nute, only her
red lamps gleamed up the yard. One man still on the platform watched
them recede; it was Bucks.

He came up to the dispatcher's office and sat down. Callahan wondered
why he didn't go home and to bed; but Callahan was too good a railroad
man to ask questions of a superior. Bucks might have stood on his head
on the stove, and it red-hot, without being pursued with inquiries from
Callahan. If Bucks chose to sit up out there on the frozen prairies, in
a flimsy barn of a station, and with the wind howling murder at twelve
o'clock past, and that on Chri--the twenty-fourth of December, it was
Bucks's own business.

"I kind of looked for my mother to-night," said he, after Callahan got
his orders out of the way for a minute. "Wrote she was coming out pretty
soon for a little visit."

"Where does your mother live?"

"Chicago. I sent her transportation two weeks ago. Reckon she thought
she'd better stay home for Christmas. Back in God's country they have
Christmas just about this time of year. Watch out to-night, Jim. I'm
going home. It's a wind for your life."

Callahan was making a meeting-point for two freights when the door
closed behind Bucks; he didn't even sing out "Good-night." And as for
Merry Chri--well, that had no place on the West End anyhow.

"D-i, D-i, D-i, D-i," came clicking into the room. Callahan wasn't
asleep. Once he did sleep over the key. When he told Bucks, he made sure
of his time; only he thought Bucks ought to know.

Bucks shook his head pretty hard that time. "It's awful business, Jim.
It's murder, you know. It's the penitentiary, if they should convict
you. But it's worse than that. If anything happened because you went to
sleep over the key, you'd have them on your mind all your life, don't
you know--forever. Men--and--and children. That's what I always think
about--the children. Maimed and scalded and burned. Jim, if it ever
happens again, quit dispatching; get into commercial work; mistakes
don't cost life there; don't try to handle trains. If it ever happens
with you, you'll kill yourself."

That was all he said; it was enough. And no wonder Callahan loved him.

The wind tore frantically around the station; but everything else was so
still. It was one o'clock now, and not a soul about but Callahan. D-i,
D-i, J, clicked sharp and fast. "Twelve or fourteen cars passed
here--just--now east--running a-a-a-" Callahan sprang up like a
flash--listened. What? R-u-n-n-i-n-g a-w-a