Page:Cy Warman--The express messenger and other tales of the rail.djvu/216

204 life to have saved those poor fellows on the engines; and the new President? Was he killed? Ah! Dan, why don't you tell me the truth?" and the miserable man held out his hand beseechingly.

"I have told the whole truth," said Creamer; "there was no collision." But Goodlough shook his head, his eyes filled with tears, and he turned his pale pinched face to the wall.

The superintendent, whose "long suit," as the road-master expressed it, was "hoss sense," had maintained all along that the transmission of the "mysterious message" was still a mystery. Those occult scientists might sit up nights and work out answers satisfactory to themselves, declared the superintendent, but they would never go at his end of the line. He was not a highly educated man, save in what pertained to the handling of men and machines, trains and traffic. He strove to do the best he could for the company without injuring the community in which he lived. He was popular, and so the new manager kept him. "There must be another solution of this 'mysterious