e." Hudson walked over to the telegraph instrument by the window
and threw his switch. "There's a girl at Beaver Dam calls me about
this time every evening. Things are slack, you know. They send her in
a hot supper from the restaurant there, and she calls every evening and
tells me what she had and how good it was, so that I'll be jealous.
I'll have something to surprise her with tonight though--Hullo! There
she is now!"

Both boys knew the Morse code, from their signal work with the Boy
Scouts, and Jack, indeed, had experimented a little with wireless, so
that he could read the code of dots and dashes, if it was not sent too
fast.

"H-K--H-K--H-K--" he heard now, and, in a minute more, he was trying to
interpret the swift interchange of chaffing messages between the two
operators.

"That's the only break in the loneliness," said Hudson, "unless someone
comes in for a visit the way you have. I wish there were more of
them--except for those tramps back there in the woods. They hang
around a lot, and they get my goat!"

"In the big house in the woods there, you mean?" asked Jack. "The one
they say is haunted?"

Hudson laughed.

"That's the one. They say it's haunted, but it's Willies and Tired
Toms that haunt it, believe me! They come over here and look up the
place, and they'd have stolen everything in it long ago if there'd been
anything to steal. They let me alone because they're pretty sure I
haven't got any money, and they know I've got a gun, too."

CHAPTER VI

THE ATTACK ON THE STATION

"What time does the Thunderbolt go through?" asked Jack.

"Eight thirty-four she's due, but she's sometimes a few minutes late.
Then, at eight forty-two there's the second section of the Thunderbolt,
when there's one running--and there is to-night, and your train for
town gets in here at eight fifty-seven."

"What's the next station below this?"

"Conway. That's about eleven miles down the line, and away from the
city. 'Tisn't much more of a station than this. Just an operator who
doubles up on all the other jobs same way I do."

"I've got to go wash dishes and make up our packs," said Jack. "It's
eight o'clock now, and that doesn't leave so very much more time than
we need. I've got to put out the fire, too."

He went off with the dishes on which they had eaten their simple but
delicious supper, and left Hank Hudson to talk to Tom Binns and watch
his key, which might at any moment click out