Page:Frank Packard - On the Iron at Big Cloud.djvu/78

 Big Cloud. Coyote Bend is the first station west of here, you understand? There's nothing between. She was due at Coyote at 4.05, and I want you to remember this—I said it before, but I want to repeat it. I want you to get it hard—she had run to the second all through the night.

My watch was open on the table before me, and I watched the minute hand creep round the dial. 4.03, 4.04, 4.05, 4.06, 4.07, 4.08. I was alone in the office. The night caller had gone out perhaps ten minutes before to call the train crew of the five o'clock local. There wasn't anything to be nervous about. I don't put it down to that. Three minutes wasn't anything. Perhaps it was just impatience, fretfulness. You know how it is when you're waiting for something to happen, and I was expecting the sounder to break every second with that report from Coyote Bend. Anyway, put it down to what you like, though I didn't want a drink particularly I pushed back my chair, got up, and walked over to the water cooler. The dispatcher's table was on the east side of the room, the door opened on the south side, and the water cooler was over in the opposite corner. I'm explaining this so that you'll understand that the door was between the water cooler and the table. That old shack was rough and ready, and I've wondered more than once what ever kept it from falling to pieces. It didn't take more than a breath of wind to set every window-sash in the outfit rattling like a corps of snare drums. That's why, I guess, I didn't hear any one coming up the stairs. It was blowing pretty hard that