Page:Ralph on the Railroad.djvu/468

170 When Bortree produced the bottle and told that it was a mild, pleasant wine the doctor had prescribed for him, Bryson indulged in a glass—"for companionship's sake." Then he remembered nothing further until awakened by the master mechanic and Jack Knight.

As soon as Bortree had disposed of his companion, he began his mad, riotous work.

All kinds of exaggerated ideas must have filled his mind. The reader has already seen how his crazy orders operated. His own work at the limits had ditched the midnight mail. His instructions to Ralph had sent the through freight crashing into the three freight empties at terminus.

Finally, exhausted after his mad work at the levers, Bortree had commenced a work of general destruction. When through, he had extinguished the lights and lapsed into a weak delirium in which the two railroad men had finally found him.

"There should always be a team at the limits tower," was Knight's ultimate comment on the affair.

"Yes," the master mechanic assented—"sickness, enmity, a burned-out wire, a dozen things might come up where one man would be helpless. If it is only a messenger, we must not again leave