SENDING A MESSAGE PERFORCE--RECOGNIZING AN OLD FRIEND BY HIS STUFF
Some time after this I was in Fort Worth copying night reports at eighty
dollars per month. The night force consisted of two other men besides
myself. The "split trick" man worked until ten o'clock, the other chap
stayed around until twelve, or until he was clear, while I hung on until
"30" on report which came anywhere from one-thirty until four A. M.
After midnight I had to handle all the business that came along.
When I had received "30" I would cut out the instruments and go home.
One morning, about two-thirty I had said "G. N." to Galveston, cut out
the instruments, put out the lights in the operating room, and started
to go home through the receiving room and I was about to put out the
last light there, when the outer door opened and in staggered a half
drunken ranchman who said,
"Hold on there, young fellow, I want to send a message to St. Louis."
"I'm sorry, but it's too late to send it now. All the instruments are
cut out and we wont have St. Louis until eight o'clock in the morning.
Come around then and some of the day force will send it for you."
"But," he said in a maudlin voice, "I've got nineteen cars of cattle out
here that are going up there to-morrow and I want to notify my agents."
I persisted in my refusal and was beginning to get hot under the collar,
but my bucolic friend also had a temper and showed it.
"D--n it," he said, "you send this message or there is going to be
trouble."
"Not much, I won't send your confounded old message. Get out of this
office: I'm going home."
Just then I heard an ominous click and in a second I was gazing down the
barrel of a .45, and he said,
"Now will you send it? You'd better or I'll send you to a home that will
be a permanent one."
A .45, especially when it is loaded, cocked and pointed at your head,
with a half drunken galoot's finger on the trigger, is a powerful
incentive to quick action.
"Give me your blamed old message, and I'll send it for you."
Now there wasn't a through wire to any place at the time, but I had
thought of a scheme to stave him off. I took his telegram, went over and
monkeyed around the switch board for a while, and then sat down to a
local instrument and went through the form of sending a message. My
whole salvation lay in the hope that he was not an operator and would
fail to discover my ruse. I glanced at him furtively out of the corner
of my eye, and there he stood, pistol in hand, grinning like a monkey
and swaying to and fro like a reed in the wind. I didn't know what that
grin portended for me, but after I had gone through the form of sending
the telegram, I hung it up on the hook, and turned around with,
"There, I hope you are satisfied now. Your blamed old message has been
sent."
"Satisfied! Why certainly I'm satisfied. I just wanted to show you that
the Western Union Company wasn't the whole push. Come on over to the
White Elephant with me and we'll have a drink together, just to show
there's no hard feelings between us," and with that he put away his
pistol and we went out. On the way over to the Elephant he said,
"Say, kid, did you think I'd shoot if you hadn't sent the message?"
"Well," I replied, "I wasn't taking any chances on the matter."
Then he laughed loud enough to be heard a block away and said, "Why,
that pistol hasn't been loaded for six months, I was just running a
bluff on you, and you bit like a fish."
Good joke, wasn't it? We had our drink, _and his message was sent by one
of the day force, at eight-twelve A. M._
The Morse telegraphic alphabet is exactly the same the world over, and
yet each operator has a peculiarity to his sending, or "stuff," as it is
called, that makes it easy to recognize an old friend, even though his
name be changed.
In the early part of my career, when I was working days at X----, in
Nebraska, at Sweeping Water there was a chap called Ned Kingsbury
holding down the night job, and as wild a youngster as ever hit the
road. One night when I was sitting up a little late I heard the
despatcher give Ned an order for a train that ordinarily would not stop
there. Ned repeated it back all right enough, and then gave the signal,
"6," which meant that he had turned his red-light to the track and would
hold it there until the order was delivered and understood. So far, so
good. But the reckless little devil had forgotten to turn his red-board
and proceeded to write to some of his numerous girls, and the first
thing he knew that freight train went smashing by at a thirty-five mile
clip, and Mr. Ned knew he was up against it.
In some states a railroader guilty of criminal negligence is sent up
for a term of from one to ten years. The smash up that resulted from
Ned's carelessness was a catastrophe of the fatal kind; one engineer was
killed, and a fireman and brakeman or two laid up for months. He fully
realized the magnitude of his offence and promptly skipped away from the
wrath that was sure to follow, and nothing more was heard of him in that
section of the country.
This all happened a number of years before I went to work in Fort Worth,
and one morning I was doing a little "scooping," by working days, and
sat down to send on the "DA" quad. I worked hard for about two hours on
the polar side, and was sending to some cracker jack, who signed "KY."
Shortly after that I changed over to the receiving side and "KY" did the
sending to me. I had been taking about ten messages and the conviction
was growing on me momentarily that the sending was very familiar and
that I must have known the sender. Where had I heard that peculiar jerky
sending before? It was as plain as print, but there was an
individuality about it that belonged only to one man. All at once that
night in Nebraska flashed on my mind and I knew my sender was none other
than Ned Kingsbury. I broke him and said,
"Hello, Ned Kingsbury, where did you come from?"
"You've got the wrong man this time, sonny, my name is Pillsbury," he
replied.
"Oh! come off. I'd know that combination of yours if I heard it in
Halifax. Didn't you work at Sweeping Water, Nebraska, some time ago, and
didn't you have some kind of a queer smash up there?"
Then he 'fessed up and said he had recognized my stuff as soon as he
heard it, but hadn't said anything in hopes I wouldn't twig him.
"Don't give me away, old chap. I'm flying the flag now and have lost all
my former brashness."
I never did.