n the dead run. He knew, too, by the tremendous sweep of
his legs that it was Ole Anderson, the night foreman, the man of all
others he wanted.

"Ole," cried the dispatcher, waving his arms frantically as the giant
Swede leaped across the track and looked up from the platform below, "go
get Bucks. I've got a runaway train going against 59. For your life,
Ole, run!"

The big fellow was into the wind with the word. Bucks boarded four
blocks away. Callahan, slamming down the window, took the key, and began
calling Rowe. Rowe is the first station east of Jackson; it was now the
first point at which the runaway coal-train could be headed.

"R-o R-o," he rattled. The operator must have been sitting on the wire,
for he answered at once. As fast as Callahan's fingers could talk, he
told Rowe the story and gave him orders to get the night agent, who, he
knew, must be down to sell tickets for 59, and pile all the ties they
could gather across the track to derail the runaway train. Then he
began thumping for Kolar, the next station east of Rowe, and the second
ahead of the runaways. He pounded and he pounded, and when the man at
Kolar answered, Callahan could have sworn he had been asleep--just from
the way he talked. Does it seem strange? There are many strange things
about a dispatcher's senses. "Send your night man to west switch
house-track, and open for runaway train. Set brakes hard on your empties
on siding, to spill runaways if possible. Do anything and everything to
keep them from getting by you. Work quick."

Behind Kolar's O.K. came a frantic call from Rowe. "Runaways passed here
like a streak. Knocked the ties into toothpicks. Couldn't head them."

Callahan didn't wait to hear any more. He only wiped the sweat from his
face. It seemed forever before Kolar spoke again. Then it was only to
say: "Runaways went by here before night man could get to switch and
open it."

Would Bucks never come? And if he did come, what on earth could stop the
runaway train now? They were heading into the worst grade on the West
End. It averages one per cent. from Kolar to Griffin, and there we get
down off the Cheyenne Hills with a long reverse curve, and drop into the
canon of the Blackwood with a three per cent. grade. Callahan, almost
beside himself, threw open a north window to look for Bucks. Two men
were flying down Main Street towards the station. He knew them; it was
Ole and Bucks.

But Bucks! Never before or since was seen