Over the Wire
Snow and ice on that mountain. Nothing but snow. The wind drove itwith a howl against the windows, where it stuck on the warm panes.Sometimes I could just make out the blur of the semaphore lights andsometimes I couldn’t. All day the blizzard had dumped its swirlingload about us, and now, when night closed down, the storm took thetower in its teeth, shaking it like you’ve seen a dog shake a rat.
Oh, we were warm and cozy enough with our stove red hot. Which wasmore than Donaldson, the agent at Hastings, could say. His wire talkwas rotten, chattery, and he told us he’d run out of coal. Looked likehe’d freeze to death, according to him. But Big Ben prophesied grimlythat Donaldson could take care of himself, so we might as well saveour worries.
I don’t suppose you ever heard of Big Ben, but that is your loss.Every soul on the Mountain Division knew him. His Morse snapped outlike a track torpedo, fast, too, but accurate, staccato, with a smoothflow as if a machine had hold of the key. Dots and dashes were part ofhim, for, after years of it, he could express himself better that way.
Sort of feeling for the language, I suppose. I’ve seen the same giftsince, but never to the extent Ben possessed it. Why, he could comemighty close to telling the color of your eyes over a telegraph-wire.
He and I had worked tower BB-17 on the Mountain Division for threeyears, and during that time I never saw him flurried. Once a freight,running extra, got by us—dispatcher tangled up his train-sheet. Fortyminutes later a relay came into stop her or she’d meet 87 on the biggrade.
It takes just forty minutes to run from our tower to Hastings, furtherdown the line. Hastings is the last station with a siding before thegrade. In other words, the freight ought to have been getting her O.K. from Hastings right then.
Was Ben excited? Not one little bit.
Donaldson caught his first call. Clear as a bell it was. And Donaldsonhad time to flag the freight.
But the particular night I’m speaking of, my side partner appeared abit uneasy, which was enough to set my think-tank working. He’d dropdown alongside the key for a moment; then he’d wander over to thewindows, trying to pierce the blizzard.
He was a big man with a hearty laugh and a mouth full of teeth and awhiskered chin full of determination. His red hair, as brilliant asthe glow in his corn-cob pipe, usually stood on end. But his eyes weregray and pleasant; that is, generally they were. Yet I’ve noticed ’emhard as rocks, drilling into you with a gleam in ’em like you seejumping across a spark-gap. Right now they were anxious.
Perhaps that wasn’t so strange, either, for all day long, from thelength of the division, had come bunches of trouble. A snowshed outhere; a freight ditched there; hell to pay everywhere.
Wires were down, too. Not a word could we get below Hastings or northof the junction. Toward night every siding was overflowing withdeadheaded rolling stock. You see, the big grade—it’s four and a halfper cent in places—handicaps us because even our best oil-burnerswon’t haul much tonnage on it in a blizzard. They can’t make steam.
And this particular frolic of the elements promised to beat anythingthat had struck us in twenty years. At 10 P.M. the chief dispatcherordered the line cleared for the night, barring No. 77 southbound,which was to make her run as usual. I reckon you’ve heard of thattrain—the Cumberland Limited, all steel and solid Pu