pad what was coming over the wire.

Regan glared fiercely--then he spluttered:

"Who in hell's Christopher Hyslop Hoogan--h'm?"

Donkin's lips had a queer smile on them.

"Toddles," he said.

Regan sat down heavily in his chair.

"_What?_" demanded the super.

"Toddles," said Donkin. "I've been trying to drum a little railroading
into him--on the key."

Regan wiped his face. He 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 a 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.

II

OWSLEY AND THE 1601

His name was Owsley--Jake Owsley--and he was a railroad man before ever
he came to Big Cloud and the Hill Division--before ever the Hill
Division was even advanced to the blue-print stage, before steel had
ever spider-webbed the stubborn Rockies, before