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.

FOOTNOTE:

[10] One of a number of stories from book bearing same title, _The Night
Operator_. Copyright, 1919, by George H. Doran Company. Reprinted by
special permission of publisher and author.

[Illustration]

XI.--Christmas Eve in a Lumber Camp[11]

_By Ralph Connor_

IT was due to a mysterious dispensation of Providence and a good deal to
Leslie Graeme that I found myself in the heart of the Selkirks for my
Christmas eve as the year 1882 was dying. It had been my plan to spend
my Christmas far away in Toronto, with such bohemian and boon companions
as could be found in that cosmopolitan and kindly city. But Leslie
Graeme changed all that, for, discovering me