"I'm going to give you a lesson in telegraphy and you are going to--"

Iowa saw, and exploded. "Well, of all the--Say, wot do you think--"

"All right!" Sharply, bravely, though inwardly steeling himself for catastrophe, the lad counted, "One!--Two!--"

Again he won. "Oh, go on!" sputtered Iowa, through gritting teeth. And the boy resumed.

"Hit the key a sharp rap! Pretty good. Now, two raps, one right after the other. Good.

"Now, those are what we call 'dots.' Remember. Now, press the key down, hold it for just a moment, and let it come up again. Very good. You would learn telegraphy quickly, Mr. Burns. That is what we call a 'dash.'" With the situation apparently so well in hand, Wilson was beginning almost to enjoy it.

"Now I'll have you do what I've been aiming at. And remember always--my finger is constantly pressing the trigger!"

"Now then, feel just this side of the key b.u.t.ton, below. The little b.u.t.ton of a lever? Got it? Press it from you."

There was a single sharp upward click of relay and sounder. The key was "open," ready for operation.

"Now listen. I want you to make the letter X--a dot, a dash, then two more dots right together. And keep repeating till I stop you."

Still under the spell of the fancied revolver and the boy's unfaltering gaze, the renegade cowman obeyed, and the telegraph instruments clicked out a painfully deliberate, but fairly readable "X."

It was an idle half-hour, and when the despatcher at Exeter heard his call he glanced up from a magazine, listened a moment, and impatiently remarking, "Some idiot student!" returned to his reading.

But steadily, insistently, the repet.i.tion of X's continued, and at length he reached forward, struck open the key, and demanded, "Who? Sign!"

Clumsily came the answer, "B."

"Bonepile! Now what's happening down there? It doesn't sound like the new operator, either."

The wire again clicked open, and slowly, in the same heavy hand, the mystified and then amazed despatcher read:

"H-E-L-P--H-E-L-D U-P--A-F-T-E-R G-O-L-D--T-I-E-D T-O T-A-B-L-E--G-O-T D-R-O-P O-N H-I-M--M-A-K-I-N-G H-I-M S-E-N-D--B."

The despatcher grasped his key. "Good boy! Good boy!" he hurled back.

"Keep it up for twenty-five minutes and we'll get help to you. There's an extra engine at H, waiting for 92. I'll start her right down." And therewith he whirled off into an urgent succession of "H's."

But through young Jennings' strange feat in telegraphy help was nearer even than the unexpected succor from Hillside. Despite the sleeping draught Burns had administered to Muskoka Jones, the unaccustomed clicking of the telegraph instruments had begun to arouse the big cowman.

When finally, in climax, came the lightning whirr of the despatcher's excited response, he gasped into consciousness, blinked, and suddenly found himself sitting upright, staring open-mouthed at the spectacle before him.

The next moment, with a shout, he was on his feet in the middle of the floor, and the nerve-strung boy had fainted.

As the lad sank forward his "pistol" fell from his hand and rolled into the light.

From Burns came an inarticulate cry, his jaw dropped, his eyes started in his head. Muskoka halted in his stride, wet his lips and muttered incredulous words of admiration and amazement. Then in a moment he had cut Wilson free, and stretched him on the floor.

It was Iowa broke the silence. Rising, with compressed lips he held toward Muskoka the b.u.t.t of his pistol. "Here, shoot me--with my own gun!"

he said hoa.r.s.ely. "I deserve it."

Muskoka considered. "No," he decided at length. "Leave your gun as a present for the kid, and," turning and indicating the door, "git!"

Thus was it the young "dude" operator proved himself, and came into possession of a handsome pearl-handled Colt's revolver--and, early the following morning, from a "committee" of the Bar-O cowmen, headed by Muskoka Jones, a fine high-crowned, silver-spangled Mexican sombrero, to take the place of the hat they had destroyed, and "as a mark of esteem for the pluckiest little operator ever sent to Bonepile."

More important still, however, the incident won Wilson immediate esteem at division headquarters, where one of the first of the operators to congratulate him was Alex Ward.

XVI

A DRAMATIC FLAGGING

Since shortly following Jack Orr's appointment to Midway Junction Alex had been "agitating," as he called it, for his friend's transfer to the telegraph force at the division terminal. At length, early in the fall, Alex's efforts bore fruit, and Jack was offered, and accepted, the "night trick" at one of the big yard towers at Exeter.

Of course the two chums were now always together. And the day of the big flood that October was no exception to the rule. All afternoon the two boys had wandered up and down the swollen river, watching the brown whirling waters, almost bank high, and the trees, fences, even occasional farm buildings, which swept by from above. When six o'clock came they reluctantly left it for supper, and the night's duties.

"Well, what do you think of the river, Ward?" inquired the chief night despatcher as Alex entered the despatching-room.

"It looks rather bad, sir, doesn't it. Do you think the bridge is quite safe?"

"Quite. It has been through several worse floods than this. It's as strong as the hills," the despatcher affirmed.

Despite the chief's confidence, however, when about 5 o'clock in the morning there came reports of a second cloud-burst up the river, he requested Alex to call up Jack, at the yard tower which overlooked the bridge, and ask him to keep them posted.

"Tell him the crest of this new flood will likely reach us in half an hour," he added; "and that by that time, as it is turning colder, there'll probably be a heavy fog on the river."

Twenty-five minutes later Jack suddenly called, and announced, "The new flood's coming! There is a heavy mist, and I can't see, but I can hear it. Can you see it from up there?"

Alex and the chief despatcher moved to one of the western windows, raised it, and in the first gray light of dawn gazed out across the valley below. Instead of the dark waters of the river, and the yellow embankment of the railroad following it, winding away north was a broad blanket of fog, stretching from sh.o.r.e to sh.o.r.e. But distinctly to their ears came a rumble as of thunder.

"It must be a veritable Niagara," remarked the chief with some uneasiness. "I never heard a bore come down like that before."

"Here she comes," clicked Jack from the tower. They stepped back to his instruments.

"Say!--"

There was a pause, while the chief and Alex exchanged glances of apprehension, then came quickly, "Something has struck one of the western spans of the bridge and carried it clean away--

"No--No, it's there yet! But it's all smashed to pieces! Only the upper-structure seems to be holding!"

Sharply the despatcher turned to an operator at one of the other wires.

"McLaren, Forty-six hasn't pa.s.sed Norfolk?"

"Yes, sir. Five minutes ago."

A cry broke from the chief, and he ran back to the window. Alex followed, and found him as pale as death.

"What's the matter, Mr. Allen?" he exclaimed.