FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54  
55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   >>   >|  
on that calendar over my desk." "Well, we won't go back of the returns," declared Lidgerwood, meaning to be as just as he could to his predecessors in office. "But from now on----" The door leading into the room beyond the trainmaster's office opened squeakily on dry hinges, and a chattering of telegraph instruments heralded the incoming of a disreputable-looking office-man, with a green patch over one eye and a blackened cob-pipe between his teeth. Seeing Lidgerwood, he ducked and turned to McCloskey. Bradley, reporting in, had given his own paraphrase of the new superintendent's strictures on Red Butte Western despatching and the criticism had lost nothing in the recasting. "Seventy-one's in the ditch at Gloria Siding," he said, speaking pointedly to the trainmaster. "Goodloe reports it from Little Butte; says both enginemen are in the mix-up, but he doesn't know whether they are killed or not." "There you are!" snarled McCloskey, wheeling upon Lidgerwood. "They couldn't let you get your chair warmed the first day!" With the long run from Copah to Angels to his credit, and with all the head-quarters loose ends still to be gathered up, Lidgerwood might blamelessly have turned over the trouble call to his trainmaster. But a wreck was as good a starting-point as any, and he took command at once. "Go and clear for the wrecking-train, and have some one in your office notify the shops and the yard," he said briskly, compelling the attention of the one-eyed despatcher; and when Callahan was gone: "Now, Mac, get out your map and post me. I'm a little lame on geography yet. Where is Gloria Siding?" McCloskey found a blue-print map of the line and traced the course of the western division among the foot-hills to the base of the Great Timanyonis, and through the Timanyoni Canyon to a park-like valley, shut in by the great range on the east and north, and by the Little Timanyonis and the Hophras on the west and south. At a point midway of the valley his stubby forefinger rested. "That's Gloria," he said, "and here's Little Butte, twelve miles beyond." "Good ground?" queried Lidgerwood. "As pretty a stretch as there is anywhere west of the desert; reminds you of a Missouri bottom, with the river on one side and the hills a mile away on the other. I don't know what excuse those hoboes could find for piling a train in the ditch there." "We'll hear the excuse later," said Lidgerwood. "Now, tell me what sort
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54  
55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Lidgerwood

 

office

 

McCloskey

 

Little

 

Gloria

 

trainmaster

 

valley

 

Timanyonis

 
excuse
 
Siding

turned

 
western
 

traced

 

Callahan

 

notify

 
briskly
 

wrecking

 
command
 

compelling

 

attention


despatcher

 
division
 

geography

 
bottom
 

Missouri

 

reminds

 
desert
 

queried

 

pretty

 

stretch


piling
 

hoboes

 
ground
 

starting

 

Canyon

 

Timanyoni

 

rested

 

twelve

 

forefinger

 

stubby


Hophras

 

midway

 
blackened
 
heralded
 

instruments

 

incoming

 

disreputable

 

paraphrase

 

superintendent

 

strictures