ried a coil of rope in his hand. which he began to unwind as he came in.

When Jack partially recovered from his surprise and saw their purpose he made a vain attempt at resistance, but he was soon overpowered and bound hand and foot and placed on the floor. One man was then told to guard him and to operate the signal levers when the Special arrived and let it by. The other two took their departure.

It was all very plain to Jack now. These men had placed the rocks upon the track.

They knew of the Special's coming and of the gold and silver it would carry. If the rocks were not discovered, the Special would be wrecked, and in the confusion they could easily make away with as much of the treasure as they could carry. But, to make sure of wrecking the train, it was necessary to know that when the train called for signals at Holders a safety signal would be shown so that it could proceed to the obstruction; that's why Jack was made a prisoner and a man left behind to operate the signal levers. Jack swore and tugged at the ropes that bound him, but all to no avail. Escape was impossible.

He was helpless. The block telephone rang. The man on guard answered it, and after a moment of listening said, "All right," and Jack knew the Special had been blocked and given a clear board from Ulda, four miles south, and that in five short minutes, if nothing happened to stop the train or warn the engineer of the danger ahead, it would be by Holders and beyond all chance of being saved.

The man walked over to the table which Jack had copied a few minutes before. He read it over, chuckling to himself; then, smiling maliciously at Jack said: "Well, Sonny, I guess we won't stop her just in order to deliver this little note, will we? You know these trains always hate to be stopped at these little jerkwaters late at night anyway. especially a night like this is, 'cause it takes a lot of sand to get start

ed again, to say nothing of the way the fire boy has to heave coal for the next five minutes; so, just to keep on the good side of the train crew, we'll give 'er a clear board and let 'er roll, eh?" He laughed as if he thought the joke immense, and then throwing the message into the fire, he sat down on chair with his gun in one hand and other hand resting carelessly on the fatal lev. ers that were so soon to be the means of bringing so many lives to a terrible end.

a

Three minutes passed and nothing occurred to inspire Jack with any hope. He shuddered to think how void of conscience these men must be to employ such desperate means to attain their ends. Another minute dragged slowly by, and then, sounding faintly above the noise of the raging storm and the clicking of the instruments, Jack and the ruffian on guard heard a long drawn-out musical sound, as the sound of the Special's whistle was wafted to them on the wind.

It cut into Jack's heart like a sharp knife blade, but he only bit his lip and held his peace. A moment later four distinct blasts of the whistle were heard as the engineer called for signals at Holders. Jack's heart beat a tattoo, against the walls of his chest and then seemed to choke him as he saw the man rise slowly from his seat, saw him grasp the iron lever and pull it to a safety position, and heard the two sharp, clear sounds of the engine's whistle in answer to the signal shown; then came a deafening roar, a trembling and quivering of the little office, a long streak of white light from the coach windows followed by three red, twinkling taillights on the rear, and the fast Denver train with its human freight was by the office and speeding toward destruction.

Jack felt in his heart that there was no hope left. He felt a sick, dizzy sensation and a cold perspiration breaking out all over his body; he wanted to cry out, but his tongue seemed paralyzed and he could only groan. The man bent down and laughed a cold, menacing,

exultant laugh in his face and then turned to go.

a

Jack felt himself sinking down into a dark, bottomless, suffocating place, he knew not where. He had dull, throbbing pain in his head, and his mind was all confused. He listened with tense nerves and strained ears for the deafening crash which he knew must come when the train would strike the rocks and be dashed to atoms, and in the midst of it all he could see, ever and anon, three silent hurrying figures, moving hither and thither, as the three men deftly went about the work of removing what they could of the treasure and robbing the helpless passengers here and there.

He even fancied in a vague, uncertain way that he could hear the shrieks and groans of the injured, some of whom were pinned fast to the ground by heavy timbers, some with broken and mangled limbs, and others being slowly consumed by the flames resulting after the wreck.

His attention was particularly attracted by a young and handsome woman who was making a vain attempt to extricate herself from a heap of burning debris, and whose pitiful pleadings for help pained Jack so that he pulled and tugged at his thongs until it seemed that every vein in his body must burst under the terrible strain. He saw one of the men walk toward her with that same evil leer he had seen before, saw her raise her hands to him pleadingly, saw him grasp the slim white arm roughly and wrest a jeweled bracelet from it; and then Jack's thoughts abruptly brought to an end by a clear, silvery ringing sensation in his ear. the same time the entire vision before him faded away into a smoky gloom.

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At

He awoke with a start and rubbed his eyes. The light of the office lamp hurt his eyes and his limbs felt stiff and numb from sitting in a cramped position.

Outside the storm still raged in unabated fury; the snow still sifted steadily downward and drifted back and

The telephone bell was ringing furiously, and when he answered it the operator at Ulda blocked the Special to him and asked: "What's the matter, Jack; been in the hay? Had to ring you three times."

"Yes, a little bit," he admitted. "And mightly glad I was, too," he admitted to himself.

He glanced at his clock.

It was just five minutes after four.
He had slept thirty minutes.

On his block sheet he recorded the time, and then, while awaiting the arrival of the train, he reviewed the events of his peculiar, unpleasant dream once more. He could hardly think of it even now without a shudder, and it was with some difficulty that he finally convinced himself that the whole thing had really been only a dream and that everything was still all right.

"Well," he told himself, as he reluctantly got up and started out into the storm after the much-needed bucket of coal, "that's what comes of disregarding the rules, and from now on I know of one operator at least who will do his sleeping before he comes to the office." By Wm. K.-(Illinois Central Magazine.)

Vail, following Morse's plans, constructed the instrument, which was made at the Speedwell Iron Works, near Morristown, N. J.

The work was conducted with great secrecy. William Baxter, who was an employe at the works, rendered valuable assistance. Morse had devised a series of ten numbered leaden types, which were to be operated in giving the signals, but which necesitated the use of a dictionary by which the numbers could be translated into words. This was not satisfactory to Vail, and he constructed an entirely new instrument involving a lever or "point" on a radically different principle, which, when tested, produced dots and dashes.

Vail found that the letter "e" was the most frequently used, and he accordingly assigned it the shorter symbol, a single dot. He visited a printing office, and from the problem, as worked out in the compositor's case, devised the famous dot-and-dash alphabet, misnamed the "Morse." At last the machine was in working order, and Baxter, on the 6th of January, hatless and coatless, announced the good news that the machine was completed. An experiment was made with a coil of wire three miles long. Vail was at one end of the wire and Morse was at the other. Vail's father, who was skeptical as to the possibility of such an instrument, wrote on a piece of paper, "A patient waiter is no loser," and said, "If you can send this, and Mr. Morse can read it at the other end, I shall be convinced." It was accomplished, and the father's delight knew no bounds. The machine was taken to Washington, and caused not only wonder, but excitement.

The first telegraph line was constructed between Washington and Baltimore, and the first instrument used is now in the custody of the National Museum at Washington. May 24, 1844, the official test was made. In charge of the Baltimore end of the wire was Alfred Vail, Morse's partner, while at the other instrument, in the chamber af the United States Supreme Court at Washington, sat the inventor himself.

Written in the Morse alphabet, the four words, "What hath God wrought!" were transmitted to Baltimore, and a moment later was flashed back by Mr. Vail. It was the first message to be recorded on a complete line of telegraph, and with it the triumph of the inventor was complete.

T

QUICK WIT.

IM HORTON, telegraph operator, stuck his head far out of the office window in the little four-cornered depot at Thurlow. The night was dark and forbidding, and the rain fell in torrents. Only the unusually side projection of the eaves on this side of the building saved his head and shoulders from a good wetting.

"Express pretty late," he muttered as he withdrew his head. "Bad night for fast trains and rotten bridges." Then he turned and sat down at the table, and in a moment was deeply occupied with some monthly reports of the express company.

On into the night he worked. Sometimes his pen would not stop its steady swing across the paper for half an hour, unless it was to change to a fresh sheet of paper. Presently Horton glanced up at the clock.

"Phew!" he exclaimed, "two hours late," and he leaned back in his chair, pen in hand.

"Th-Th-Th."

The little instrument that had been silent for the last five minutes had begun vigorously to pound the call for Thurlow.

As Horton was half through the message he heard the distant whistle of the belated express sound faintly above the roar of the storm. The message ran thus:

"Stop express. Bridge No. 437 washed away."

As Horton translated the final "y," and put it on paper, he heard, once again, the long whistle of the oncoming express. This time the train was only five miles away.

Grabbing up a lighted lantern and a bunch of keys, Horton ran out of the

door into the howling wind and downpour of rain. The lantern did not burn a moment in the gale that raged outside, but the agent ran on in the dark toward where he knew the semaphore ought to be standing. He looked up to see if the lights were all right. It was not there.

Then Jim stumbled over something. He examined it closely, and found it to be the semaphore which the terrific storm had blown down. Its warning lights of white and red lay buried in the mud fifteen feet from the track.

Hurrying back into the depot, Horton heard the whistle of the train blowing for the crossing three miles off. This as good as told him that no time must be lost.

For a moment a puzzled frown appeared between the man's eyes as he tried to think of some way to save the lives of that load of human freight rushing on to certain death. It vanished almost as soon as it had appeared.

Reaching into his pocket, the agent withdrew a dangerous looking blue-steel revolver. Then picking up his pencil he laid the gun on the table. Taking up the telegram he began to roll it tightly around the pencil. When he had he wedged the telegram and pencil into the muzzle of the pistol, and ran out of the depot just in time to throw the gun with all his might-and might was enough to send it crashing through the glass door of the baggage coach as the train roared by.

The baggage master on the southbound express placed the last trunk to be handled at Kingston, a town of considerable importance six miles from Thurlow, and just across the river from the latter. As he turned there was a ring of broken glass, and on the floor at his feet a revolver lay spinning out the force that had sent it crashing through the door of the baggage car.

Phil. Harding, baggage master, looked at the door then at the gun. After soliloquizing a moment he picked up the latter and found a telegram wedged in the muzzle. Reading the telegram was but the work of a moment, but as Phil finished reading them the whistle was blowing again. This time it was the

baggage master who paid heed to it.

"One mile from Thurlow and that means five miles to bridge," he soliloquized.

He reached for the cord and pulled three times, vigorously. There was no answer, for the train did not slacken her pace one particle. Something was wrong with the engineer-or the cord. It was not the engineer, for the whistle was blowing again.

It was Phil's turn to be puzzled now, but he did not remain that way any longer than Horton had done.

He examined the pistol again. Yes, it would shoot, he thought. Stepping to the right-hand door of the baggage coach he threw it wide open. The wind, blowing from the northeast, did not strike fairly on this side of the train, and as Harding performed the latter act no rush of wind and rain greeted him as it would have done had he opened the opposite door.

Pulling his cap tightly down over his eyes, and picking up a lighted lantern, he advanced toward the open door with revolver and lantern held tightly in his right hand. With his left hand he took a firm hold on the panel of the door and leaned far out into the inky blackness of the night.

Bang! bang! bang! the bark of the pistol rang out in the night three times in quick succession. The engineer heard, he thought, the noise come from behind him. Turning in his seat he gazed back along the string of cars as they came trailing down the grade behind him. His quick eye caught the gleam of a lantern shining dimly through the falling rain, and waving inward and outward along side of the baggage car.

Dim as the light was shining, it was bright enough for him to read the signal that it was meant to convey to him. It said as plain as words, "Stop!" He did stop. The long train of cars came to a standstill half-way down the fourmile grade leading to the washed away bridge, thanks to the quick wit of the telegraph operator and baggage master. -By HUGH BENNETT in Express Gazette.