. They left him for dead, but
thank God he did not die, and to-day he is on a road that before many
years will land him on top of the heap.

CHAPTER XX

AN EPISODE OF SENTIMENT

The night man down at Bentonville quit rather suddenly one fall morning,
and as I had no immediate relief in prospect, I wired the chief
despatcher of the division south of me to send me a man if he had any to
spare. That afternoon I received a message from him saying he had sent
Miss Ellen Ross to take the place. I still had a very distinct
recollection of my encounter with Miss Love, and I wasn't overfond of
women operators anyway, so Miss Ross's welcome to my division was not a
hearty one. She was the first woman I had ever had under my
jurisdiction. I was at the office quite late a night or two after this,
and heard some of her work; there was no use denying that she was a very
smooth operator as well as a very prompt one. Burke said he had no
complaint to offer; she was always on time, and I must confess I felt
much chagrined. I wanted a chance to discharge her, but it didn't appear
to materialize. But I was a patient waiter and one morning about three
weeks later I came into the office and on looking over the delay sheet I
saw the following entry in the delay column:

"No. 18 delayed fifty minutes, account not being able to raise the
operator at Bentonville in that time; as an explanation, operator says
she was over at the hotel getting her lunch."

Evidently Miss Ross had little ingenuity in the line of excuses or she
would never have offered such a threadbare one as that. I wanted the
chance to annihilate her and here it was. I called up Bentonville and
asked if Miss Ross was there. She was, and I said, "Isn't it possible
for you to invent a better excuse than 'lunch' for your failure to
answer last night, or this morning rather?"

She drummed on the key for a moment and then said if I didn't like that
excuse I knew what I could do. I caught my breath at her audacity and
then "_did_." I sent her time to her on No. 21, and a man to take her
place. I then dismissed the matter from my mind and supposed that I had
heard the last of Miss Ross. I never was very well acquainted with the
female sex or I would not have dismissed the matter with such
complacency.

A day or two after this I was sitting in the division superintendent's
office, he being out on the road, and I heard a voice say:

"Is this Mr. Bates?" I had not heard