The Young Train Dispatcher

as sleet, which clung to everything it touched with a vise-like grip. Then, the wind veering to the north had turned the s

r trains straight. The wires were working badly under the burden of snow and sleet; some were crossed, some were down, and the instruments slurred th

nd 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 pas

e 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

ry 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

45

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

g 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

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 t

assenger 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 respon

gan 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, an

he 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 wreck

ffic 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 mi

d 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 pa

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

50

ter swung ar

e matter?”

It had orders to start as soon as Number Two pulled in. The engineer must

ck-tick, which told that the opera

ed the dispatcher, “and ho

suspense; then the repl

assed. Was just go

is chair, his face livid, and s

d Musselman,” he said, hoarsely. “There’

nt and fancied he could see the passenger and freight rushing tow

outside wire on the lower cros

—fif

ou cut

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rse—but

key, while the trainmaster went mechanically to th

llan calle

aps he was in some other part of the house; perhaps he was

an held down his key, there came the welcome tick-

Number

ing so that he could sc

ured Jim. “R

he doubted he ha

r Two—quick

the trembling of his hand a

, and Jim was gone, forgetting i

eld, who had listened to this in

the track about a mile ? 52 ? west of here. He and I rigged up a priv

e chance was too slender. How was the boy to flag the train? How could he make the e

l up a couple of doctors, too; we’ll probably need them; and tell the hospital to have its

er all—the flyer was running ten minutes late, and the freight had come in exactly on

d the trainmaster, after a moment, and started toward

xpectancy, for the instrument on the tab

t called

-tick,” Allan an

53

west stopped here,” came the

eyes bright with emotion. “Don’t send too fast,” he added, with a little, unsteady laugh, a