ver to the Gap, unfolded itself like a grisly
panorama before his mind. There wasn't a half mile of tangent at a
single stretch in the whole of it. It swung like the writhings of a
snake, through cuts and tunnels, hugging the canyon walls, twisting this
way and that. Anywhere else there might be a chance, one in a thousand
even, that they would see each other's headlights in time--here it was
disaster quick and absolute.

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