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Updated: May 21, 2025
He found M'Tosh sitting at Donohue's elbow, and the sounders on the glass-topped table were crackling like overladen wires in an electric storm. "Strike talk," said the train-master. "Every man on both divisions wants to know what's doing. Got your newspaper string tied up all right?" Kent made a sign of assent. "We are waiting for Mr. Patrick Callahan. Any news from him?" "Plenty of it.
"Now fwhat the divvle will that be?" he rasped, pausing, torch in hand, to apostrophize his fireman. The answer came up out of the shadows to the rear on the lips of M'Tosh, the train-master. "You have the Naught-seven to-night, Callahan, and a pretty severe head wind. Can you make your time?"
When Major Guilford left it to come back for a word with M'Tosh, there were five others: the governor, his private secretary, Hawk, Halkett, the general superintendent, and the Overland's vice-president. "All ready, M'Tosh?" said the receiver. "Ready and waiting, Major," was the bland reply. "Who is our engineer?" "Patrick Callahan." "That wild Irishman?
"And they give us the major in the place of such a man as that!" with a jerk of his thumb toward the door of the bedroom. "Come off!" warned M'Tosh; "he'll hear you." And when Loring came back with the cigars there was dry humor in his eye. "You mustn't let your loyalty to the old guard get you into trouble with the receiver," he cautioned; and they both smiled.
"Ye'll ride this night where Patsy Callahan dhrives, an' be dommed to ye." Meanwhile the train-master had reached the iron grille at the other end of the long track platform. At a small wicket used by the station employees and trainmen, Kent was waiting for him. "Is it all right, M'Tosh? Will he do it?" he asked anxiously. "Yes, Patsy's game for it; I knew he would be.
"Five minutes more; and they are on the way down there they come." Kent looked and saw a group of six men making for the nearest exit in the grille. Then he smote his fist into his palm. "Damn!" he muttered; "they've got the vice-president of the Overland with them! That's bad." "It's bad for Mr. Callafield," growled M'Tosh. "We're in too deep now to back down on his account."
But now he threw down his pen and clicked his key to cut in with the "G.S.," which claims the wire instantly. Then distinctly, and a word at a time so that the slowest operator on the line could get it, he spelled out the message: "All Agents: Stop and hold all trains except first and second fast mail, west-bound. M'Tosh fired, and office in hands of police "
Loring?" asked M'Tosh, when Loring had shaken hands with them, not as subordinates. "Surely. My time is not very valuable, just at present. Come in, and I'll see if Mr. Kent has left me any cigars." "Humph!" said Durgan, when the ex-manager had gone into Kent's room to rummage for the smoke offering.
Scott acted as spokesman, stating the case with admirable brevity and conciseness, and asking the same question as that propounded by the train-master, to wit, if there were any prospect of a return of the road to its former management. Loring spoke more hopefully to the committee than he had to Durgan and M'Tosh.
We have the entire political ring to fight, and the odds are overwhelming." "You say you've been trying legal means'," M'Tosh put in. "Can't we down them some other way? I believe you could safely count on the help of every man in the service, barring the politicals." Loring smiled. "I don't say we should scruple to use force if there were any way to apply it. But the way doesn't offer."
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