seemed to snap. He had reached
the station platform, wondering vaguely why the little building that
loomed ahead was dark--and now it came to him in a flash, as he
recognized the station. It was Cassil's Siding--_and there was no night
man at Cassil's Siding!_ The switch lights were lighted before the day
man left, of course. Everything swam before Toddles' eyes. There--there
was no help here. And yet--yet perhaps--desperate hope came
again--perhaps there might be. The pain was terrible--all over him.
And--and he'd got so weak now--but it wasn't far to the door.

Toddles squirmed along the platform, and reached the door finally--only
to find it shut and fastened. And then Toddles fainted on the threshold.

When Toddles came to himself again, he thought at first that he was up
in the dispatcher's room at Big Cloud with Bob Donkin pounding away on
the battered old key they used to practice with--only there seemed to be
something the matter with the key, and it didn't sound as loud as it
usually did--it seemed to come from a long way off somehow. And then,
besides, Bob was working it faster than he had ever done before when
they were practicing. "Hold second"--second something--Toddles couldn't
make it out. Then the "seventeen"--yes, he knew that--that was the life
and death. Bob was going pretty quick, though. Then "CS--CS--CS"--Toddles'
brain fumbled a bit over that--then it came to him. CS was the call for
Cassil's Siding. _Cassil's Siding!_ Toddles' head came up with a jerk.

A little cry burst from Toddles' lips--and his brain cleared. He wasn't
at Big Cloud at all--he was at Cassil's Siding--and he was hurt--and
that was the sounder inside calling, calling frantically for Cassil's
Siding--where he was.

The life and death--_the seventeen_--it sent a thrill through Toddles'
pain-twisted spine. He wriggled to the window. It, too, was closed, of
course, but he could hear better there. The sounder was babbling madly.

"Hold second----"

He missed it again--and as, on top of it, the "seventeen" came pleading,
frantic, urgent, he wrung his hands.

"Hold second"--he got it this time--"Number Two."

Toddles' first impulse was to smash in the window and reach the key. And
then, like a dash of cold water over him, Donkin's words seemed to ring
in his ears: "Use your head."

With the "seventeen" it meant a matter of minutes, perhaps even seconds.
Why smash the window? Why waste the moment required to do it simply to