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Toddles gritted his teeth, and climbed upon the base of the switch–and nearly fainted as his ankle swung against the rod. A foot above the base was a footrest for a man to stand on and reach up for the lamp, and Toddles drew himself up and got his foot on it–and then at his full height the tips of his fingers only just touched the bottom of the lamp. Toddles cried aloud, and the tears streamed down his face now. Oh, if he weren’t hurt–if he could only shin up another foot–but–but it was all he could do to hang there where he was.

What was that! He turned his head. Up the track, sweeping in a great circle as it swung the curve, a headlight’s glare cut through the night–and Toddles “shinned” the foot. He tugged and tore at the lamp, tugged and tore at it, loosened it, lifted it from its socket, sprawled and wriggled with it to the ground–and turned the red side of the lamp against second Number Two.

The quick, short blasts of a whistle answered, then the crunch and grind and scream of biting brake-shoes–and the big mountain racer, the 1012, pulling the second section of the Limited that night, stopped with its pilot nosing a diminutive figure in a torn and silver-buttoned uniform, whose hair was clotted red, and whose face was covered with blood and dirt.

Masters, the engineer, and Pete Leroy, his fireman, swung from the gangways; Kelly, the conductor, came running up from the forward coach.

Kelly shoved his lamp into Toddles’ face–and whistled low under his breath.

“Toddles!” he gasped; and then, quick as a steel trap: “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know,” said Toddles weakly. “There’s–there’s something wrong. Get into the clear–on the siding.”

“Something wrong,” repeated Kelly, “and you don’t—-“

But Masters cut the conductor short with a grab at the other’s arm that was like the shutting of a vise–and then bolted for his engine like a gopher for its hole. From down the track came the heavy, grumbling roar of a freight. Everybody flew then, and there was quick work done in the next half minute–and none too quickly done–the Limited was no more than on the siding when the fast freight rolled her long string of flats, boxes and gondolas thundering by.

And while she passed, Toddles, on the platform, stammered out his story to Kelly.

Kelly didn’t say anything–then. With the express messenger and a brakeman carrying Toddles, Kelly kicked in the station door, and set his lamp down on the operator’s table.

“Hold me up,” whispered Toddles–and, while they held him, he made the dispatcher’s call.

Big Cloud answered him on the instant. Haltingly, Toddles reported the second section “in” and the freight “out”–only he did it very slowly, and he couldn’t think very much more, for things were going black. He got an order for the Limited to run to Blind River and told Kelly, and got the “complete”–and then Big Cloud asked who was on the wire, and Toddles answered that in a mechanical sort of a way without quite knowing what he was doing–and went limp in Kelly’s arms.

And as Toddles answered, back in Big Cloud, Regan, the sweat still standing out in great beads on his forehead, fierce now in the revulsion of relief, glared over Donkin’s left shoulder, as Donkin’s left hand scribbled on a pad what was coming over the wire.

Regan glared fiercely–then he spluttered:

“Who’s Christopher Hyslop Hoogan–h’m?”

Donkin’s lips had a queer smile on them.

“Toddles,” he said.

Regan sat down heavily in his chair.

“What?” demanded the super.

“Toddles,” said Donkin. “I’ve been trying to drum a little railroading into him–on the key.”

Regan wiped his face. He looked helplessly from Donkin to the super, and then back again at Donkin.

“But–but what’s he doing at Cassil’s Siding? How’d he get there–h’m? H’m? How’d he get there?”

“I don’t know,” said Donkin, his fingers rattling the Cassil’s Siding call again. “He doesn’t answer any more. We’ll have to wait for the story till they make Blind River, I guess.”

And so they waited. And presently at Blind River, Kelly, dictating to the operator–not Beale, Beale’s day man–told the story. It lost nothing in the telling–Kelly wasn’t that kind of man–he told them what Toddles had done, and he left nothing out; and he added that they had Toddles on a mattress in the baggage car, with a doctor they had discovered amongst the passengers looking after him.

At the end, Carleton tamped down the dottle in the bowl of his pipe thoughtfully with his forefinger–and glanced at Donkin.

“Got along far enough to take a station key somewhere?” he inquired casually. “He’s made a pretty good job of it as the night operator at Cassil’s.”

Donkin was smiling.

“Not yet,” he said.

“No?” Carleton’s eyebrows went up. “Well, let him come in here with you, then, till he has; and when you say he’s ready, we’ll see what we can do. I guess it’s coming to him; and I guess”–he shifted his glance to the master mechanic–“I guess we’ll go down and meet Number Two when she comes in, Tommy.”

Regan grinned.

“With our hats in our hands,” said the big-hearted master mechanic.

Donkin shook his head.

“Don’t you do it,” he said. “I don’t want him to get a swelled head.”

Carleton stared; and Regan’s hand, reaching into his back pocket for his chewing, stopped midway.

Donkin was still smiling.

“I’m going to make a railroad man out of Toddles,” he said.