The Night Operator Part 4

Toddles half fell, half b.u.mped from the end of the platform to the right of way. He cried to himself with low moans as he went along. He had the heart of a fighter, and grit to the last tissue; but he needed it all now--needed it all to stand the pain and fight the weakness that kept swirling over him in flashes.

On he went, on his hands and knees, slithering from tie to tie---and from one tie to the next was a great distance. The life and death, the despatcher's call--he seemed to hear it yet--throbbing, throbbing on the wire.

On he went, up the track; and the green eye of the lamp, winking at him, drew nearer. And then suddenly, clear and mellow through the mountains, caught up and echoed far and near, came the notes of a chime whistle ringing down the gorge.

Fear came upon Toddles then, and a great sob shook him. That was the Limited coming now! Toddles' fingers dug into the ballast, and he hurried--that is, in bitter pain, he tried to crawl a little faster.

And as he crawled, he kept his eyes strained up the track--she wasn't in sight yet around the curve--not yet, anyway.

Another foot, only another foot, and he would reach the siding switch--in time--in plenty of time. Again the sob--but now in a burst of relief that, for the moment, made him forget his hurts. He was in time!

He flung himself at the switch lever, tugged upon it--and then, trembling, every ounce of remaining strength seeming to ooze from him, he covered his face with his hands. It was _locked_--padlocked.

Came a rumble now--a distant roar, growing louder and louder, reverberating down the canon walls--louder and louder--nearer and nearer. "Hold second Number Two. Hold second Number Two"--the "seventeen," the life and death, pleading with him to hold Number Two.

And she was coming now, coming--and--and--the switch was locked. The deadly nausea racked Toddles again; there was nothing to do now--nothing. He couldn't stop her--couldn't stop her. He'd--he'd tried--very hard--and--and he couldn't stop her now. He took his hands from his face, and stole a glance up the track, afraid almost, with the horror that was upon him, to look. She hadn't swung the curve yet, but she would in a minute--and come pounding down the stretch at fifty miles an hour, shoot by him like a rocket to where, somewhere ahead, in some form, he did not know what, only knew that it was there, death and ruin and----

"_Use your head!_" snapped Donkin's voice to his consciousness.

Toddles' eyes were on the light above his head. It blinked _red_ at him as he stood on the track facing it; the green rays were shooting up and down the line. He couldn't swing the switch--but the _lamp_ was there--and there was the red side to show just by turning it. He remembered then that the lamp fitted into a socket at the top of the switch stand, and could be lifted off--if he could reach it!

It wasn't very high--for an ordinary-sized man--for an ordinary-sized man had to get at it to trim and fill it daily--only Toddles wasn't an ordinary-sized man. It was just nine or ten feet above the rails--just a standard siding switch.

Toddles gritted his teeth, and climbed upon the base of the switch--and nearly fainted as his ankle swung against the rod. A foot above the base was a footrest for a man to stand on and reach up for the lamp, and Toddles drew himself up and got his foot on it--and then at his full height the tips of his fingers only just touched the bottom of the lamp. Toddles cried aloud, and the tears streamed down his face now.

Oh, if he weren't hurt--if he could only s.h.i.+n up another foot--but--but it was all he could do to hang there where he was.

_What was that_! He turned his head. Up the track, sweeping in a great circle as it swung the curve, a headlight's glare cut through the night--and Toddles "s.h.i.+nned" the foot. He tugged and tore at the lamp, tugged and tore at it, loosened it, lifted it from its socket, sprawled and wriggled with it to the ground--and turned the red side of the lamp against second Number Two.

The quick, short blasts of a whistle answered, then the crunch and grind and scream of biting brake-shoes--and the big mountain racer, the 1012, pulling the second section of the Limited that night, stopped with its pilot nosing a diminutive figure in a torn and silver-b.u.t.toned uniform, whose hair was clotted red, and whose face was covered with blood and dirt.

Masters, the engineer, and Pete Leroy, his fireman, swung from the gangways; Kelly, the conductor, came running up from the forward coach.

Kelly shoved his lamp into Toddles' face--and whistled low under his breath.

"Toddles!" he gasped; and then, quick as a steel trap: "What's wrong?"

"I don't know," said Toddles weakly. "There's--there's something wrong. Get into the clear--on the siding."

"Something wrong," repeated Kelly, "and you don't----"

But Masters cut the conductor short with a grab at the other's arm that was like the shutting of a vise--and then bolted for his engine like a gopher for its hole. From, down the track came the heavy, grumbling roar of a freight. Everybody flew then, and there was quick work done in the next half minute--and none too quickly done--the Limited was no more than on the siding when the fast freight rolled her long string of flats, boxes and gondolas thundering by.

And while she pa.s.sed, Toddles, on the platform, stammered out his story to Kelly.

Kelly didn't say anything--then. With the express messenger and a brakeman carrying Toddles, Kelly kicked in the station door, and set his lamp down on the operator's table.

"Hold me up," whispered Toddles--and, while they held him, he made the despatcher's call.

Big Cloud answered him on the instant. Haltingly, Toddles reported the second section "in" and the freight "out"--only he did it very slowly, and he couldn't think very much more, for things were going black. He got an order for the Limited to run to Blind River and told Kelly, and got the "complete"--and then Big Cloud asked who was on the wire, and Toddles answered that in a mechanical sort of a way without quite knowing what he was doing--and went limp in Kelly's arms.

And as Toddles answered, back in Big Cloud, Regan, the sweat still standing out in great beads on his forehead, fierce now in the revulsion of relief, glared over Donkin's left shoulder, as Donkin's left hand scribbled on a pad what was coming over the wire.

Regan glared fiercely--then he spluttered:

"Who in h.e.l.l's Christopher Hyslop Hoogan--h'm?"

Donkin's lips had a queer smile on them.

"Toddles," he said.

Regan sat down heavily in his chair.

"_What?_" demanded the super.

"Toddles," said Donkin. "I've been trying to drum a little railroading into him--on the key."

Regan wiped his face. He looked helplessly from Donkin to the super, and then back again at Donkin.

"But--but what's he doing at Ca.s.sil's Siding? How'd he get there--h'm?

H'm? How'd he get there?"

"I don't know," said Donkin, his fingers rattling the Ca.s.sil's Siding call again. "He doesn't answer any more. We'll have to wait for the story till they make Blind River, I guess."

And so they waited. And presently at Blind River, Kelly, dictating to the operator--not Beale, Beale's day man--told the story. It lost nothing in the telling--Kelly wasn't that kind of a man--he told them what Toddles had done, and he left nothing out; and he added that they had Toddles on a mattress in the baggage car, with a doctor they had discovered amongst the pa.s.sengers looking after him.

At the end, Carleton tamped down the dottle in the bowl of his pipe thoughtfully with his forefinger--and glanced at Donkin.

"Got along far enough to take a station key somewhere?" he inquired casually. "He's made a pretty good job of it as the night operator at Ca.s.sil's."

Donkin was smiling.

"Not yet," he said.

"No?" Carleton's eyebrows went up. "Well, let him come in here with you, then, till he has; and when you say he's ready, we'll see what we can do. I guess it's coming to him; and I guess"--he s.h.i.+fted his glance to the master mechanic--"I guess we'll go down and meet Number Two when she comes in, Tommy."

Regan grinned.

"With our hats in our hands," said the big-hearted master mechanic.

Donkin shook his head.

"Don't you do it," he said. "I don't want him to get a swelled head."

Carleton stared; and Regan's hand, reaching into his back pocket for his chewing, stopped midway.

Donkin was still smiling.

"I'm going to make a railroad man out of Toddles," he said.