Francis Lynde

“ The chemistry sharp was holding up his hand and laughing.
"No, no; hold on, Dick. You'll have to let me tackle the thing in my own way, and there won't be any grand-stand plays in it—in fact, I don't mean to appear personally in it at all. Let's see where we stand. You have a division detective of some sort, haven't you?—a fellow who does the gun-play act when it becomes necessary?"
"We have; a young fellow named Archer Tarbell, who got his experience chasing cattle thieves in Montana. He's a fine fellow, and it's breaking his heart because he can't get the nippers on our wire-devil." ”

“ By noon of the day following the false-alarm run of the wrecking-train to Timanyoni Canyon, all Brewster, or at least the railroad part of it, knew that Superintendent Maxwell was entertaining an old college classmate at the Hotel Topaz. For the town portion of the gossip there was some little disagreement as to Mr. Calvin Sprague's state and standing. Some had it that the big, handsome athlete was a foot-ball coach taking his vacation between seasons. Others said that he was a capitalist in disguise, looking for a ground-floor investment in Timanyoni mines. ”

“ The superintendent laughed mirthlessly. "If I could only find the amateur I'd hire him, Calvin,—if it took a year's salary. I don't know what the wire-devil's object is, but I can catalogue the results. These periodical scares are demoralizing the entire Short Line. The service is on the ragged edge of a chaotic blow-up. Half the men in the train crews are running on their bare nerves, and the operators who have to handle train-orders are not much better." ”

“ When the three were inside, Tarbell shut the door and put his back against it.
"Here's your man, Mr. Maxwell," he said briefly; and Sprague, who had started to his feet at the door opening, sat down again in the shadow and said nothing.
Maxwell pointed brusquely to a chair at the desk end. "Sit down, Dan," he snapped. And then: "I suppose you know what you're here for?"
Connolly fell into the chair as if the sharp command had been a blow.
"Know what I'm here for?" he stammered.
"Yes. Nothing will be gained by dodging. You may as well make a clean breast of it. ”

“ I thought it had come to-night; I'm glad it hasn't, but I know it's only postponed."
The chemistry man nodded.
"Somebody is reaching for you with a big stick; that is very evident, Maxwell. And there are brains behind it, too, when you come to think of it. If you wanted to kill a man without getting hanged for murder, one way to do it would be to persuade him to commit suicide. Has it ever occurred to you that somebody may be trying the same experiment on your railroad?" ”

“ Calmaine took the vacated chair and ran his eye along the latest additions to the many columns of figures on the train-sheet. Bolton in his far corner was still loafing, though his night's work of taking and typing the wire car reports from the various stations on the double division was scarcely begun. "You think you're a little tin god on wheels, don't you?" he muttered under his breath, blinking and scowling across at the well-groomed young man sitting in Connolly's chair. "You can let down with Dan Connolly all right, but when it comes to throwin' a bone to the other new dog, you ain't it. ”

“ If there is anything we haven't done it's some little item that has been merely overlooked. We've had about all of the company detectives here, first and last, and the best of them have had to give it up. There is nothing to work on; absolutely nothing. This wire to-night purported to come from Angels; as a matter of fact, it may have come from anywhere east of Brewster and this side of Copah. When we come to examine the Angels operator, we'll probably find that he doesn't know a thing about it—not a thing in the wide world. ”

“ Get Dawson on the 'phone and tell him I'll have a clear track for him by the time his wreck-wagons are ready! Jump at it, man! Your wife isn't the only one that's needing help! Wake up!"
Over on the sidewalk loggia porch of the Hotel Topaz fronting the electric-lighted railroad plaza, Maxwell, the division superintendent, was sitting out the evening with a broad-shouldered, solidly built young man whose big frame, clear gray eyes, and fighting jaw were the outward presentments of a foot-ball "back" rather than those of the traditional college professor. ”

“ Sprague was smoking peacefully. It was perhaps too much to expect that a man whose problems were chiefly in the field of laboratory science should be very deeply interested in one in which the elements were merely human. When he spoke again it was to recur to his favorable impression of Tarbell. "I like that young fellow," he said in conclusion. "He'll pull you out of the hole—with a little timely help from the newspapers. When he gets the ball into his hands and starts down the field with it, you'd best be prepared for some pretty sensational developments. ”

“ Maxwell reached for the box of safety matches and passed it to Sprague, whose cigar had gone out.
"I wish you could stay and put this railroad of ours into your test-tube, Calvin. We're teetering along on the edge of an earthquake—oh, yes—I know you'll say it's only a scare; but the worst panic that has ever gone into history was only a scare in the beginning. One of these fine nights some engineer or some operator with the bare nerves will lose his grip. You know about what that will mean. We've escaped alive, so far ”

“ Everybody is losing nerve, and if the scare keeps up, we'll have real trouble—plenty of it."
"And you say the source of the thing can't be localized?"
"No. We have a double division, with Brewster as the common head-quarters. Sometimes the yelp comes from the east, and sometimes from the west."
Again the big-bodied chemistry expert sank back in his seat and fell into the thoughtful trance. When he came out of it, it was to say:
"You've probably settled it for yourself that it isn't a plant for a train robbery—the kind of robbery which would be made easier by a wreck." ”

“ The despatcher shook his head. "College professor, somebody said; one of Mr. Maxwell's classmates. Specializes in something or other; I didn't hear what."
Again the tag-wire operator's laugh crackled like a snapping of dry twigs. He had risen from his chair and was half-sitting, half-leaning, upon his table-desk, his hands resting palms down, with the fingers curled under the table edge—his characteristic loafing attitude.
"He might specialize in any old thing," he jeered, with a small man's bickering hostility for a big one in his tone. "All he's got to do is to reach out and take it ”

“ Naturally, and possibly because Davis, the chief despatches was willing to be hospitable, he spent an hour of the forenoon in the wire office, ingenuously absorbing detail and evincing an interest in the day's work that made Davis, ordinarily a rather reticent man, transform himself into a lecturer on the theory and practice of railway telegraphy. ”

“ Just the same, I'd like to know how a man ever acquires the nerve to send a train around the hill corners this way when he hasn't the slightest notion of what may be waiting for him five hundred yards in the future. ”

“ Open her up and see what you can do. It's a plain case of 'get there' to-night, Billy. The minutes may mean just so many lives saved or lost."
"Right!" yelled the fireman, leaning from the gangway to get Blacklock's signal; and at the word the engineer's hand shot to the lever, the great engine shook itself free, and the rescue race was begun.
For the first few miles of the race the track was measurably straight. Maxwell stood on the raised step at Sprague's elbow, steadying himself with a grip on the sill of the opened side window. ”

“ Again the chemistry expert laughed. "A suspicious person might draw a bunch of inferences," he said, "throwing out a dark hint or so about a concealed cut-in on the wires after they enter the attic of the railroad building and a hidden set of instruments. Also, the same person would probably point to the fact that Connolly wasn't at his desk when the fake wreck notice came last night. It was your chief clerk, Calmaine, who took it from the wire, and he tells me he was subbing for Connolly for a few minutes while Connolly went upstairs for his smoking-tobacco." ”

“ For a little while Maxwell said nothing, and the fine lines between his eyes deepened slowly into a frown of anxiety. Finally he said: "I've got 'em, too, Calvin—the 'jimmies,' I mean. My wife and the two kiddies are coming home on the 'Apache' to-night, and don't you know, I had half a mind to wire her to stop over in Copah until I could go after her? That's a pretty pass for things to come to, isn't it?—when a man's afraid to have the members of his family ride over his own particular piece of railroad?"
Sprague flipped the ash from his cigar. ”

“ In the drawing-room of the rear sleeper of the limited, Maxwell closed the door on his guest and himself, passed his cigar-case, lighted a fresh cigar in his own behalf, and said nothing until after the short shifting stunt had been worked out and the Apache Limited was once more racing on its way westward. Then he opened up.
"You've got it now, Calvin; the thing that has been smashing more nerves for us than we can afford to lose. Of course, you understand what has happened. That blood-curdling report of an accident was a fake wire ”

“ He's one of the cold-blooded ones," said the superintendent confidently.
"Excuse me, Dick; I'm never mistaken on that side of the fence. There were signs, plenty of them. Ninety-eight men in every hundred will duck and put up one or both arms if you strike at them suddenly. Garrighan did neither, you'll say; but if you had been watching him as closely as I was, you would have seen that he started to do both."
Maxwell was regarding his former classmate curiously.
"Is that how you do it? Is that the way you caught the post-office thieves, Calvin?"
The chemistry expert laughed. ”

“ I have here on my desk a letter which was taken from your coat pocket to-night, since you came on duty; a letter from which you were careful enough to tear the signature, but on which you were not careful enough to destroy the date line. In that letter the writer threatens to give you away to the New York police if you don't get busy and give the newspapers a string of Nevada Short Line wrecks to write about. That is enough to send you over the road, but there's more. The working wires east and west have been cut under the roof of this building, and leads taken off. ”

“ The leads disappear in the wall back of your bunk-room. I don't ask you what you have to say for yourself; I want you to tell us, right here and now, who planned the thing, and what it was intended to accomplish. ”

“ They've got a private wire, but they ain't got any night operator."
Davis overheard the whisper and shook his head.
"Dan's got his wits with him," he said, in open admiration. "There's a young time-keeper that sleeps in the coal company's office shack, and he's learning to plug in on the wire a little. If Dan can only wake him——" And then, in sudden sharp self-accusation: "God forgive me! why didn't I think of it and save all the time that's been wasted?" Then, as Connolly closed the circuit and a halting reply clicked through the receiving instrument: "He's got him! ”

“ Whadda you know about that: chasin' me all the way from little old New York."
The fat despatcher knew precisely where the Limited was, but he glanced at his train-sheet from sheer force of habit.
"On time at Angels, double-heading with the Nine-thirteen, and the Six-five," he said. Then he shifted over to the car-record man's cause for jubilation. "I didn't know you were a married man, Bolton. If I ever get out of the woods and make good on the job, I'm going to do it myself. " ”