"Where does it meet the passenger?" he demanded.
"You can search me," replied the Little Butte agent, who was not of
those who go out of their way to borrow trouble. Then, suddenly: "Hold
the 'phone a minute; the despatcher's calling me, right now."
There was a third trying interval of waiting for the man in the darkened
room at the Wire-Silver head-quarters; an interval shot through with
pricklings of feverish impatience, mingled with a lively sense of the
risk he was running; and then Goodloe called again.
"Trouble," he said shortly. "Angels didn't know that Cranford had made
up so much time. Now he tries to give me an order to hold the
passenger--after it's gone by. So long. I'm going to take a lantern and
mog along up the track to see where they come together."
Judson hung up the receiver, reset the wire switch to leave it as he had
found it, climbed out through the open window and replaced the sash; all
this methodically, as one who sets the death chamber in order after the
sheet has been drawn over the face of the corpse.
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