The victory was dear, but none murmured at its cost. Medicine Bend for
once had been purged of its parasites.
At the railroad head-quarters Stanley, before daylight, was directing
the resumption of operations so interrupted by the three days of
anarchism on the mountain division. New men were added every hour to
the pay-roll, and the smaller tradesmen of the town, ruined by the
riots, were given positions to keep them until the town could be
rebuilt.
The pressure on the operating department increased twofold with the
resumption of traffic. Winter was now upon the mountains, but
construction could not be stopped for winter. The enormous prizes for
extending the line through the Rockies to meet the rival railroad
heading east from California, spurred the builders to every effort to
lengthen their mileage, and something unheard of was attempted,
namely, mountain railroad-building in midwinter.
Levake, the leader among the mountain outlaws, was nursed back to life
by the surgeon he had so nearly murdered. But his respite was a brief
one. When new officers of the law were elected in Medicine Bend, the
murderer was tried for one of his many crimes and paid on the scaffold
the penalty of his cold-blooded cruelty. Rebstock, the fox, and his
companion Seagrue escaped the exterminating raid of the vigilantes but
fought shy of Medicine Bend for long afterward.
A few days after the riots Stanley sent for Bucks, who was holding a
key among the operators downstairs, to come to his office.
"How long have you been a telegraph operator, Bucks?" he asked.
Bucks laughed in some embarrassment. "Since I was about twelve years
old, sir."
"Twelve years old!" echoed Stanley in amazement. "Where did you learn
to telegraph at twelve?"
Bucks hesitated again. "I never learned, sir!"
"What do you mean?"
"I used to sit in the telegraph office of the road when my uncle
was superintendent, and I got used to hearing the sound of the
instruments. I just woke up one morning and found I could telegraph.
I couldn't the night before. That's the only way I ever learned,
sir."
Stanley regarded the boy with interest. "How old are you now?"
"Seventeen."
"Very well. When you went to bed last night you were not a train
despatcher: this morning you are." Bucks started. "If any one ever
asks you," continued Stanley dryly, "how you learned to be a train
despatcher, tell them just that."
"I don't want you to think you are old enough to be a despatcher,"
continued Stanley, as Bucks stammered his thanks, "for you are not.
And I don't want you to think I like to make you one. I don't. Neither
for your sake nor mine. I don't like to impose the responsibilities of
a man on a boy. But I can't help it. We haven't the men, and we can't
get them--and we must all, men and boys, pull together and just do
the best we can--do you understand?"
"I understand everything, Colonel Stanley."
"I need not say much about what is before you. You have been sending
despatchers' orders for years yourself. You know how many lives are
held every minute in the despatchers' hand. Don't overrate your
responsibility and grow nervous over it; and don't ever underestimate
it. As long as you keep yourself fit for your work, and do the best
you can, you may sleep with a clear conscience. Report to Mr. Baxter.
Remember you are working with green trainmen and don't expect too much
of them."
When Bucks signed a transfer and took his train-sheet that night at
twelve o'clock, his chief anxiety was to keep the material trains
going to Casement and everything eastbound was laid out in an effort
to send the ties and rails west. Bucks set himself to keep pace with
the good work done by the despatcher in the evening trick and for two
hours kept his sheet pretty clean.
A heavy train of rails which he had been helping all the way west
after midnight was then at Castle Springs, and Bucks gave its crew an
order to meet the eastbound passenger train at Point of Rocks. It was
three o'clock when a message came from the operator at Point of Rocks,
saying the rail train had passed westbound. Bucks seized a key and
silencing the wires asked for the passenger train. Nothing had been
seen of it. He called up Bitter Creek, the first telegraph point west
of Point of Rocks with an order to hold the passenger train. But the
train had already gone.
The new dispatcher sprang up from the table frantic. Then, racing
again to the key, he made the operator at Castle Springs repeat the
order and assure him it had been delivered. Of this there could be no
question. The freight crew had ignored or forgotten it, and were now
past Point of Rocks running head-on against the passenger train. If
the heavens had fallen the situation would have seemed better to
Bucks. A head-on collision on the first night of his promotion meant,
he felt, his ruin. As he sat overwhelmed with despair, trying to
collect his wits and to determine what to do, the door opened and Bob
Scott appeared.
The scout, with his unfailing and kindly smile, advanced and held out
his hand. "Just dropped in to extend my congratulations."
Bucks looked at him in horror, his face rigid and his eyes set. Scott
paused and regarded his aspect with surprise. "Something has
happened," he said, waiting for the despatcher to speak.
"Bob!" exclaimed the boy in desperation, "No. 9 has run past her
meeting order at Point of Rocks with No. 2. They will meet head-on and
kill everybody. My God! what can I do?"
In the dim light of the shaded oil lamp, Bucks, looking at the scout,
stood the picture of despair. Scott picked up the poker and began to
stir the fire and asked only a few questions and said little. However,
when Bucks told him he was going to wake Stanley, whose sleeping-room
adjoined his office at the end of the hall, Scott counselled no.
"He could do nothing," said Scott reflecting. "Let us wait a while
before we do anything like that," he added, coupling himself with the
despatcher in the latter's overwhelming anxiety. "The first news of
the collision will come from Bitter Creek. It will be time enough then
to call Stanley. Give your orders for a wrecking crew, get a train
ready, and get word to Doctor Arnold to go with it."
Bucks, steadying himself under the kindly common-sense of his older
friend, followed each suggestion promptly. Scott, who ordinarily would
himself have been running around on the job, made no move to leave the
room, thinking he could be of more service in remaining with the
unfortunate despatcher. The yard became a scene of instant activity.
And although no organization to meet emergencies of this kind had been
as yet effected on the new division, the men responded intelligently
and promptly with the necessary arrangements.
Everyone summoned tried to get into the dispatchers' room to hear the
story repeated. Scott took it upon himself to prevent this, and
standing in the anteroom made all explanations himself. He rejoined
Bucks after getting rid of the crowd, and the moment the relief train
reported ready the despatcher sent it out, that help might reach the
scene of disaster at the earliest possible moment. Bucks, calmed
somewhat but suffering intensely, paced the floor or threw himself
into his chair, while Scott picked up the despatcher's old copy of
"The Last of the Mohicans," and smoking silently sat immovable,
waiting with his customary stoicism for the call that should announce
the dreaded wreck.
The moments loaded with anxiety went with leaden feet while the two
men sat. It seemed as if the first hour never would pass. Then the
long silence of the little receiver was broken by a call for the
dispatcher. Bucks sprang to answer it.
Scott watched his face as he sent his "Ay, ay." Without understanding
what the instruments clicked, he read the expressions that followed
one after the other across Bucks's countenance, as he would have read
a desert trail. He noted the perplexity on the despatcher's face when
the latter tried to get the sender of the call.
"Some one is cutting in on the line," exclaimed Bucks, mystified, as
the sounder clicked. "Bob, it is Bill Dancing."
A pause followed. "What can it mean, his sending a message to me? He
is between Bitter Creek and Castle Springs. Wait a moment!"
The receiver clicked sharp and fast. Scarcely able to control his
voice in his anxiety, Bucks turned to the now excited scout: "The
trains met between Bitter Creek and Castle Springs. There was no
collision!"
Almost collapsing with the passing of the strain, Bucks faltered in
his taking. Asking Dancing again for the story, Bucks took it more
coolly and repeated it to his eager listener, as it came.
"Dancing was out with two men on the line to-day, repairing between
Bitter Creek and Castle Springs. He didn't get done and camped beside
the track for the night, to finish in the morning."
"Go on," exclaimed Scott.
"They shot a jack-rabbit----"
"Hang the jack-rabbit," cried Scott. "What about the trains?"
"You can't hurry Bill Dancing, Bob," pleaded Bucks. "You know that.
Faster, Bill, faster," he telegraphed urgently.
"You will get it faster," returned the distant lineman far out in the
mountains under the stars, as he talked calmly with the despatcher,
"if you will go slower."
Bucks strangled his impatience. Dancing resumed, and the despatcher
again translated for Scott.
"They cooked the jack-rabbit for supper----"
Scott flung his book violently across the room. "It tasted good,"
continued Dancing exasperatingly. "But the night was awfully cold, so
they built a big camp-fire near the curve. The freight engineer saw
the fire and thought it was a locomotive head-light. Then he
remembered he had run past his meeting point. He stopped his train to
find out what the fire was. When he told Bill what had happened they
grabbed up the burning logs, carried them down the track, and built a
signal fire for No. 2. And it came along inside five minutes----"
"And there they are!" concluded Bucks, wiping the dampness from his
forehead.
The receiver continued to click. "Bill thought I would be worried and
he cut in on the line right away to tell me what had happened."
"Now give your orders to No. 2 to back up to Castle Springs and let
the rail train get by. Recall your relief train," added Scott. "And
bring that freight engineer in here in the morning and let Stanley
talk to him for just about five minutes." The key rattled for a
moment. Scott, going to the farthest corner of the room, picked up
"The Last of the Mohicans." "Bucks," he murmured insinuatingly, as he
sat down to look into the book again, "I want to ask you now, once for
all, whether this is a true story?"
"Bob, put that book where it belongs and stop talking about it."
Scott hitched one shoulder a bit and returned to the fire, but he was
not silenced.
"That reminds me, Bucks," he resumed after a pause, "there is another
friend of yours here at the door, waiting to congratulate you. Shall
I let him in?"
"I don't want any congratulations, Bob."
"I'll promise he doesn't say a single word, Bucks." As he spoke, Scott
opened the hall door and whistled into the darkness. For an instant
there was no response. Then a small and vague object outlined itself
in the gloom, but halted questioningly on the threshold. Wagging his
abbreviated tail very gently and carrying his drooping ears very low,
Scuffy at length walked slowly into the room. Bucks hailed him with
delight, and Scuffy bounding forward crouched at his feet.
"I can't do a thing with him over at the ranch," complained Scott,
eying the dog with a secret admiration. "He is eating the hounds up;
doesn't give them a chance to pick a bone even after he's done with
it."
"I'm afraid there is nothing to do with Scuffy, but to make a
despatcher of him," returned Bucks, picking him up by the forepaws. "I
can see very plainly it's going to be a dog's life most of the time."
End of Project Gutenberg's The Mountain Divide, by Frank H. Spearman