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Donkin’s lips were set in a thin, straight line. The Gap answered him; and the answer was like the knell of doom. He had not expected anything else; he had only hoped against hope. The second section of the Limited had pulled out of the Gap, eastbound, two minutes before. The two trains were in the open against each other’s orders.

In the next room, Carleton and Regan, over their pipes, were at their nightly game of pedro. Donkin called them–and his voice sounded strange to himself. Chairs scraped and crashed to the floor, and an instant later the super and the master mechanic were in the room.

“What’s wrong, Bob?” Carleton flung the words from him in a single breath.

Donkin told them. But his fingers were on the key again as he talked. There was still one chance, worse than the thousand-to-one shot; but it was the only one. Between the Gap and Blind River, eight miles from the Gap, seven miles from Blind River, was Cassil’s Siding. But there was no night man at Cassil’s, and the little town lay a mile from the station. It was ten o’clock–Donkin’s watch lay face up on the table before him–the day man at Cassil’s went off at seven–the chance was that the day man might have come back to the station for something or other!

Not much of a chance? No–not much! It was a possibility, that was all; and Donkin’s fingers worked–the seventeen, the life and death–calling, calling on the night trick to the day man at Cassil’s Siding.

Carleton came and stood at Donkin’s elbow, and Regan stood at the other; and there was silence now, save only for the key that, under Donkin’s fingers, seemed to echo its stammering appeal about the room like the sobbing of a human soul.

“CS–CS–CS,” Donkin called; and then, “the seventeen,” and then, “hold second Number Two.” And then the same thing over and over again.

And there was no answer.

It had turned cold that night and there was a fire in the little heater. Donkin had opened the draft a little while before, and the sheet-iron sides now began to purr red-hot. Nobody noticed it. Regan’s kindly, good-humored face had the stamp of horror in it, and he pulled at his scraggly brown mustache, his eyes seemingly fascinated by Donkin’s fingers. Everybody’s eyes, the three of them, were on Donkin’s fingers and the key. Carleton was like a man of stone, motionless, his face set harder than face was ever carved in marble.

It grew hot in the room; but Donkin’s fingers were like ice on the key, and, strong man though he was, he faltered.

“Oh, my God!” he whispered–and never a prayer rose more fervently from lips than those three broken words.

Again he called, and again, and again. The minutes slipped away. Still he called–with the life and death–the “seventeen”–called and called. And there was no answer save that echo in the room that brought the perspiration streaming down from Regan’s face, a harder light into Carleton’s eyes and a chill like death into Donkin’s heart.

Suddenly Donkin pushed back his chair; and his fingers, from the key, touched the crystal of his watch.

“The second section will have passed Cassil’s now,” he said in a curious, unnatural, matter-of-fact tone. “It’ll bring them together about a mile east of there–in another minute.”

And then Carleton spoke–master railroader, “Royal” Carleton, it was up to him then, all the pity of it, the ruin, the disaster, the lives out, all the bitterness to cope with as he could. And it was in his eyes, all of it. But his voice was quiet. It rang quick, peremptory, his voice–but quiet.

“Clear the line, Bob,” he said. “Plug in the round-house for the wrecker–and tell them to send uptown for the crew.”

Toddles? What did Toddles have to do with this? Well, a good deal, in one way and another. We’re coming to Toddles now. You see, Toddles, since his fracas with Hawkeye, had been put on the Elk River local run that left Big Cloud at 9.45 in the morning for the run west, and scheduled Big Cloud again on the return trip at 10.10 in the evening.