in
sight. I looked anxiously at him as he tore back into the room, and
with trembling hands called the dispatcher's office.

Perspiration was pouring down his face. He could hardly stand.
Promptly the instrument ticked back the return call.

"Where is the passenger train?" queried our office. The reply was
terrible. "Left for your station three minutes ago. Have you put the
engine on the side track?" Back went the answer: "The engine has
rushed past the station and has not waited for her crossing."

"My God!" replied the dispatcher, "the two trains will meet."

My companion sank on the chair. His face was ghostly.

"It will be a terrible accident," he said aloud, but to himself--he
seemed to have forgotten me in his great terror.

"God help them! God help them!" he reiterated. The situation was so
fearful to me that I could only sit and look spell-bound at my friend.
The furious storm made the horror of the situation tenfold more
unendurable.

It seemed to me that I had been sitting in this trance-like condition
for hours, when I was roused by hearing an engine give a certain
number of whistles, which indicated it wanted the switch opened. The
next moment a man rushed into the office. "Open the switch quick!" he
shouted, "the passenger train will be here in two minutes." It was the
driver of the engine! My companion sprang joyously to his feet.
Without asking a question he ran out into the yard, followed by the
engineer.

A few minutes later they both returned. The mystery was soon explained
by the driver. He had forgotten the order which had been wired to him,
and which he had put in his pocket when he received it, over two hours
before, away up the line. He probably would have remembered it when he
passed our station had he seen any signal displayed, but he had rushed
past. He must have been two miles past the station when, putting his
hand into his coat pocket to get his pipe, he felt the peculiar paper
upon which crossing orders are written. Like a flash the order to
cross with the passenger train at our station came back to his memory.

He could not see a yard ahead of him for the storm, and knew not but
the next instant he would be dashing into the passenger train with its
burden of precious lives--his heart seemed to cease beating. The
engine was instantly reversed, the sudden revulsion nearly tearing the
locomotive to pieces. She ran on for fifty yards or more rocking like
a ship in a storm. He had h