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Updated: May 19, 2025
As he emerged from the telegraph-car door he found the Indian, Little Hawk, on the adjoining steps of the store-car. "Good morning, Mr. Little Hawk," he said. "Sunning yourself?" "I wait for you. I hear noise knock," the Indian said. "Knock, like little tick-knock in car," he added as Jack regarded him, mystified. "Tick-knock? What do you mean?" "On fence," said the Indian stolidly. "Hearum twice.
It was every bit as good as camping out, he had declared over the wire to Jack having for an office a table at one end of the old freight-car, sleeping in a shelf-like bunk at the other end, and eating in the rough-and-ready diner with the inspectors, foremen, time-keepers and clerks who shared the telegraph-car with him.
"Only a hobo," Alex decided on second thought. For numbers of tramps had come through on the material-trains. And presently Alex returned to the telegraph-car. Shortly after midnight the young operator was awakened by someone running through the car and shouting for Construction Superintendent Finnan. When he caught the word "Fire!" he scrambled into his clothes and leaped to the floor, and out.
As fast as the others arrived the riot of merriment increased; and when presently the superintendent moved on toward the train, the crestfallen clerk still at his stirrup, they were the center of a hilariously howling mob. The final blow came when Elder entered the telegraph-car. Carefully laid out in his bunk were the garments he had surrendered to the "tramp."
As they reached the telegraph-car, Superintendent Finnan appeared, and having cordially shaken hands with Jack and Wilson, turned to Alex. "Ward," he said, "I have just decided to send you on to the Antelope viaduct. A courier has brought word from Norton, the engineer in charge, that trouble appears to be brewing amongst his Italian laborers, and I would like to get in direct touch with him.
This Saturday night Alex and Jack, borrowing Winchesters from other members of the telegraph-car party, had set out for a "couple of good rugs," as they put it, and on leaving the train had headed east, toward the aqueduct, in which direction they had heard barks of the midnight prowlers.
And here, the first of the construction operators sent forward, Alex had been two days established in the "telegraph-car." As he had anticipated, Alex was enjoying the experience hugely.
"You go on in to breakfast, Ward," he directed. "And say nothing of our suspicions or discoveries." "Very well, sir." The members of the telegraph-car party were leaving for the diner as Alex appeared. "Hello, Ward! Catch the early worm?" inquired one of the track-foremen jocularly. "You mean, 'did he shoot it?" corrected a time-clerk.
And on the details of the affair quickly spreading, the three boys were literally swept from their feet by the enthusiastic foreigners, hoisted into the air, and carried to the telegraph-car to a continuous roar of "hurrahs" and "bravos." The following Wednesday a special train, to which was attached Division Superintendent Cameron's private car, drew up at the rear of the boarding-train.
At this there was a general laugh, and glancing about for an explanation, Alex saw Elder, Superintendent Finnan's personal clerk and aide de camp, hastily remove a cartridge-belt and revolver from his waist and toss them into his bunk. Elder was the one unpopular man in the telegraph-car.
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