Page:Frank Packard - On the Iron at Big Cloud.djvu/48

 the unknown. He was wakened early the next morning by his father's voice talking excitedly over the special wire with headquarters about the Gap and a wreck. He sat bolt upright, and listened with all his might; then he crawled noiselessly out of bed, and began to dress hastily. He heard his father speaking to his mother, and presently the front door banged. Bunty was dressed by that time and he crept downstairs and opened the door softly.

It was just turning daylight as he started on a run for the yard. It was not far to the office,—a hundred yards or so,—and Bunty reached there in record time. Across the tracks by the roundhouse they were coupling on to the wrecker; and answering hasty summons, men, running from all directions, were quickly gathering.

Bunty hesitated a minute on the platform, then he entered the station and tiptoed softly up the stairs. The office door was open, and from the top stair Bunty could see into the room. The night lamp was still burning on the dispatcher's desk, and Spence was sitting there, working with frantic haste to clear the line. In the center of the room, the super, his father, and Flannagan, the wrecking boss, were standing.

"It's a freight smash," Carleton was saying to Flannagan—"east edge of the Gap. You'll have rights through, and no limit on your permit. Tell Emmons if he doesn't make it in better than ninety minutes he'll talk to me afterward. By the time you get there, Number Two will be crawling up the grade. She's pulling the Old Man's car, and that means get