” he said. “You’ve lost yer nerve! No, I’m blamed if y’ have!” and he straightened up again and shook his fist fiercely in the air.

“Hello,” said a voice just behind him, “what’s all this about?” and a hand grabbed his wrist.

Nolan turned with a little cry of fright. He gave a gasp of relief as he recognized Nevins.

“What d’ ye want t’ scare a feller like that fer?” he demanded, wrenching his wrist loose.

“Were you scared?” asked Nevins, with a little sneer. “Lost your nerve, hey?”

“No, I ain’t lost my nerve,” retorted Nolan, savagely, “an’ you’ll soon find it out, if you tries t’ git smart with me! I didn’t tell all I knowed at th’ trial!”

Even in the darkness, Nolan could see how Nevins’s face changed, and he laughed triumphantly. Nevins echoed the laugh, but in an uncertain key.

“Oh, come, Dan,” he said, “don’t get mad. I didn’t mean anything.”

But Nolan was not one to be generous with an adversary when he had him down.

“No,” he went on slowly, "I didn’t tell all I knowed. Let’s see—last fall you was night operator at Harper’s—an’ th’ station was robbed—an’ when th’ day man come on in th’ mornin’ he found you gagged an’ bound in yer chair, sufferin’ terrible. I didn’t tell th’ court how willin’ you was t’ git tied up, nor how we happened t’ choose th’ night when th’ station was full o’ vallyble freight, nor how you got a share o’ th’ swag—"

“Oh, come, Dan,” Nevins broke in, “what’s the use of raking all that up again? Of course you didn’t tell. I knew mighty well you wouldn’t give a friend away.”

“There’s no tellin’ what I’ll do if I lose my nerve,” said Nolan, threateningly. “Where ’re you stoppin’?”

“Over here at the village. And mighty dull it is.”

“Well, they’s nobody here knows me,” said Nolan. “S’pose we go over to your room an’ have a talk.”

“All right,” agreed Nevins, after an instant’s hesitation. And they walked away together. “What are you going to do now?” he asked, a moment later.

“Th’ fust thing I’m a-goin’ t’ do,” answered Nolan, his eyes shining fiercely, “is t’ git even with that dirty rat of an Allan West, who sent me to th’ pen.”

“All right,” said Nevins, heartily. “I’m with you there. I don’t like him, either. Only, of course, you’ll not—you’ll not—”

“Oh, don’t be afeerd,” snarled Nolan. "I ain’t a-goin’ t’ kill him. I got too much sense t’ run my head in a noose. Besides, that ain’t what I want. That ain’t good enough! I want somethin’ t’ happen that’ll disgrace him, that he’ll never git over—somethin’ that’ll haunt him all his life. He holds his head too high, an’ I’m a-goin’ t’ make him hold it low!"

“I see,” said Nevins, thoughtfully. “Well, we can manage it some way.”

“O’ course we kin,” agreed Nolan, and licked his lips eagerly. “Afore I git through with him, he’ll be sorry he was ever born!”

Nevins nodded.

“We can manage it,” he repeated. “Here we are,” he added, and stopped before a two-story frame dwelling-house. “My room is up-stairs. Come along,” and he opened the front door.

Nolan followed him through the door and up the stairs. Nevins opened another door, struck a match to show his companion the way, and then lighted a lamp which stood on a table in the middle of the room. Then he closed the door and locked it, and going to the window, pulled down the blind so that no one could see in from the outside. Then he went to a bureau which stood in one corner, unlocked it and got out a box of stogies, a sack of sugar, a bottle of whiskey, and two glasses. He stirred up the fire in the little stove which warmed the room, and set over it a kettle which he filled with water from the pitcher on his washstand. Nolan, who had been watching him with greedy eyes, licking his lips from time to time, dropped into a chair with a grunt of satisfaction.

“You’re all right, Nevins,” he said. “You treat a feller decent.”

“Of course I do,” agreed Nevins, “especially when he’s my friend. Now we can talk.”

An hour later, any one looking in upon them, would have seen them sitting together before the fire, their heads nodding, and the room so filled with tobacco-smoke that the flame of the lamp showed through it dim and yellow. Nevins was snoring heavily, but Nolan was still awake and was muttering hoarsely to himself.

“That’s it!” he said. “That’s th’ ticket! You’ve got a great head, Nevins! No, I’ll never tell—not arter you’re helpin’ me out this way. Why, we kin work it easy as greased lightnin’. Nobody’ll ever know—an’ that kid’ll never git over it. He’s that kind—it’ll haunt him! Why, I wouldn’t be surprised if he went crazy!”

Nevins awoke with a start.

“Come on,” he said, “let’s go to bed.”

“All right,” assented Nolan, and arose heavily, and began to undress, lurching unsteadily from side to side. “But you certainly are a peach, Nevins, t’ think of a scheme like that!”

“Oh, that was easy,” protested Nevins, who was winding his alarm-clock. “That was easy.”

“It’ll fix him,” Nolan chuckled. “He’ll never sleep sound ag’in!”

“And he won’t be such a pet at headquarters,” Nevins added. “In fact, I think his connection with the P. & O. will end then and there.”

“O’ course,” Nolan assented. “But it ain’t that I’m thinkin’ of so much. It’s of him thinkin’ an’ worryin’ an’ goin’ crazy about it. Mebbe he’ll kill hisself!”

Even Nevins, hardened as he was, could not repress a shudder as he saw Nolan’s countenance convulsed with horrible mirth. There was something revolting and fiendish about it. He turned quickly and blew out the light.

“Come on,” he said, almost harshly. “Get to bed. It’s nearly midnight.”

But even after they were in bed, he could hear Nolan chuckling ecstatically to himself, and shrank away from him in disgust.

[CHAPTER XI]

THE PRESIDENT’S SPECIAL

The operator’s work at Byers Junction was more important and difficult than at any of the other small stations on the line, because, as has already been explained, it was at that point that the track of the D. W. & I. joined that of the P. & O., and all D. W. & I. trains ran over the P. & O. tracks as far as West Junction, a distance of about eight miles. This complicated the traffic problem and the movement of trains much more than a simple crossing would have done, for the trains had to be kept out of each other’s way not only at the junction, but for the whole length of that stretch of track which was used in common by the two roads.

The P. & O. was considerably the older of the two, and had been built along the main line of traffic from east to west—the line which, in the old days, had been followed by the stage-coach. As the State became more thickly settled, other lines sprang up, and finally, when rich deposits of coal were discovered in Jackson County, the D. W. & I. was built to tap this territory and connect it with the northwestern part of the State. The P. & O. also ran through Jackson County, and, of course, soon built a branch to the coal-fields, so that when the work of construction on the new road began it was found that it would closely parallel the P. & O. for a distance of about eight miles. The new road was short of cash at the time, as most roads in the building are, and decided to use the P. & O. track for that distance, instead of building a track of its own.

So a traffic arrangement was made, the junction points established, and joint operators placed there. This arrangement, which, as was at first supposed, would be only temporary, was continued from year to year, the P. & O. getting a good rental out of this stretch of track, and the D. W. & I. never accumulating a sufficient balance in the treasury to build a track of its own—at least, whenever it did get such a balance, it was always needed for some more pressing purpose, and the old arrangement was allowed to stand. When a railroad has to fight to earn the interest on its bonds, it is willing to do anything that will give it a longer lease of life.

The D. W. & I. was, as will be seen, an unimportant road. It ran only one passenger-train a day in each direction, and, as it was not on the way to anywhere, its business, both freight and passenger, was purely local. At the beginning of its existence, it had hauled a great deal of coal for the Chicago market, but this business had been killed by the development of the great Pocahontas fields in West Virginia. Luckily for the road, it was discovered at this time that it might serve as a link between the mighty N. & W. and C. H. & D. to connect the Pocahontas fields with Chicago, so, while the east end of the line gradually degenerated into a streak of rust, traffic on the west end, from Wadsworth to Dayton, became heavier than ever, as train after train of coal and coke, from the West Virginia fields, passed daily over this little stretch of track, and then rushed away to the busy city by the lake. It was a good deal like a man living on one lung, or with one side partially paralyzed; yet a certain sort of life is possible under those conditions, and this one-sided traffic provided the only dividend the D. W. & I. had ever paid, and permitted the road to struggle along without going into the hands of a receiver.

Owing to this double use of this little stretch of track, the operators at both Byers and West Junction were what is called “joint operators;” that is, they served as operator for both roads, received orders from both headquarters, and so managed the traffic that there should be no conflict. This consisted, for the most part, in holding the D. W. & I. trains until the P. & O. trains were out of the way; for the trains of the more important road were always given precedence, and the others had to make the best of it and hurry through whenever there was an opening. The P. & O. dispatcher had absolute control over the track, and the D. W. & I. trains were not turned back to the control of that road until they had got back upon their own line.

At night, luckily, there was very little traffic over the D. W. & I.—so little that it had not bothered Allan at all. But during the day trick, traffic was much livelier, and it required a cool head and steady judgment to get everything past without confusion. There was, both at Byers and West Junction, a long siding upon which trains could be held until the track ahead was clear, but they were used only when absolutely necessary, for the ideal and constant endeavour of dispatcher, operator, and every other employee of a railroad is to keep things moving.

Only by keeping things moving, can a railroad be profitably operated. One stalled train soon blocks a dozen others, and any derangement of the time-card means delayed mails, wrathful passengers, irate trainmen, and a general tangle of traffic almost certain to result in accident. To keep things moving on a single-track road, such as the P. & O., requires no little judgment and experience, as well as the power of reaching the wisest decision instantly. There must be, too, in the ideal dispatcher, an element of daring, for chances have to be taken occasionally, and in railroading, more than in any other business, he who hesitates is lost. Not of foolhardiness, be it understood, for the foolhardy dispatcher soon comes to grief; but he must, as it were, expect the best, not the worst, and govern himself accordingly. Before he sits down at his desk, he must make up his mind that during his trick, every train is going to get over the road on time, and then bend every energy to accomplish that result. This, it may be added, is the secret of all successful train-dispatching.

Nevins reported on time next morning, and greeted Allan with unusual affability; but his eyes were bloodshot, and though he pretended to listen to Allan’s explanation of the orders in force, it was evident that his attention wandered and that he was making no effort to understand.

“All right,” he said, when Allan had finished. “I’ve got that all straight,” and he sat down heavily before the table.

His hand trembled perceptibly as he opened his key, and Allan, as he put on his coat, noticed the confused way in which he started to answer the dispatcher’s question about the position of a train.

The dispatcher cut in sharply.

“Who is this?” he asked.

“Nevins.”

“What’s the matter—been out all night?”

Nevins, who knew that Allan had heard the question, reddened to his ears.

“Now try again,” added the dispatcher, “and brace up.”

Nevins, by a mighty effort, controlled his uncertain muscles, and sent the remainder of the message accurately, but considerably slower than usual.

The dispatcher acknowledged it.

“All right,” he said, “but take my advice and go out and put your head under the pump. You need it. The way you sent that message reminds me of a man going down the street so drunk that the only way he can walk straight is to watch every step he takes.”

Nevins reddened again and growled unintelligibly.

As for Allan, he caught up his lunch-basket and hurried out of the office, sorry that he had overheard the reprimand, but scarcely able to suppress his laughter at the aptness of it. For Nevins had sent the message in just that slow, painful, dignified way.

The accommodation stopped at the junction a few minutes later, and he swung aboard and settled into a seat. As the train started, some unaccountable impulse caused him to lean toward the window and look back at the little shanty. A man was just entering the door. Allan caught but a glimpse of him, and yet it seemed to him in that instant that he recognized the slouching figure of Dan Nolan.

He sank back into his seat strangely troubled. Could it, indeed, be Nolan? Was he hanging about the place for some sinister purpose? Then he thrust the thought away. It could not have been Nolan. That worthy was by this time many miles away, on the road to Parkersburg, in search of a chance to make an honest living.

When Allan stepped upon the platform of the Wadsworth station that evening, lunch-basket in hand, to take the train back to Byers, he was surprised to find Jack Welsh there awaiting him.

“I didn’t want t’ go home early agin,” Jack explained. “Mary ’d scent somethin’ wrong and ’d git th’ whole story out o’ me. I don’t want her t’ be worrited about this business.”

“About what business?” asked Allan.

“Oh, you know well enough. About Dan Nolan. He was here yistidday arternoon. Some o’ th’ boys seen him over t’ James’s saloon. Jem Tuttle says he seen him jump on second ninety-eight. I thought mebbe he might ’a’ gone t’ Byers.”

“He did,” said Allan, quietly. “I saw him.”

“Ye did!” cried Jack. “I hope ye did fer him!”

“Why, Jack,” protested Allan, “the poor fellow’s nearly dead with consumption. He’s on his way to Parkersburg to look for work. He says he wants a chance to earn an honest living.”

“He told ye that, did he? An’ was ye fool enough t’ set there with your mouth open an’ gulp it all down? I give ye credit fer more sense than that!”

Allan reflected that Nolan certainly had lied about his unwillingness to steal a ride. And the figure he had seen that morning vanishing through the door of the Byers station recurred to him.

“I did believe it,” he admitted finally. "He looked so sick and weak that I couldn’t help but pity him."

“Pity a toad!” said Jack, contemptuously. “Pity a snake! An’ he’s a thousand times wuss ’n any snake! He’s jest waitin’ fer a good chance t’ bite!”

“Well, I’ll take care he doesn’t get the chance,” Allan assured him, and clambered aboard the train at the sharp “all aboard!” of the conductor.

The more he thought over the circumstances of Nolan’s appearance the night before, the more strongly was he inclined to believe that Jack’s warning was not without reason. Nolan, perhaps, hoped to put him off his guard, to catch him napping, and then, in some underhanded way, to “get even.”

“Well, he sha’n’t do that,” murmured Allan to himself. “I’ll keep my eyes open. And if Mr. Nolan is up to any such little game, I think he’ll get the worst of it.”

With which comforting reflection, he leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes, and took a little cat-nap until the junction was reached.

When he entered the little office, he found Nevins sitting listlessly at the table, his head in his hands. He glanced up quickly as Allan entered, with a kind of guilty start, and the boy noticed how pale and tired he looked. Nevins nodded, in answer to his greeting, then got unsteadily to his feet and stood drumming nervously with his fingers upon the table.

“You look regularly done up,” said Allan. “Had a hard day?”

“Hard!” echoed Nevins, hoarsely. “I should say so—hard’s no name for it! They’ve been tryin’ to send all the freight in the country through here. And everybody snortin’ mad, from the dispatchers down to the brakemen. You heard how that smarty lit into me the first thing this mornin’. It’s enough to make a man throw up the job!”

Allan saw how overwrought he was and dropped into the chair without replying, and began to look over the orders on the hook. Nevins watched him, his face positively haggard. Just then the sounder clicked off a rapid message, as the operator at Hamden reported the passage of a train to the dispatcher at headquarters.

“Hello,” said Allan; “there’s a special coming west. Do you know what it is?”

“It’s the president’s special,” answered Nevins, moistening his lips nervously. “A lot of the big guns are on it, on their way to attend a meeting at Cincinnati. They’ve kept the wires hot all day—nothing but thirty-nine, thirty-nine, thirty-nine. The other business had to take its chance.”

Thirty-nine, it may be explained in passing, is the signal used for messages of the general officers, and indicates that such messages have precedence over all other messages except train-orders.

Nevins paused a moment longer, gazing down at Allan’s bent head, and opened his mouth once or twice as though to speak; then, seizing his coat and hat, fairly rushed from the place.

Allan hung up the order-hook again, and as he did so, he noticed that Nevins’s lunch-basket was standing on the floor near the window. Nevins had evidently been so upset and nervous from the hard day’s work that he had forgotten it.

He glanced at his watch and saw that it was 6.58. Hamden, which had reported the passage of the special, was only eight miles away, so the train would pass the junction within five or six minutes. Allan knew that when a train carrying the high officials went over the road, the way was kept clear for it, it was given the best engine and the nerviest engineer, and every effort was made to break records. There was no order for it at the junction, his signal would give it a clear track, and it would sweep by without slackening speed.

As a matter of precaution, he went to the door to be sure the signal was properly set, and stood there, looking down the track in the direction whence the train was coming. He had a clear view for perhaps half a mile, and sure enough, a minute later, he saw a headlight flash into view, and the rails began to hum as they only do when a train is running a mile a minute. A long whistle from the engine showed that the engineer had seen the signal and knew that the track was clear.

Then suddenly, the boy’s heart stood still, for down the track, toward West Junction, he heard the chug-chug of an approaching freight!

Just what happened in the instant that followed Allan never clearly remembered. His brain seemed paralyzed; his senses swam and the world grew dark before him as though some one had struck him a heavy blow upon the head. Then, instinctively, his hand flew to the lever which controlled the train-signal and swung it over; but he had no hope that the engineer of the special would note the change. He was too close upon it, and besides he had assured himself that it showed an open track and so would not look at it again.

An instant later, there was a report like a pistol-shot. Allan heard the sharp shriek of applied brakes, the shrill blast from the whistle which told of “Danger ahead!” He saw the special sweep past, shaken throughout its entire length by the mighty effort made to stop it; then he sank limply down on the threshold of the door, and buried his face in his hands, not daring to see more.

[CHAPTER XII]

PLACING THE BLAME

The crowd of officials aboard the president’s special was a jolly one. To get away, even for a few days, from the toil and moil of headquarters was a genuine and welcome vacation, and though there were three stenographers aboard, all of whom were kept busy, there remained plenty of time for story-telling and good-natured quizzing. At the head of the party was President Bakewell, dressed in the height of fashion, holding his present position not so much because of any intimate knowledge of practical railroading as because of his ability as a financier, his skill as a pilot in days when earnings decreased, when times were bad, and when the money for running expenses or needed improvements had to be wrung from a tight market. At doing that he was a wizard, and he wisely left the problems of the actual management of the road to be solved by the men under him.

These, with very few exceptions, had risen from the ranks. They knew how to do everything from driving a spike to running an engine. They had been drilled in that best of all schools, the school of experience. The superintendents knew their divisions, every foot of track, every siding, every fill, bridge, and crossing, more thoroughly than the ordinary man knows the walk from his front door to the gate. They had gone over the road so often, had studied it so thoroughly, that they had developed a sort of special sense in regard to it. Put them down anywhere along it, blindfolded, on the darkest night, and, at the end of a moment, they could tell where they were. They knew each target by its peculiar rattle as the train sped past. They knew the position of every house—almost of every tree and rock—along it. They knew the pitch of every grade, the degree of every curve; they knew the weak spots, and laboured ceaselessly to strengthen them.

Now, as the special swept westward from general headquarters, superintendent after superintendent clambered aboard, as his division was reached, and pointed out to the president and other general officers the weak spots along it. He showed where the sidings were insufficient, where the grade was too steep to be passed by heavy trains, where a curve was too sharp to be taken at full speed without danger, where a bridge needed strengthening or replacing by a masonry culvert. He pointed out stations which were antiquated or inadequate to the growing business of the road, and suggested changes in schedule which would make for the convenience of the road’s patrons.

For a railroad is like a chain—it is only as strong as its weakest link, and the tonnage which an engine can handle must be computed, not with reference to the level track, but with reference to the stiffest grade which it will have to pass before reaching its destination—except, of course, in cases where the grade is so stiff, as sometimes happens on a mountain division, that it becomes a matter of economy to keep an extra engine stationed there to help the trains over, rather than trim the trains down to a point where a single engine can handle them.

The president listened to the arguments and persuasive eloquence of his superintendents, and nodded from time to time. His stenographer, sitting at his elbow, took down the recommendations and the reasons for them, word for word, as well as a comment from the president now and then. As soon as general headquarters were reached again, all this would be transcribed, typewritten copies made and distributed among the general officers; the recommendations would then be carefully investigated and approved or disapproved as might be.

At Parkersburg, Superintendent Heywood and Trainmaster Schofield, of the Ohio division, got aboard, to see that the needs of their division received proper consideration. Athens, Zaleski, McArthur, and Hamden were passed, and the two officials exchanged a glance. They had a recommendation to make which, if approved, would mean the expenditure of many thousands of dollars.

“The next station is Byers Junction,” said Mr. Heywood. “From there to West Junction, as you know, the D. W. & I. uses our track. In view of the great increase of traffic during the last year both Mr. Schofield and I feel that the D. W. & I. should either be compelled to build its own track, or that the P. & O. should be double-tracked between those points.”

“Hm!” commented the president. “How far is it?”

“Seven and a half miles.”

“Do you know how much another track would cost?”

“Not less than fifty thousand dollars.”

“What return do we get from the D. W. & I. for the use of our track?”

“It has averaged ten thousand dollars a year. But their freight business is increasing so that I believe it will soon be fifteen thousand.”

“Hm!” commented the president again. “Why don’t they borrow the money and build their own track?”

“In the first place, their credit isn’t very good,” Mr. Heywood explained, "and in the second place, for them to buy and get into shape a separate right of way would cost probably two hundred thousand dollars. We have our right of way, all grades are established, and all we have to do is to lay a second track along the one we already have."

“It sounds easy, doesn’t it?” laughed the president. “I don’t know anything that’s easier than building a railroad—on paper.”

“It would be a good investment,” said Mr. Schofield, rallying to the support of the superintendent. “It would return at least twenty per cent. on the cost. If we don’t get another track, we’ll have to shut the D. W. & I. out. A single track won’t handle the business any more. There’s always a congestion there that affects the whole road.”

The president puffed his cigar meditatively. Good investments appealed to him, and the reasons for the improvement certainly seemed to be weighty ones.

“Besides,” went on Mr. Schofield, “there’s always the danger of accident to be considered. A single one might cost us more than the whole eight miles of track.”

“Ever had any there?”

“No—none so serious as all that. But we’ve escaped some mighty bad ones by the skin of our teeth.”

The president smiled.

“Don’t try to scare me,” he said.

“I’m not. But it’s a serious matter, just the same. There’s the office now,” added Mr. Schofield, pointing to the little frame building. He saw a figure standing in the doorway, and knew that it was Allan West. “There’s the boy,” he began, when a report like a pistol-shot stopped him.

Instantly he grasped the arms of his seat, as did all the others, for they knew that the train had run over a torpedo. A second later, they were all jerked violently into the air as the brakes were jammed on and the engine reversed. Every loose object in the car was hurled forward with terrific force, and a negro porter, who was walking past bearing a tray of glasses, was shot crashing through the thin front partition, and disappeared with a yell of terror. A window, shattered by the strain, rained its fragments in upon the floor, and through the opening thus made, the occupants of the car could hear the shrieking brakes and labouring engine. In a moment, it was over; the train jerked itself to a stop; paused an instant as if to regain breath, and then, as the brakes were released, started with a jump back toward the office it had just passed. A moment later, something seemed to strike it and hurl it backward, but the car did not leave the rails. The impetus slowly ceased, and the train came to a stop just opposite the semaphore.

Without saying a word, the officials hastened outside. They knew perfectly well what had happened. A head-end collision had been averted by the narrowest possible margin; indeed, it had not been wholly averted, but had been so reduced in force that no great damage had been done.

“Lucky our train was a light one,” muttered Mr. Schofield, as he jumped to the ground. “I wonder if he thinks now I was trying to scare him?” and he shuddered at the thought of what would have happened had the engineer been unable to control the train. If it had been a regular passenger, with eight or ten heavy Pullmans crowding after the engine, even the most powerful brakes would have been unable to hold it.

Superintendent Heywood, his face very stern, hurried forward toward the engine. It was his duty to investigate the accident, to place the blame, and to see that the guilty person was punished. He regretted, as he had often done before, that the only punishment the road could inflict was dismissal from the service. Such a punishment for such a fault seemed so feeble and inadequate!

Bill Roth, the engineer of the special, was walking about his engine, examining her tenderly to see what damage she had sustained from the tremendous strain to which she had been subjected and from the collision which had followed.

“She’s all right,” he announced to Mr. Heywood. “Nothing smashed but her pilot and headlight,” and he patted one of the huge drivers as though the engine were a living thing and could feel the caress.

The superintendent nodded curtly and hurried on. Twenty feet down the track, the pilot and headlight also smashed, loomed a freight-engine. A single glance told Mr. Heywood that it belonged to the D. W. & I.

“I’ll run her in on the siding,” he said to Mr. Schofield, who was at his elbow.

The latter nodded and started on a run for the office, in order to get into touch at once with the dispatchers’ office. Neither official understood, as yet, how the accident had happened; but there would be time enough to inquire into that. The first and most important thing was to get the track clear so that the special could proceed on its way and the regular schedule be resumed.

As Mr. Schofield sprinted toward the office, he glanced at the train-signal and noted that it was set at danger. He must find out why their engineer had disregarded that warning, for he knew that the brakes had not been applied until the train was past the signal. Bill Roth was one of the oldest and most trusted engineers on the road, else he would not have been in charge of the special, but the best record on earth could not excuse such carelessness as that.

So Mr. Schofield reflected as he sprang up the steps that led to the door of the shanty. There he paused an instant, for at the table within stood Allan West, ticking off to headquarters a message telling of the accident, and asking for orders. Not until he came quite near could the trainmaster see now drawn and gray the boy’s face was. He waited until the message was finished and the key clicked shut. Then he stepped forward and laid his hand gently on the boy’s arm.

“All right, Allan,” he said. “No harm done, though it was a mighty close shave. You sit down there and pull yourself together, while I get this thing straightened out.”

In a moment he had headquarters.

“Eng. 315 running extra delayed at Byers Junction ten minutes. Will leave Junction 7.18. A M S.”

“O. K.,” flashed the answer from the dispatcher, who at once proceeded to modify his other orders in accordance with this delay.

As the trainmaster snapped the key shut, the superintendent appeared at the door.

“All ready,” he said.

“The track’s open,” said Mr. Schofield. “I’ve notified Greggs,” and the two men ran down the steps and started toward the train. “Did you notice the signal?” he added.

“Yes,” answered the superintendent, “and I asked Roth about it. He and his fireman both swear that it showed clear when they looked at it a moment before they reached it. Roth merely glanced at it and then looked back at the track. But the fireman says that it seemed to him it was swinging up just as they rushed past it. Then they hit the torpedo.”

“And where did it come from?”

“Lord only knows. There’s something mysterious about this affair, Schofield.”

“I know there is,” and the trainmaster’s face hardened. “I’m going to stay right here till I get to the bottom of it.”

Mr. Heywood nodded.

“Yes—I think that’s best. Who’s the night operator here now?”

“Allan West,” answered the other, speaking with evident difficulty.

The superintendent stopped for an instant, then went on whistling softly.

“Too bad,” he said, at last. “Have you asked him anything about it?”

“No; he seemed all unstrung. But he kept his head. He was reporting the accident and asking for orders when I got to the office.”

“Good; I hope he wasn’t to blame—though the setting of the train-signal at the last instant looks bad.”

“Yes,” assented Mr. Schofield, “it does.”

“Of course, I’m sorry for the boy; but if he was at fault, not even all he has done for the road can—can—”

“No,” broke in Mr. Schofield, curtly; “I know it can’t. Don’t be afraid. I’ll go to the bottom of the matter, regardless of who is hurt. I’ll fix the blame.”

The superintendent nodded without replying. Both men were more moved than they cared to show. For they were fond of the boy and had been very proud of him.

Mr. Heywood glanced at his watch, saw that it pointed to 7.18, and gave the signal to the conductor.

And as the train pulled away, Mr. Schofield started slowly back toward the shanty. The task before him was about the most unpleasant that he had ever faced.

But his countenance was impassive and composed as he mounted the steps to the door.

[CHAPTER XIII]

PROBING THE MYSTERY

Allan had recovered somewhat from the nervous shock the threatened accident had given him, and was receiving a message as Mr. Schofield entered. The latter paused a moment to look at him—at the handsome, honest, boyish face; the broad and open brow bespeaking intelligence and character, the mouth firm beyond his years, the eyes steady and fearless; and as he looked, a weight seemed to drop from his heart. Whoever was to blame, he knew instinctively that it was not Allan West.

He sat down with an audible sigh of relief, and got out a cigar and lighted it. A moment later, Allan repeated the message, closed his key and looked up with a smile. Mr. Schofield had proved himself a friend tried and true, and one upon whom he knew he could rely.

“Well,” said the trainmaster, answering the smile, “I’ve come to find out how it all happened. Suppose you tell me the story.”

Allan passed his hand quickly across his eyes.

“I really know very little,” he began. “I came on duty at the usual time, and took an order or two. Then I heard the operator at Hamden report the special. I knew it would be here in a few minutes, and as I had no order for it—”

“You’re sure there was no order for it?” interrupted Mr. Schofield.

“Yes, sir; I had just looked over the orders on the hook. So I went to the door to be sure the signal showed a clear track.”

“It did show a clear track, did it?”

“Yes, sir. I stood there a moment longer; and then I heard the special coming and saw its light flash around the curve. I watched it coming—it must have been running nearly a mile a minute.”

“It was—all of it,” said Mr. Schofield.

“Well, it was almost at the switch, when I heard another engine chug-chugging up the grade from West Junction. I don’t remember clearly just what I did for the next moment or two—I have a sort of recollection that I jerked the signal over and then I heard a shot—”

“It was a torpedo.”

“A torpedo?” echoed Allan. “But who—”

“I haven’t the slightest idea. We’ll look into that after awhile. Go ahead with your story.”

Allan paused a moment to collect his thoughts.

“I heard the brakes go on and saw the special sort of humping itself up in the effort to stop—”

“It was humping itself, and no mistake,” agreed the trainmaster. “And we were rattling around inside like dried peas in a pod.”

“And then,” Allan went on, “I thought I heard the trains come together, and things sort of went black before me; but I managed to pull myself together enough to report that the track was blocked. I was doing that when you came in.”

“Yes, I heard you. Now let’s find out how that freight got past West Junction. The operator there must have had an order to hold it until the special passed.”

He sat down before the key and called West Junction. The operator there, who had heard of the accident, answered almost instantly. At the same moment, the conductor and engineer of the freight, having assured themselves that no great damage had been done, and having replaced their shattered headlight by a lantern from the caboose, came in to report and ask for orders.

Mr. Schofield waited until he had received an answer to his question, then he closed the key and arose and faced them.

“The operator at West Junction says you left there at 6.20,” he said. “How does it come it took you nearly an hour to make eight miles?”

“We got a hot-box,” explained the conductor, "the worst I ever see. It was about midway of the train, so nobody smelt it till it got so bad it blazed up, and then I happened to see it when I looked out the winder of the caboose. When we opened the box, we found it dry as a bone, not a bit of dope in it—regularly cleaned out. I’ll bet it hadn’t been packed for a month. The journal was swelled so tight it took us half an hour to get it down."

“Yes, an’ we used nearly all th’ water in th’ tank doin’ it,” broke in the conductor. “An’ then when I tried t’ start, I found th’ brakes set, an’ we lost ten minutes more lookin’ for th’ air-hose that had busted an’ puttin’ on a new one.”

A hot-box, it should be explained in passing, is caused by imperfect lubrication of the axles of cars or engines, at the point where they pass through the journal-bearings. As they revolve rapidly under the great weight upon them, the friction generates heat, unless the surfaces are properly oiled, and this heat causes the journal to swell until it sticks in the bearing and refuses to revolve at all. Not infrequently the heat is so great that it generates a flame and sets the car on fire. To keep the journal lubricated, it is enclosed in a metal box, called a journal-box, and this is filled with axle-grease, or “dope,” as railroaders call it. In every railroad yard where trains are made up, there is a gang of men whose sole business it is to go from car to car, dope-bucket in hand, and make sure that all journal-boxes are properly filled. For hot-boxes are a prolific source of trouble. So are burst air-hose. Air-brakes, operated by compressed air, are very generally in use now on freight-cars as well as passenger-coaches. The compressed air is carried under the cars in iron pipes, but the coupling is of rubber-hose, in order to allow some play as the cars bump together or strain apart, and this hose frequently bursts under the great pressure. A burst hose instantly sets all the brakes, and the train-hands must first find the break, and then replace the burst coupling with a new one.

Mr. Schofield had listened to all these explanations with furrowed brow. Now he turned abruptly to the conductor.

“When you found you had run over your time,” he demanded, “how does it come you proceeded without a flag?”

“We hadn’t run over our time,” protested the conductor, hotly. “We had till 7.08 to make the Junction. We supposed of course the operator here knew his business and would protect us.”

“You would have been protected if I’d known you were coming,” said Allan, quickly, “but I had no order for you.”

“What!” demanded the engineer, incredulously, “do you mean to say th’ dispatcher didn’t cover us?”

“I certainly do.”

“An’ you didn’t git no order fer th’ special to meet us here?”

“I got no order whatever.”

The engineer, his face very red, produced from his pocket a soiled piece of tissue-paper.

“Read that,” he said, and handed it to the trainmaster.

Mr. Schofield opened it, his face very stern.

“’Engine 618,’” he read, "’will run extra from West Junction to Byers Junction and will keep clear of special passenger-train west, engine 315, after 7.08 P. M.’"

“We’d have got here all right at 7.06,” went on the engineer, truculently. “We had three minutes.”

“What time did the special pass?” asked Mr. Schofield.

“At 7.05,” answered Allan.

The trainmaster nodded, and handed the order back to the engineer.

“You boys are all right,” he said. “You’re evidently not to blame.”

The engineer chuckled.

“You bet we ain’t,” he agreed. “But that’ll be th’ last o’ Mister Dispatcher on this road, I reckon. Who was it?”

“Greggs,” answered the trainmaster, tersely.

“Hum!” said the engineer, after a moment’s reflection. “I’d never have thought Greggs’d make a break like that. If it’d been Jenkins, now.”

“When did you realize that something was wrong?” asked Mr. Schofield, with a little impatient jerk of the head.

“When I saw that signal swung up. I knowed nobody’d handle it so rough as that without mighty good cause. So I jammed on th’ brakes an’ jerked open th’ sand-box an’ reversed her; an’ then in about a second, I see another headlight comin’ at me, an’ I knowed what was up.

“’Git out o’ here!’ I yelled to Joe—he’s my fireman—but he’d seen her comin’, too, an’ didn’t need no warnin’ from me. I see him jump an’ I was jest a-goin’ t’ foller suit, when I see th’ other feller had his train under control. We had slowed up considerable, too—we hadn’t been comin’ very fast, but th’ heavy train behind us shoved us on—so we jest give her a little love-tap, as it were, an’ stopped.”

“A little harder one and we’d have been off the track,” added the conductor. “I can’t understand Greggs makin’ a mistake like that. I always thought he was the best man in the office. I don’t see how he could have overlooked giving you an order for us.”

“Better men than Greggs have made mistakes,” retorted the trainmaster, a little tartly.

“Well, we must be gettin’ on,” said the conductor, eying Allan, curiously. “The investigation will show who was to blame.”

Allan was already calling up the D. W. & I. headquarters.

“Eng. 618,” he reported, “delayed by hot-box, just arrived here and wants orders.”

In a moment the answer flashed back.

“Eng. 618 will leave Byers Junction at 7.38 and run extra to Wellston.”

Allan repeated it, got it O. K.’d, and handed a copy to each of the two men. They read it aloud, glanced at their watches, and stalked out. A moment later, Allan and the trainmaster heard the exhaust as the engine started. As soon as the train was past the switch, Allan turned the semaphore and lowered the train-signal to show a clear track. Then he came back and sat down by the trainmaster, who was puffing his cigar reflectively.

“You’re fonder of fresh air than I am,” remarked the latter, as a little gust of wind rustled the orders which hung on the hook near the window. “We’d better have that down, hadn’t we?”

Allan, glancing at the window, noticed for the first time that the lower sash was raised.

“Why, I didn’t know it was open,” he said, and going to it, took out the stick which supported the sash and let the sash down. “Nevins must have raised it before he went away.”

“Well, if it had been me,” remarked the trainmaster, “I’d have noticed that wind blowing down my back before this. But we don’t seem to be getting much nearer the solution of this accident—or, rather, we haven’t discovered yet why it didn’t happen.”

“Why it didn’t happen?” repeated Allan.

“Yes. Let us review the circumstances. At 6.20, this D. W. & I. freight passes West Junction, with right of way to Byers Junction until 7.08. That gives it forty-eight minutes to make a run which is usually made in twenty-five or less. But it develops a hot-box and bursts an air-hose and is delayed about half an hour. Still, it would have reached here a minute or so ahead of time, and it certainly had the right of way until 7.08.

“You, however, have received no order for this freight, and thinking the track from here to West Junction clear, you set your signals accordingly for the special which is nearly due, and which passes at 7.05. Just as it is passing, you hear the freight approaching, and throw the signal over. But the engineer, being almost upon it, doesn’t see it. An instant later, however, a torpedo explodes, and the engineer manages to stop the train and begin backing before the freight hits it. The engineer of the freight, meanwhile, has seen the signal change, and then sees another headlight rushing down upon him, and manages to get his train pretty well under control before the crash comes. So not much damage is done. But why? What was to keep the special from dashing itself to pieces against the freight?”

“It was the torpedo,” answered Allan.

“Precisely. The torpedo. And where did the torpedo come from? Did it drop from heaven at precisely the right instant? I don’t believe in that sort of miracle. Did it just happen to be there? That would be a miracle, too. No, I believe that some one, at that spot, heard the trains coming, or saw you swing the signal up, realized what was about to happen, and placed that torpedo on the track. Now, who was it?”

Allan, of course, was utterly unable to answer.

“And whoever it was,” added the trainmaster, “why doesn’t he come and tell about it? A fellow who does a thing like that has no reason to run away and hide.”

He stopped, chewing the end of his cigar nervously, a wrinkle of perplexity between his eyes.

“He must have been a railroad man,” went on the trainmaster; “a brakeman, conductor, or section-man, or he wouldn’t have had that torpedo in his pocket. Unless it was a tramp who’d stolen it. But a tramp would have been here long ago to claim his reward; and a railroad man would have come to make his report. No; I can’t understand it.”

He was interrupted by a sharp call on the instrument. Allan answered it.

“Make report at once,” clicked the sounder, “of accident to engs. 315 and 618 at Byers Junction. Greggs.”

“Eng. 618,” Allan reported, “leaving West Junction at 6.20, delayed thirty minutes by hot-box, in collision with eng. 315 at 7.05 just west of Byers Junction. Both engines slightly damaged.”

“Why didn’t you hold special and protect eng. 618?” came the query.

“No order to that effect was sent me,” Allan answered. “I supposed the track clear.”

There was a moment’s pause. Then the sounder started again.

“Following order was sent Byers Junction at 5.50: ’Eng. 315, special west, will meet extra east, eng. 618, at Byers Junction.’ Operator at Byers, initial N., repeated this, and it was O. K.’d, so that train was fully covered and should have been protected. Useless to deny that order was received.”

Allan had turned as white as a sheet, and his hands were trembling convulsively as he opened the key.

“Will investigate and report in a moment,” he answered, and then turned to the trainmaster, his eyes dark with horror.

“You heard?” he asked.

The trainmaster nodded, and his face, too, was very grave.

“You’re sure there was no such order?” he inquired.

“I came on at 6.40,” said Allan, “and went over all the orders on the hook very carefully. I’m sure there was no such order there,” and he motioned toward the “flimsies” which hung on the wall beside the window.

Mr. Schofield took down the hook and began to go slowly over the orders. In a moment, a sharp exclamation broke from him.

“What is it?” asked Allan, a sudden horrible fear seizing his heart and seeming to crush it.

The trainmaster detached from the hook one of the sheets of tissue-paper, and spread it out before him, his face very stern.

“’Engine 315,’” he read, “’special west, will meet extra east, engine 618, at Byers Junction.’”

Then he leaned back in his chair and gazed at Allan with accusing eyes.

[CHAPTER XIV]

TO THE RESCUE

For an instant, Allan scarcely understood. He sat as one stunned by a terrific blow. Then the truth burst upon him like a lightning-flash. He had overlooked the order; two of the flimsy pieces of tissue-paper had stuck together, and he had not perceived it! The accident, had it occurred, would have been his fault; that it did not occur was due to no act of his, but to some mysterious, unexplainable Providence. Morally, he was as guilty as though the trains had dashed together at full speed. Even now, because of his carelessness, they might have been one piled-up mass of twisted iron and splintered wood, with a score of human beings buried in the wreckage. The utter horror of the thought turned him a little dizzy. Then he arose, and took down his coat.

“What are you going to do?” demanded the trainmaster, who had been watching him closely.

“There’s only one thing for me to do, isn’t there?” asked Allan, with a wan little smile. "That is to get out. I see I’m not fit for anything better than section-work, after all. I’ll ask Jack Welsh for my old job—that is, if the road will have me."

“Sit down,” commanded Mr. Schofield, sternly. He saw how overwrought the boy was. “There’s no use jumping at conclusions. Besides, you’ve got to stay your trick out here, no matter how guilty you are. There’s your call now,” he added, as the key sounded.

Allan answered it mechanically, took down the message, repeated it, and had it O. K.’d. By the time that was done, he had partially regained his self-control.

“Of course I’ll serve out the trick,” he said. “But I didn’t suppose I’d ever have a chance to serve another. A mistake like that deserves the severest punishment you can inflict.”

“You mean you think Nevins left the order on the hook and that you overlooked it?”

“Certainly,” said the boy. “How else could it have happened?”

“I don’t know. But neither can I understand how you could have overlooked it if you were at all careful. There are only three others on the hook.”

“I wasn’t as careful as I should have been,” said Allan in a low voice, “that’s certain.”

He was sure that he, and he only, had been at fault. Any other explanation seemed ridiculous.

“Did Nevins say anything about this train when you came on duty?” pursued the trainmaster.

Allan made a mighty effort at recollection.

“No,” he said, at last; “I’m sure he didn’t. We talked a moment about the special, and he spoke of the heavy day’s work he’d had. That was all. If he’d said he had an order for it, I certainly shouldn’t have forgotten it right away.”

“Then Nevins broke the rules, too,” said Mr. Schofield, and got out his book of rules. “The second paragraph on page seventy-six reads as follows: ‘When both day and night operators are employed, one must not leave his post until relieved by the other, and the one going off duty must inform the one coming on respecting unfinished business and the position of trains.’”

“He waited until I had looked over the orders,” said Allan, with a lively remembrance of Nevins’s attitude toward that particular rule. “He supposed that I could read, and if there was anything I didn’t understand I’d have asked him.”

Mr. Schofield put his book back into his pocket, and got out another cigar. His nerves were jangling badly, and he felt the need of something to quiet them.

“Well,” he said, at last, “I’m sorry.”

And Allan bowed his head. He accepted the sentence of dismissal which the words implied; it was just. He saw all the air-castles which he had builded so hopefully come tumbling about him; he was overwhelmed in the ruins. He realized that there was no future for him in railroading; no place at the top. He had forfeited his right to serve the road, to expect promotion, by that one mistake, that one piece of carelessness. At least, he told himself, it had taught him a lesson, and one that he would never forget. It had taught him—

“IN THE NEXT INSTANT THE TALL FIGURE HAD BEEN FLUNG VIOLENTLY INTO THE ROOM.”

Some one stumbled heavily up the steps to the door, and Mr. Schofield uttered a sharp exclamation of astonishment. Allan started around to see upon the threshold the strangest apparition his eyes had ever rested on.

Two figures stood there so daubed with mud, so bedraggled with dirty water, so torn and bruised and soiled as scarcely to resemble human beings. One was tall and thin, the other not so tall and much heavier. The shorter figure held the tall one by the back of the neck in a grip so tight and merciless that such of the latter’s face as was visible through its coating of mud was convulsed and purple. One eye was closed and swollen, while the other seemed starting from its socket. Both men had lost their hats, and their hair was matted with mud, reddened, in the case of the shorter one, with blood.

All this Allan saw at a glance, for in the next instant, the tall figure had been flung violently into the room, while the other entered after him, closed the door, and stood leaning against it, breathing heavily.

For a moment, not a word was spoken. The trainmaster and Allan stared in amazement from one of these strange figures to the other. The tall one lay where he had fallen, gasping for breath; the other, having recovered somewhat, got out a handkerchief from some recess, and made an ineffectual effort to blow his nose. Then, as he caught the expression of the others’ faces, he grinned so broadly that some of the mud on his cheeks cracked and scaled off.

“Ye don’t happen t’ have a bath-tub handy, do ye, Allan?” he inquired, in a voice so familiar that the boy jumped in his chair, and even Mr. Schofield started perceptibly.

“Jack!” cried Allan. “Why, what—”

He stopped, unable to go on, breathless with sheer astonishment.

“Is it really you, Welsh?” asked the trainmaster.

“Yes, Misther Schofield; it’s me, or what’s left o’ me,” said Jack, passing his hand ruefully over his head, and gazing down at his tattered garments.

“And who’s this?” asked the trainmaster, with a gesture toward the prostrate figure on the floor.

“I don’t know th’ dirty scoundrel’s name,” answered Jack, “but you’ll know him, I reckon, as soon as we scrape th’ mud off. But afore I tell th’ story, I would loike t’ wash up.”

“All right,” said Allan, starting from his chair, “here you are,” and he poured some water from a bucket into a wash-pan which stood on a soap-box beside the window. A towel hung from a roller on the wall, and a piece of soap lay on the window-sill. It was here he washed up every night before he ate his midnight lunch.

Jack took off the remains of his coat, one sleeve of which had been torn out at the shoulder, rolled up his shirt-sleeves, and plunged his head into the water with a grunt of satisfaction. He got off the worst of the mud, threw out the dirty water, and filled the pan with fresh. From this he emerged fairly like his old self, and rubbed face and head violently with the towel. When he had finished, an ugly cut was visible high on his forehead, near the roots of his hair. He touched it tenderly, and held the towel against it, for the washing had started it to bleeding again.

“Here, let me see that,” said Mr. Schofield, peremptorily. He led Jack near the lamp, despite his protests that it was only a scratch, examined the cut, got out his handkerchief, dipped it in clean water, and washed the wound carefully. Then he took from his pocket a little case of court-plaster, drew the edges of the cut together, and stuck a sheet of the plaster over it.

“There,” he said, when the operation was finished, "that will soon be all right. And let me give you a piece of advice, Welsh, and you, too, Allan—never go about this world without a case of court-plaster in your pocket. Men, especially railroad men, are always getting little knocks and cuts, not worth considering in themselves, but which may become poisoned, if left open, and cause a great deal of trouble. A snip of court-plaster stops all chance of that. So take my advice—"

There was a sudden movement behind them, and Jack hurled himself toward the door just in time to catch the other mud-bespattered figure as it was disappearing over the threshold. There was a moment’s struggle, then Jack got his deadly neck-grip again, and walked his captive back into the room.

“So ye thought ye’d git away, did ye?” he demanded, savagely. “Thought ye’d give me th’ slip! Not after th’ hard work I had gittin’ ye here, me boy!”

He closed the door with his disengaged hand, then led his prisoner up to the light.

“Do ye know him?” he asked of Allan and the trainmaster, but neither of them saw anything familiar in the distorted and mud-grimed features which the rays of the lamp disclosed. They noticed, however, with what an agony of fear the prisoner stared at them with the single eye which was open.

“Ye don’t know him, hey?” said Jack, seeing their blank countenances. “Well, ye wouldn’t know yer own father under such a layer o’ mud. Let’s wash him off. Then he’ll look more nateral.”

He shoved the prisoner toward the bucket of water, in spite of his suddenly desperate struggles. Then, pinching his neck savagely, he bent him down toward the bucket, and with his free hand splashed the water over his face. Then he forced him up to the towel, rubbed his face vigorously, and finally spun him around toward the astonished onlookers.

Allan gave a gasp of amazement.

“Why, it’s Nevins!” he said.

“Nevins!” echoed Mr. Schofield, coming a step nearer. “Why, no—yes it is, too!”

“And who may Nevins be?” demanded Jack.

“Nevins is the day operator here,” said Mr. Schofield. “Let him go, Jack; he can’t escape.”

Jack reluctantly released his grip of the unlucky operator’s neck.

“I don’t know,” he said, dubiously. “If you’d chased him five mile, an’ fought him at th’ bottom of a ditch, an’ had him hit you in th’ head with a rock, mebbe you wouldn’t be so sure o’ that!”

“But what has he done?” demanded Mr. Schofield.

“Well, I don’t exactly know,” answered Jack, deliberately, moving again between the prisoner and the door, and sitting down there. “But it was some deviltry.”

Mr. Schofield also sat down, more astonished than ever.

“See here, Welsh,” he said, “you’re not drunk?”

“Hain’t drunk a drop fer a matter o’ tin year, Mr. Schofield. Th’ effects wore off long ago.”

“He is drunk, Mr. Schofield,” broke in Nevins, quickly. "I smelt it on his breath. I’ll have the law on him. He assaulted me out there in a ditch and nearly killed me. I’ll see if a man’s to be treated that way by a big, drunken bully—"

But Mr. Schofield stopped him with a gesture.

“That will do,” he said, coldly. “Don’t lie about it. I know that Welsh isn’t drunk. We’ll have his story first, and then yours. Fire away, Jack.”

“Well,” began Jack, “jest as th’ torpedy went off—”

“Which torpedo?”

“Why, th’ one that th’ special exploded.”

“Oh, begin further back than that—begin at the beginning.”

“Well, then, jest as I jammed th’ torpedy on th’ track—”

“Was it you put it on the track?” cried Mr. Schofield.

“Why, sure,” said Jack. “Didn’t ye know that? Who else could it ’a’ been?”

“But how did you come to do that?”

“Why,” said Jack, “whin I heerd th’ special whistling away off up th’ line, an’ th’ signal showin’ a clear track, an’ knowed they was a freight comin’ up th’ grade, what else should I do but plant a torpedy? I didn’t have time t’ git t’ th’ office—besides, I knowed they was some diviltry on an’ I wanted t’ lay low till I could git Nolan—”

“Nolan!” echoed the trainmaster, more and more amazed.

“Sure, Nolan—Dan Nolan—you raymimber him. I thought it was him I had, an’ mighty dissipinted I was whin I found my mistake. But I thought I’d better bring this feller along, anyhow, an’ find out what it was he done when he raised th’ windy there an’ leaned in—”

A flash of understanding sprang into Mr. Schofield’s eyes, and he glanced quickly at Nevins. But the latter’s face was turned away.

“See here, Jack,” said the trainmaster, leaning forward in his chair, “we’ll never get anywhere in this way. I want you to begin at the very beginning and tell us the whole story.”

“Well, sir,” said Jack, “I would, but I’m afeerd th’ story’d be too long.”

“No, it wouldn’t. We want to hear it.”

“All right, then,” Jack agreed, and settled back in his chair. “Ye may as well set down, Misther Nevins,” he added.

“Yes, sit down,” said Allan, moved with pity at the other’s bedraggled and exhausted condition. He brought forward the box which served as washstand, and pressed Nevins gently down upon it.

The latter resisted for a moment; then, suddenly, he collapsed in a heap upon the box and buried his face in his hands, his whole body shaken by a dry, convulsive sobbing.

[CHAPTER XV]

LIGHT IN DARK PLACES

The paroxysm lasted only for a moment, then Nevins pulled himself together with a mighty effort, looking about him with a pitiful attempt at bravado. Mr. Schofield glanced at him, then turned his back, for Nevins’s countenance, not engaging at any time, was now positively hideous.

“Go ahead with your story, Welsh,” he said.

“Well, sir,” Jack began, “I waited fer Allan this evenin’ t’ tell him that Nolan had come back, an’ when he told me that Nolan had been out here—”

“Nolan out here?” interrupted the trainmaster, and Allan related the conversation of the night before.

“When I heerd all that,” began Jack, again, "I knowed that Nolan was up to no good; I knowed that he had come out here t’ do th’ boy dirt; an’ all th’ whinin’ an’ crocydile tears in th’ world couldn’t convince me no different. So when Allan got on th’ accommydation, I left a message with th’ caller fer my old woman, tellin’ her I’d be late, an’ jumped on th’ back platform jest as th’ train pulled out."

Mr. Schofield nodded. He was beginning to understand the occurrences which had seemed so mysterious.

At that moment a freight pulled in, and the conductor entered to get the orders. He cast an astonished glance at Nevins, but the presence of the trainmaster stifled any questions which may have been upon his lips, and he read his order, signed for it, and went out again. Allan went to the door, assured himself that the signals were properly set, then shut the door and resumed his seat on the table beside the instrument.

“Well,” Jack continued, "I knowed th’ boy’d be mad if he thought I was follerin’ him—he never did like it, even when Nolan was arter him last year—so I stayed there on th’ back platform, an’ dropped off in th’ dark down there by th’ water-plug. I set down in th’ shadder of a pile o’ ties an’ waited. I see Allan come over here, an’ purty soon th’ other feller come out and hiked away fer th’ village, like he had a date with his best girl an’ was an hour late.

“I was gittin’ mighty hungry, and beginnin’ t’ feel purty foolish, too; fer I really hadn’t nothin’ t’ go on except that Dan Nolan had been here th’ day afore. It was gittin’ cold, too, but I turned up my collar, pulled my cap down over my ears, lighted my pipe behind th’ ties, an’ arranged myself as comf’table as I could. I rammed my hands down in my pockets, t’ keep ’em warm, an’ snuggled up agin th’ logs. Somethin’ jabbed me in th’ side, an’ when I felt t’ see what it was, I found I had a torpedy in my pocket. I’d put it there in th’ mornin’ thinkin’ I might need it afore night, and hadn’t been back t’ th’ section shanty since. Well, I eased it around so’s it wouldn’t jab me, and leaned back agin.

“But th’ minutes dragged by mighty slow, an’ nothin’ happened. I could see Allan, through th’ windy, bendin’ over th’ table, or readin’ in a book. I couldn’t see my watch, it was too dark, an’ I didn’t dare strike another match, fer fear somebody’d see it, but I jedge it was clost to seven o’clock, an’ I was sort o’ noddin’ back agin th’ pile o’ ties, with my eyes shet, when I heerd two men a-talkin’ on th’ other side o’ th’ pile, an’ in a minute I was wide awake, fer I knowed one o’ th’ voices belonged t’ Dan Nolan.”

Jack paused to enjoy the effect of the words. He could certainly find no fault with his audience on the score of inattention. Allan and Mr. Schofield were regarding him with rapt countenances; and at the last words, Nevins, too, had started to a strained attention, his quick, uneven breathing attesting his agitation.

“Yes, it was Nolan,” Jack repeated, “an’ th’ other one was that felly there,” and he indicated Nevins with a motion of the finger.

“‘Well, did ye do it?’ Nolan asked.