Joe would relieve him before the final orders came,
before either train was in the section.

Tolliver clenched his hands. If Joe didn't come!

He shrank from the force of his imagination.

He was glad Sally had the revolver.

He glanced at his watch, half believing that the clock had stopped.

There at last it was, both hands pointing straight up--midnight! And
Tolliver heard only the storm and the unbearable strokes of the
telegraph sounder. It was fairly definite now. Both trains were roaring
through the storm, destined almost certainly to slip by each other at
this siding within the next hour.

Where was Joe? And Sally and the boy alone at the house!

Quarter past twelve.

What vast interest could have made Joe forget his relief at the probable
loss of his job?

Tolliver glanced from the rear window towards his home, smothered in the
night and the storm. If he might only run there quickly to make sure
that Sally was all right!

The sounder jarred furiously. Tolliver half raised his hand, as if to
destroy it.

It was the division superintendent himself at the key.

"NT. NT. NT. Is it storming bad with you?"

"Pretty thick."

"Then keep the fuses burning. For God's sake, don't let the first in
over-run his switch. And clear the line like lightning. Those fellows
are driving faster than hell."

Tolliver's mouth opened, but no sound came. His face assumed the
expression of one who undergoes the application of some destructive
barbarity.

"I get afraid when you leave me alone this way at night."

He visualized his wife, beautiful, dark, and desirable, urging him not
to go to the tower.

A gust of wind sprang through the trap door. The yellow slips fluttered.
He ran to the trap. He heard the lower door bang shut. Someone was on
the stairs, climbing with difficulty, breathing hard. A hat, crusted
with snow, appeared. There came slowly into the light Joe's face, ugly
and inflamed; the eyes restless with a grave indecision.

Tolliver's first elation died in new uncertainty.

"Where you been?" he demanded fiercely.

Joe struggled higher until he sat on the flooring, his legs dangling
through the trap. He laughed in an ugly and unnatural note; and Tolliver
saw that there was more than drink, more than sleeplessness, recorded in
his scarlet face. Hatred was there. It escaped, too, from the streaked
eyes that looked at Tolliver as if through a veil. He spoke thickly.

"Don't you wish you knew?"

Tol