The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, October 25, 1903, Page 13

f e thought he sent . . t he didn’t—he made a had fixed the meeting pot = « I lazily watched him to loom up In and twist toward I had that any an exclamation t at once the page ith his le plugged drumming his aye,” came back Blackburn down.” Anx was up There was » asked 1 got tank use wire aliak fa Blackt 4 repeated to C be bad used before t e very shape bent hard on me, were M thr h me and through g window—1 know it mow-- ng night, horror- ook, Ba of the Peace River. 7 e turned back, was stray stuff pushed the chair . ke a man listen- . an effort plain cross the office, r of Callaban’s pri- \ his hand on the t the lamp. It was seemed to listen, for he then he step- and closed the g me alone and in the order gradually got the better y and 1 walked from cooler over to the counter to get cour- Bothn. eos was no operator at that leaves Ames SEE e open for twenty or a dis- and the morning Ames for F for 8pecial e sent an order for lion’s, regardiess crossed to the dis- and made a pretense of and blanks. book was lylng open where under the lamp. With my eves bulging, I read the last two orders he had left it, not hold at m bis chair and sat doze as 1 eyed him g. 835, will run to Salt ks regardiess of No. One! 1 glared at the words 1 the letters of the words. reread the first order and read again “allon's for Number One. O'Fallon’s it should be then the front the floor, and t as he stepped table and picked the Special But it wasr was- the first sta- the Special to run to My scalp began to creep the Irving Special and N senger, and it It was a lap order. A lap order for nber One pas- doomed them to o wonder what My mouth went sticking dry. into a hall beat the west glass sharper and the win- v shook again in the wind. look around, n could be doing in Callahan's The horror of the wreck impend- ing through his mistake began to grow on me; I know what I suffered; I ask my- self now whatfe suffered, inside, alone, in the dark. Oh, you who lie down upon the rail at in a dispatcher’s | think you, ever, in your darkened berths responsibility on the man who In the watches of the night holds you in his keeping? Others may blunder; others may fall and stand again; not the dispatcher; damns him. night to sleep, of the cruel others may for- When he falls he falls for- Young as I was, I realized that night th: meaning of the career to which my little ambition urged me. the general, make mistakes, that cost a life or cost They redeem them and live The soldier, the president, make mistakes, honored. Tt is the obscurs dispatcher une der the lamp pays the penalty of eternal disgrace. I felt something of it even then, and from my boy's heart, In the face of the error, in the face of the slaughter, I pitied Blackburn. Callahan's room door opened agaln and Blackburn came out of the dark. I had left the table and was standing in front of the stove. He looked £t me almost ea~ gerly; the expression of his face had com- pletely changed. I never in my life saw such a change in so few minutes on any man's face, and, like all the rest, it alarmed me. It was not for me to speak if T had been able, and he did not. He walked straight over to the table, closed the order book, plugged Callahan's house wire again, and began calling him. The assistant superintendent answered, and Blackburn sent him just these words: “You need not come down.” I heard Callahan reply with a question: “What is the matter?” Blackburn stood calmly over the key, but he made no answer. Instead, he re- peated only the words, “You need not come down.” Callahan, easily excitable always, was wrought up. ‘“Blackburn,” he answered over the wire, impatiently, ‘“What in e is the matter?’ But Black- burn only pulled the plug and cut him out, and sunk into the chair like a man wearled. God's na “Mr. Blackburn,” I sald, my heart mping like an-injector, “Mr. Black- burn?’ He glanced vacantly around; seemed for the first time to see me. “Is there anything,” I-faltered, “I can do?” Even if the words meant nothing, the offer must have touched bim. “No, Jack,” he answered quietly; “thers tsnt.” ‘With the words the hall door opened and Bucks, storm-beaten in his ulster, threw it wide open and stood facing us both. The wind that swept in behind him blew out the lamps and left us in darkness. “Jack, will you light up It was Blackburn who' spoke to me. But Bucks broke In instantly, speaking to him: “Callahan culled me over his house wire a few minutes ago, Blackburn, and told me to meet him here right away. Is any- thing wrong?” he asked, with anxiety re- strained in his tone, I struck a match. I was 8o nervous that I took hold of the hot chimney of the counter lamp and dropped it smash to the floor. No one said & word, and that made me worse. I struck a second match, THE SUNDAY CALL. and a third, and with & fourth got the lamp on the dispatchers’ table lighted as -Blackburn answered the superintendent. “Somethifig serious has happened,” he re- plied to Bucks. “I sent lap orders at 1 o'clock for No. 1 and the Irving Special.” Bucks stared at him. “Instead of making a meeting point at O'Fallon’s I sent One an order to run to O'Fallon’s and ordered the speclal to run to Salt Rocks against One.” “Why, my God!" exclaimed Bucks, “that will bring them together in—the Peace Canyon. Blackburn!—Blackburn!—Black- burn!” he cried, tearing off his storm coat. He walked to the table, seized the order book and steadied himself with one hand on the chalr. I never saw him like that. But it looked as i{f the horror long averted, the trouble In the Peace River Canyon, had come. The sleet tore at the old depot like a wolf, and with the sash shivering, Bucks turned like an execu- tioner on his subordinate. “What have you done to meet it?* He drew his watch, and his words came sharp as doom. ‘‘Where's your wreck- ers? Where's your rellef? What have you done? What are you doing? Noth- ing? Why don’t you speak? Wil you kill two trainloads of people without an effort to do anything?” His volce rang absolute terror to me. T looked toward Blackburn perfectly help- less. “Bucks, there will be no wreck,” he answered steadlly. “Be no wreck!"” thundered Bucks, tow- ering in the dingy room dark as the sweep of the wind. “Be no wreck? Two pas- senger trains meet In hell and be no wreck? Are you crazy?”’ The dispatcher's hands clutched at the The superintendent advanced toward hin he spoke; there was a trace of pity i1 his words that med to open Black burn's pent heart more than all the bit terness. | “Bucks,” he struggled, putting out a and toward his chief, “I am sure of what I say. There will be no wreck When I saw what I had done—knew it was too late to undo it—I begged God that my hands might not be stained with their blood.” Bweat oozed from the wretched man's forehead. Every word wrung its bead of agony. “I was an- swered,” he exclaimed with a strange confidence, “there will be no wreck. I cannot see what will happen. I do not know what; but there will be no wreck, believe me or not—it is so.” | His steadfast manner staggered the su- perintendent. I could imagine what he was debating as he looked at Blackburn —wondering, may be, whether the man’s mind was gone. Bucks was staggered; he looked it, and as he collected himself to speak again the hall door opened like an uncanny thing, and we all started as Callahan burst in on us. “What's 807" he echoed. “What's up here? What did 1t mean, Blackburn! There's been trouble, hasn’t there! What's the matter with you all? Bucks? Is everybody struck dumb?” Bucks spoke. “There’'s a lap order out on One and the theatrical Special, Calla- han. We don’t know what's happened,” sald Bficks sullenly. ‘“‘Blackburn hers has gone crazy—or he knows—somehow— there won't be any wreck,” added tha superintendent slowly and bewilderedly, “It's between O'Fallon’s and Salt Rocks somgfhere. Callahan, take the key,” ’ cried of a sudden. “There's a call ns / 13 tabte. *“No,” he persisted steadily, “I am not crazy, Bucks. Don't make me so. I tell you there will not be a wreck. Bucks, uncertain Wwith amazement, stared at him again. “Blackburn, if you're sane I don’t know what you mean. Don’t stand there like that. Do you know-what you have done?” Dispatcher! Don’t speak: ask no ques- tions. Get that message,” he exclaimed sharply, pclnlln‘ to the instrument. §"It may be new! And it was news—news @rom Ames Sta- tion reporting that the Irving speclal in at 1:52 a. m.—out at ! We all heard it together, or it might not have been be- Meved. The Irving special eastbound, safely past Number One westbound, on a single track, when their meeting orders bhad lapped! Passed without a word of danger or of accident, or even that they had seen Number One and stopped in time to avold a collision? Exactly—not a word —nothing. In at 52; out at 5. And the actors hard asleep in the berths—and on about its business the Irving special— that's what we got from Ames. Callahan looked around. “Gentlemen, what does this mean? Somebody here is insane. I don't know whether it's me or you, Blackburn. Are you horsing me?” he exclaimed, raising his voice angrily. “If you are I want to say I consider it a damned shabby joke.” Bucks put up a hand and without a word of comment repeated Blackburn's story just as the dispatcher had told it. “In eny event there's nothing to do now; it's on us or we're past it. Let us walt for Number One to report.” Callahan pored over the order book “Maybe,” he sald after a while, “didn’t you send the orders right and copy them wrong in the book, Blackburn?" The dispatcher shook his bead. “They went as they stand. The orders lapped, Callahan. Wait till we hear from Num- ber One. I feel sure she is safe. Walt."” Bucks was pacing the floor. Callahan stuck silent to the key, taking what little work came, for I saw neither of the chiefs wanted to trust Blackburn at the key. He sat looking for the most part vacantly into the fire. Callahan meantime had the orders repeated back from Ames and Rosebud. It was as Blackburn had sald; they did lap; they had been sent just as the order book showed. There ‘was nothing for it but to wait for Rose- bud to hear from Number One. When the night operator there called the dispatcher again it brought Blackburn out of his gloom like a thunderclap. “Give me the key!” he exclaimed. “There is Rosebud.” Callahan pushed back and Blackburn, dropping into the chair, took the message from the night operator at Rosebud. “Number One in 2:03 a. m.” Blackburn answered him, and strangely with all the easy confidence of his ordin. ary sending. He sat and took and sent like one again master of the situation. “Ask Engineer Sampson to come to the wire,” said he to Rosebud. Sampson, not Maje, but his brother Arnold, was pulling Number One that night. “Engineer Sampson here,” came from Rosebud presently. “Ask Sampson where he et Speclal 202 to-night.” We waited, wrought up, for In that re- ply must come the answer to all the mys- tery. There was a hitch at the other end of the wire: then Rosebud answered: “Sampson says he will tell you all about it In the morning.” “That will not do,” tapped the dis- patcher. “This is Backburn. Superin- tendent Bucks and Callanan are here. They want the facts. Where did you meet Speclal 2027 There was another wearing delay. When the answer came it was slowly, at the engineer's dictation. My orders were to hola at O'Fallon’s for Special 202, clicked the souncer, re- peating the engineer's halting statement “When we cleared Salt Rocks siding and got down am the Quakers I was eut- ting elong pretty bard to make the can- yon when I saw, or thought I saw, a headlight flash between the Duttes acro the river. It startled me, for I knew the 202 Special could not be very far west of us. Anyway, I made a quick stop, and re- versed and backed tight as I could maks it for Salt Rocks siding. Sefore we had got a mile I saw the headlight again, and I knew the 202 was against our order We got into the clear just as the Special went by humming. Nobody but our tra crew and my fireman knows anything about this.” The three men In front of me made no comment as they looked at each other. How,was It possible for one train to have seen’the headlight of another among the buttes of the Peace River country? It was—possible. Just possible. But to ure once in how many times a vista would have opened for a single second so one engineer could see the light of an- other would stagger a multiplying ma- chine. Chance? Well, yes, pernaps. But there were no suggestions of that nature that night under the dispatcher’s lamp at the Wickiup, with the storm driving down the pass as it drove that night; and yet at Peace River, where the clouds never rested, that night was clear. Blackburn, getting up, steadied himself on his feet. o in there and lle down,” sald Calla- han to him. “You're used up, old fellow, I can see that. I'll take the key. Donm't say a word."” “Not a word, Blackburn,” put in Bucks, resting his big hand on the dispatcher’s shoulder; “there’s no harm done; nobody knows it. Bury the th right here to- night. You're broke up. Go in there and lle down.” He took their hands; started to speak; pushed him into Callahan’s room; n’t want to hear anything. All the night it stormed at the Wickiup. In the morning the Irving special, fiying toward Chicago, was far down the Platte. No. 1 was steaming west, deep in the heart of the Rockies; Blackburn lay in Callahan’s room. It was 9 o'clock, and the sun was streaming through the east windows when Fred Norman opened the office door. Fred could do those things even when he was sickest. Have a hem orrhage one day, scare everybody to death and go back to his trick the next. He asked right away for Kit, as he called Blackburn, and when they pointed to Cal lahan's door Fred pushed it open and went in. A cry brought the operators to him. Blackburn was stretched on his knees half on the floor, half face downward on t sofa. His head had fallen between his arms, which were stretched above it. In his hands, clasped tight, they found his watch h the picture of his wife a is baby. Had he asked, when he first went into that room that night—when he wrestled like Jacob of old in his agony of prayer—that his life be taken if on their lives, the lives of those in his keep- ing, might be spared? I do net know. They found him dead. * SRS il — - “THE COUGH IN LOWER SEVEN” One of Spearman’s very best, will Be the feature of these pages in NEXT SUNDAY CALL weIt’s as fascinating as the title.... “Lone Dog’s New Agent.” And don’t miss these Two full pages of “Half-Hour Storiettes,” And the Great Novel, ‘THE GOLDEN FETICH. “Private Hogan Coward.”