“Well, there’s something like one hundred thousand in gold in her
express-car. Government consignment. I got it straight. What a chance
for a hold-up! Remember that cut below Hastings?” He shook his massive
head dubiously. “It’s been done before.”
As if to emphasize his words, the storm swooped down with renewed
energy until the tower swayed like a lighthouse. Great guns! how the
wind shrieked at us. How the snow thudded against the windows. And
when you _hear_ snow, you know there’s a double-headed gale behind it.
About that time our call came over the wire: “N-H, N-H, N-H.”
As Ben jumped in, I put down my paper to listen. I find it’s a good
thing to pay pretty strict attention to anything on a night like that.
It keeps you from seeing shadows that aren’t there, and hearing sounds
which your common sense tells you must be the wind.
Presently came the professional dot and dash of Donaldson down at
Hastings. Now Donaldson, next to Big Ben, was a star operator, and the
two of ’em could talk better and with more satisfaction over a stretch
of singing wire than if they were sitting together in a parlor.
Even _I_ knew Donaldson’s style, although I wasn’t more than middling
expert. There were tricks in his stuff such as shortening his o’s, but
his Morse ran mighty smooth. I read off the message to myself.
“Freezing cold down here, Ben. Lonely, too. Damn lonely. What do you
get on 77?”
The big man at the table cut in: “Brace up; 77 on time. Nothing to
bother her to-night except the storm. All freight deadheaded.”
That seemed to satisfy Donaldson, for there was a long silence broken
only by the whine of the wind and the _thud_, _thud_ of driven snow. I
had just picked up the paper again when “N-H, N-H, N-H,” snapped at
us.
The crispness of dots and dashes suggested excitement. Ben
acknowledged deliberately, but when he closed the wire I saw a
narrowing of his eyes.
Donaldson was in a hurry. “Going to quit to-morrow,” he began. “Can’t
stand this joint. Say, there’s two of you up there. You’re lucky. Old
man will have to come across with an assistant or I quit. Do you know
you’re the nearest white man to me? Just me alone here. No night for a
man to be alone. Hold on, I think I hear somebody in the waiting-room.
Maybe I’ll have company.”
But he opened up again the next moment with: “Good Lord, must be going
off my nut. Nobody in the waiting-room. It’s the wind. I tell you this
place is like the north pole. If I could only hear a fire crackling.
Say, there it goes again. No, I’m way off; that’s a fact. I’ll have to
look around. Do you notice anything funny in the wind? I seem to. Why
the devil didn’t they put shades on these windows? What’s the matter
with me anyhow?”
Ben went back at him, calm as a summer’s day. “Hold on, old man; take
some whisky. It’s your nerves. Get a grip on yourself.”
“All right,” answered Donaldson, his wire-talk becoming calmer. “Yes,
I’ll take the whisky. Let me know about 77.”
That was all for a while, but Ben eyed me through the fumes of his
pipe. “I don’t like it,” he muttered. “Not a bit. Never knew Donaldson
to wildcat before. Wonder if there _is_ anything wrong?”
I didn’t say what was on my mind, for the shriek of the storm
interrupted. So we just sat still and looked at each other and
wondered what it would be like if either of _us_ weren’t there.
Somehow I couldn’t get rid of the picture of Hastings station—a little
frame building backed up against a cliff, with a siding cutting in
behind it and the banked curve of the main line stretching away before
it. A few farmers used the station, but a water-tank was its real
excuse for existence.
I could see how the snow had half-buried it, and how Donaldson,
veteran that he was, might hear strange sounds in the gale. I could
see a great many things right then, but the sight wasn’t pleasant.
Snow, snow and more snow, and icy rails and low, hurrying clouds you
felt were brushing against the tower. “Listen!” I snapped.
Ben jumped to his feet. “This won’t do. Here, you quit listening or
you’ll be as bad as Donaldson.” Then he came over to me. “I guess it’s
just as well there’re two of us,” he said very quietly. “Try the
junction for a report on 77.”
I took the key with a sense of awe—only a couple of slim wires between
us and the world, and a thousand chances for the storm to tear ’em
down. But if we felt it, what about Donaldson? What about Donaldson,
anyway?
The junction answered after a bit, though there was no life in the
sending. “McFlin,” nodded Ben. “I know his style. Ask him whether the
orders for 77 stand.”