ed
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-buttoned
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 passed, 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