rger lights on the right--those
would be station windows. Another light, a red one--the order board
was out against them and the train would have to stop!

She cried out in her excitement and satisfaction. She felt like
opening the narrow window, rushing out along the running-board to the
front of the engine and cheering!

They were beginning to slow up now. A man came out and stood on the
platform, some papers in his hand. She could see him quite plainly in
his shirtsleeves in the glare of the powerful headlight. That must be
the night operator--the Mecca of all her hopes.

The hands of the fireman's watch indicated 12.30.

They rolled in beside the platform and the long string of freight cars
bumped, groaned, squeaked and stopped. A lantern came bobbing along
the tops of the cars from the rear. The conductor dropped off the
caboose and jogged forward beside his train.

Macdonald drew in his head and looked across the cab. But the seat was
empty. The girl had slipped away already and presently he caught sight
of her, disappearing into the station.

CHAPTER XXVII

CLOSE QUARTERS

Brennan, Night Editor of the _Recorder_, scribbled a two-column head,
folded it in with a sheet of "flimsy," dropped it into the dumb-waiter
box and yanked the string that shot it aloft to the composing room. He
reached for his long scissors, snipped off a fresh piece of the
typewritten C.A.P. report, fastened it with a daub of paste to a sheet of
copy paper and marked it for a single-column "box," Page 1. The whistle
blew in the speaking-tube at his elbow and he answered the foreman's
question while scribbling his initials to the slip which a newly arrived
messenger boy from one of the telegraph companies was holding flat for
him.

"'Phone, Bren," called Chic White, Sporting Editor.

Brennan took down the receiver as a reporter laid a wad of new "copy" on
the desk and hurried out again. Then Brennan opened a drawer in his desk
and took another bite out of a ham sandwich before tearing the envelopes
from the newly arrived telegrams.

Up until now things had been very quiet all evening, so quiet that the
lay-out of a decent front page was a problem. The Chief had gone home
early to-night and had paused on his way out to ask Brennan how the news
was breaking and instruct him to "boil everything down." If there was
anything that McAllister detested it was a thirty-six point head on a
twelve-point item.

"Kerr!