The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-07-08
GOO ooC-
Western. . . l.
Copyright. 1910. By Charles Scribner's Sons

"Why didn't we:" asked the super intendent, taking the time card from its pigeonhole and glancing at train 204's schedule.
 "She was late out of Red Butte; broke something and had to stop and tie it up; lost half hour maxim her getaway"
 'Then we reach Little Butte before 2O4 gets there. Is that it?''
 That's about the way the night dis patcher has it ciphered out. He gave the Timanyoni plug operator hot stuff for holdin' us up."'
 Lidgerwood shook his head. The artless simplicity of Red Butte West ern methods, or unmethods, was dying hard-inexcusably hard.
 "Does the night dispatcher happen to know just where 204 is at this pres ent moment?' he inquired, with gentle irony.
 Bradford laughed.
 'T'd be willing to bet piebald pinto against a no account yaller dog that he don't But T reckon he won't be likely to let her get past Little Butte, comin' this way. when he has let us get by Timanyoni goin' t'other way"
 .sThat's all right, Andy, but you'd better feel your way-pretty carefully too. From Point of Rocks you can see we'll down toward Little Butte. Tell Williams to watch for 2p4's head light and if he sees it to.take the sid Ing at Silver Switch. the old Wire Sil- yer spur"
 Bradford nodded and when Lidger- wood reimmersed himself in his pa- pers went forward to share Williams watch in the cab of the 266. .e
 Twenty minutes farther on the train slowed again. made a momentary stop and began to screech and grind heav- fly around sharp curve. Lidgerwood looked out of the window at his right. The moon had gone behind huge hill, lantern was pricking point in the shadows some little distance from the track, and the tumultuous river was no longer sweeping parallel with !, the embankment. He shut his desk and went to the rear platform, project, ing himself into the group of sight seers just as the train stopped for the second time
 'sWhere are we now" asked Miss Brewster, looking up at the dark mass of the hill whose forested ramparts loomed black in the near foreground.
 'At Silver Switch replied Lidger- wood, and when the bobbing lantern came nearer he called to the bearer of it, What is it, Bradford?"
 'eThe passenger, I reckon" was the answer. "Williams thought he saw it as we came around Point of Rocks, and he was afraid the dispatcher had got balled up some and let lem get past Little Butte without a meet or der"
 For a moment the group on the railed platform was silent, and in the little interval a low, humming sound made itself felt rather than heard, a shuddering murmur. coming from all points of the compass at once, as it seemed, and filling the still night air with its vibrations.
 williams was rightv' rejoined the bupcIlutcHucHI Sudi Py. ouc SolA ingy' And even as he spoke the white glare of an electric headlight burst into full view on the shelflike cutting along the northern face of the great hill, pricking out the smallest details of the waiting special, the closed switch and the gleaming lines of the rails.
 With this powerful spot light to project its cone of dazzling brilliance upon the scene, the watchers on the railed platform of the superintendent's $ service car saw every detail in the