Held for Orders: Being Stories of Railroad Life

The orders buttoned in the reefers gave De Molay a free sweep to Elcho, and Jack Moore and Oyster were the men to take it, good and hard. Moreover, there was glory aboard. Pennsylvania nobs, way-up railroad men, waiting to see what for motive power we had in the Woolly West; how we climbed mountains and skirted cañon walls, and crawled down two and three per cent grades. Then with Bucks himself in the private car – what wonder they let her out and swung De Molay through the gorge as maybe you've seen a particularly buoyant kite snake its tail out of the grass and drag it careening skyward. When they slowed for Elcho at nightfall, past First and Second Eighty, and Bucks named the mileage, the Pennsys refused to believe it for the hour's run. But fast as they had sped along the iron trail, Martin Duffy's work had sped ahead of them, and this order was waiting:

Telegraphic Train Order Number 79.

C. and E. Third No. 80, Rat River.

C. and E. Special 326, Elcho.

Third No. 80, Engine 210, and Special 326 will meet at Rock Point.

J. M. C.

D.

With this meeting-point made, it would be pretty much over in the despatchers' office. Martin Duffy pushed his sallow hair back for the last time, and, leaving young Giddings to get the last O. K.'s and the last Complete on his trick, got out of the chair.

It had been a tremendous day for Giddings, a tremendous day. Thirty-two Specials on the despatchers, and Giddings copying for the Chief. He sat down after Duffy, filled with a riotous importance because it was now, in effect, all up to Giddings, personally; at least until Barnes Tracy should presently kick him out of the seat of honor for the night trick. Mr. Giddings sat down and waited for the signature of the orders.

Very soon Pat Francis dropped off De Molay Four, slowing at Elcho, ran straight to the operator for his order, signed it and at once Order 79 was throbbing back to young Giddings at Medicine Bend. It was precisely 7.54 P. M. when Giddings gave back the Complete and at 7.55 Elcho reported Special 326, "out," all just like clockwork. What a head Martin Duffy has, thought young Giddings – and behold! all the complicated everlasting headwork of the trick and the day, and of the West End and its honor, was now up to the signature of Third Eighty at Rat River. Just Third Eighty's signature for the Rock Point meeting, and the biggest job ever tackled by a single-track road in America (Giddings thought) was done and well done.

So the ambitious Giddings by means of a pocket-mirror inspected a threatening pimple on the end of his chubby nose palming the glass skilfully so Barnes Tracy couldn't see it even if he did interrupt his eruption, and waited for Bob Duffy, the Rat River nightman, to come back at him with Third Eighty's signature. Under Giddings' eye, as he sat, ticked Martin Duffy's chronometer – the watch that split the seconds and chimed the quarters and stopped and started so impossibly and ran to a second a month – the watch that Bucks (who never did things by halves) had given little Martin Duffy with the order that made him Chief. It lay at Giddings's fingers, and the minute hand wiped from the enamelled dial seven o'clock fifty-five, fifty-six, seven, eight – nine. Young Giddings turned to his order book and inspected his entries like a methodical bookkeeper, and Martin Duffy's chronometer chimed the fourth quarter, eight o'clock. One entry he had still to make. Book in hand he called Rat River.

"Get Third Eighty's signature to Order 79 and hurry them out," he tapped impatiently at Bob Duffy.

There was a wait. Giddings lighted his pipe the way Callahan always lighted his pipe – putting out his lips to catch all the perfume and blowing the first cloud away wearily, as Callahan always did wearily. Then he twirled the match meditatively, and listened, and got suddenly this from Bob Duffy at Rat River:

"I forgot Order 79," came Bob Duffy's message. "I let Third Eighty go without it. They left here at seven – fifty" – fifty something, Giddings never heard fifty what. The match went into the ink, the pipe into the water-pail, and Giddings, before Bob Duffy finished, like a drowning man was calling Elcho with the life and death, the Nineteen call.

"Hold Special 326!" he cried over the wire the instant Elcho replied.

But Elcho, steadily, answered this:

"Special – Three-twenty-six – left – here – seven-fifty-five."

Giddings, with both hands on the table, raised up like a drunken man. The West End was against it. Third Eighty in the open and going against the De Molay Four. Bucks, Callahan, wife – everybody – and Rock Point a blind siding that no word from anybody on earth could reach ahead of Third Eighty.

Giddings sprang to the open window and shouted to anybody and everybody to call Martin Duffy. But Martin Duffy spoke behind him.

"What do you want?" he asked; it came terribly quick on Giddings as he turned.

"What's the matter?" exclaimed Martin, looking into the boy's face. "Speak, can't you? What's the matter, Giddings?"

"Bob forgot Order 79 and let Third Eighty go without it – and Special 326 is out of Elcho," choked Giddings.

"What?"

"Bob at – Rat River – gave Third Eighty a clearance without the Order 79."

Martin Duffy sprang straight up in the air. Once he shut his lifted hands; once he looked at Giddings, staggering again through the frightful news, then he dropped into the chair, looked wildly around, seized his key like a hunted man, stared at his train sheet, grabbed the order book, and listened to Giddings cutting off one hope after another of stopping Special 326. His fingers set mechanically and he made the Rat River call; but Rat River was silent. With Barnes Tracy tiptoeing in behind on the instinct of trouble, and young Giddings shaking like a leaf, the Chief called Rat River. Then he called Elcho, asked for Special 326, and Elcho again repeated steadily:

"Special – 326 – left – here – on – Order – 79 – at – seven-fifty-five P. M."

Martin Duffy bent before the message; young Giddings, who had been whispering to Tracy, dropped on a stool and covered his face.

"Don't cry, Giddings." It was Duffy who spoke; dry and parched his voice. "It's nothing you – could help." He looked around and saw Tracy at his elbow. "Barnes," he said, but he tried twice before his voice would carry. "Barnes – they will meet in the Cinnamon cut. Giddings told you? Bob forgot, forgot my order. Run, Giddings, for Benedict Morgan and Doubleday and Carhart —quick!"

Giddings ran, the Rat River call echoing again down the hall behind him. Rat River was closest to Rock Point – would get the first news of the wreck, and Martin Duffy was calling his recreant brother at the River; but the River was silent.

Doubleday and the company surgeon, Dr. Carhart, rushed into the room almost together. Then came with a storm the wrecking boss, Benedict Morgan; it was only an evil hour that brought Benedict Morgan into the despatchers' office. Stooped and silent, Martin Duffy, holding the chair, was calling Rat River. Carhart watched him just a moment, then he took Barnes Tracy aside and whispered – and, going back, bent over Duffy. The Chief pulled himself up.

"Let Tracy take the key," repeated the doctor. "Get away from the table a minute, Martin. It may not be as bad as you think."

Duffy, looking into the surgeon's face, put his hand on his arm. "It's the De Molay train, the Special 326, with Bucks's car, double-headed. Oh, my God – I can't stop them. Doctor, they will meet!"

Carhart unfastened the fingers on his arm. "Come away a minute. Let Tracy have the key," he urged.

"A head-ender, eh?" croaked Benedict Morgan from the counter, and with a frightful oath. "A head-ender!"

"Shut up, you brute!" hissed Carhart. Duffy's hands were creeping queerly up the sides of his head.

"Sure," growled Benedict Morgan, loweringly, "sure. Shut up. Of course. Shut up."

Carhart was a quick man. He started for the wrecker, but Duffy, springing, stopped him. "For God's sake, keep cool, everybody," he exclaimed, piteously. There was no one else to talk, to give the orders. Bucks and Callahan both on the Special – maybe past order-giving now. Only Martin Duffy to take the double load and the double shame. He stared, dazed again, into the faces around as he held to the fiery surgeon. "Morgan," he added steadily, looking at the surly wrecker, "get up your crew, quick. Doubleday, make up all the coaches in the yard for an ambulance train. Get every doctor in town to go with you. Tracy, clear the line."

The Master Mechanic and Benedict Morgan clattered down stairs. Carhart, running to the telephone, told Central to summon every medical man in the Bend, and hurried out. Before he had covered a block, roundhouse callers, like flaws of wind before a storm, were scurrying the streets, and from the tower of the fire-house sounded the harsh clang of the emergency gong for the wreckers.

Caught where they could be caught, out of saloons, beds, poker joints, Salvation barracks, churches, – the men of the wrecking crew ran down the silent streets, waking now fast into life. Congregations were dispersed, hymns cut, prayers forgotten, bars deserted, hells emptied, barracks raided at that call, the emergency gong call, fell as a fire-bell, for the Mountain Division wrecking gang.

While the yard crews shot up and down the spurs switching coaches into the relief train, Benedict Morgan with solid volleys of oaths was organizing his men and filling them at the lunch counters with huge schooners of coffee. Carhart pushed again through the jam of men and up to the despatchers' office. Before and behind him crowded the local physicians with instrument bags and bandages. The ominous baggage deposited on the office floor, they sat down about the room or hovered around Carhart asking for details. Doubleday, tall and grim, came over from the roundhouse. Benedict Morgan stamped up from the yard – the Mountain Division was ready.

All three despatchers were in the room. John Mallers, the day man, stood near Tracy, who had relieved Giddings. The line was clear for the relief run. Elcho had been notified of the impending disaster, and at Tracy's elbow sat the Chief looking fixedly at the key – taking the bob of the sounder with his eye. A dozen men in the room were talking; but they spoke as men who speaking wait on the life of a fuse. Duffy, with suspense deepening into frenzy, pushed Tracy's hand from the key and, sliding into the chair, began once more to call his brother at Rat River.

"R, T – R, T – R, T – R, T – " clicked the River call. "R, T – R, T – R, T – Bob – Bob – Bob," spelled the sender. "Answer me, answer, answer. R, T – R, T – R, T – R, T – "

And Barnes Tracy edged away and leaned back to where the shadow hid his face. And John Mallers, turning from the pleading of the current, stared gloomily out of the window across the yard shimmering under the double relay of arc lights; and young Giddings, who couldn't stand it – just couldn't stand it – bending on his stool, shook with gulping sobs.

The others knew nothing of the heartbreaking in the little clicks. But they all knew the track – knew where the trains would meet; knew they could not by any possibility see each other till they whirled together on the curve of the Cinnamon cut or on the trestle west of it and they waited only for the breaking of the suspense that settled heavily over them.

Ten, twenty, thirty, forty minutes went, with Martin Duffy at intervals vainly calling. Then – as the crack opens in the field of ice, as the snow breaks in the mountain slide, as the sea gives up at last its dead, the sounder spoke – Rat River made the despatcher's call. And Martin Duffy, staring at the copper coil, pushed himself up in his chair like a man that chokes, caught smothering at his neck, and slipped wriggling to the floor.

Carhart caught him up, but Duffy's eyes stared meaningless past him. Rat River was calling him, but Martin Duffy was past the taking. Like the man next at the gun, Barnes Tracy sprang into the chair with the I, I, D. The surgeon, Giddings helping, dragged Duffy to the lounge in Callahan's room – his Chief was more to Giddings then than the fate of Special 326. But soon confused voices began to ring from where men were crowding around the despatchers' table. They echoed in to where the doctors worked over the raving Chief. And young Giddings, helping, began, too, to hear strange things from the other room.

"The moon – "

"The moon?"

"The MOON!"

"What?"

Barnes Tracy was trying to make himself heard:

"The moon, damn it! MOON! That's English, ain't it? Moon."

"Who's talking at Rat River?" demanded Benedict Morgan, hoarsely.

"Chick Neale, conductor of Third Eighty; their train is back at Rat River. God bless that man," stammered Barnes Tracy, wiping his forehead feverishly; "he's an old operator. He says Bob Duffy is missing – tell Martin, quick, there isn't any wreck – quick!"

"What does Neale say?" cried Doubleday with an explosion.

Tracy thought he had told them, but he hadn't. "He says his engineer, Abe Monsoon, was scared by the moon rising just as they cleared Kennel Butte," explained Tracy unsteadily. "He took it for the headlight of Special 326 and jumped from his engine. The fireman backed the train to Rat River – see?"

While Tracy talked, Mallers at the key was getting it all. "Look here," he exclaimed, "did you ever hear of such a mix-up in your life? The head brakeman of the freight was in the cab, Neale says. He and the engineer were talking about the last Conclave train, wondering where they were going to meet it, when the brakeman spied the moon coming up around Kennel Butte curve. 'There's the 326 Special!' he yelled, and lighted out the gangway. Monsoon reversed and jumped off after him so quick he knocked the fireman over in the coal. When the fireman got up – he hadn't heard a word of it all – he couldn't see anything ahead but the moon. So he stops the train and backs up for the two guys. When Neale and he picked them up they ran right back to Rat River for orders. They never got to Rock Point at all – why, they never got two miles east of Rat River."

"And where's Special 326?" cried Doubleday.

"At Rock Point, you loco. She must be there and waiting yet for Third Eighty. The stopping of the freight gave her plenty of time to make the meeting-point, don't you see, and there she is – sweating – yet. Neale is an old operator. By Heaven! Give me a man of the key against the the world. Praise God from whom all blessings flow!"

"Then there isn't to be any wreck?" ventured a shy little lady homeopathic physician, who had been crimped into the fray to help do up the mangled Knights and was modestly waiting her opportunity.

"Not to-night," announced Tracy with the dignity of a man temporarily in charge of the entire division.

A yell went out of the room like a tidal wave. Doubleday and Benedict Morgan had not spoken to each other since the night of the roundhouse fire – that was two years. They turned wonder-struck to each other. Doubleday impulsively put out his hand and, before he could pull it in again, the wrecking boss grabbed it like a pay check. Carhart, who was catching the news from the rattle of young Giddings, went wild trying to repeat it to Duffy without losing it in his throat. The Chief was opening his eyes, trying to understand.

Medical men of violently differing schools, allopaths, homeopaths, osteopaths, eclectics – made their peace with a whoop. A red-headed druggist, who had rung himself in for a free ride to the horror, threw his emergency packets into the middle of the floor. The doctors caught the impulse: instrument cases were laid with solemn tenderness on the heap, and a dozen crazy men, joining hands around the pyred saws and gauze, struck up "Old Hundred."

Engineer Monsoon was a new man, who had been over the division only twice before in his life, both times in daylight. For that emergency Abe Monsoon was the man of all others, because it takes more than an ordinary moon to scare a thoroughbred West End engineer. But Monsoon and his moon headlight had between them saved De Molay Four from the scrap.

The relief arrangements and Monsoon's headlight were the fun of it, but there was more. Martin Duffy lay eleven weeks with brain fever before they could say moon again to him. Bob had skipped into the mountains in the very hour that he had disgraced himself. He has never shown up at Medicine since; but Martin is still Chief, and they think more of him on the Mountain district than ever.

Bucks got the whole thing when De Molay Four reached Rat River that night. Bucks and Callahan and Moore and Oyster and Pat Francis got it and smiled grimly. Nobody else on Special 326 even dreamed of leaving a bone that Sunday night in the Cinnamon cut. All the rest of the evening Bucks smiled just the same at the Knights and the Knightesses, and they thought him for a bachelor wonderfully entertaining.

A month later, when the old boys more or less ragged came straggling back from 'Frisco, Bucks's crowd stayed over a train, and he told his Pennsylvania cronies what they had slipped through in that delay at Rock Point.

"Just luck," laughed one of the Eastern superintendents, who wore on his watch chain an enormous Greek cross with "Our Trust is in God" engraved on it. "Just luck," he laughed, "wasn't it?"

"Maybe," murmured Bucks, looking through the Wickiup window at the Teton peaks. "That is – you might call it that – back on the Penn. Out here I guess they'd call it, Just God."