Before the despatcher comes the operator. The Biblical saying, "Many are called, but few are chosen," is well illustrated by the small number of good despatchers there are; it is easy enough to find good operators, but an excellent despatcher is a rarity among them.

MY FIRST OFFICE.

I learned telegraphy some fifteen or sixteen years ago at a school way out in western Kansas. After I had been there three or four months, I was the star of the class, and I imagined that the spirit of Professor Morse had been reincarnated in me. No wire was too swift for me to work, no office too great for me to manage. In fact, visions of a superintendency of telegraph flitted before my eyes.

During my stay at the school, I formed the acquaintance of the night operator at the depot, and it was my wont to spend most of my nights there, picking up odds and ends of information. I used to copy anything that came along for my own benefit; but the young man in charge never left me entirely alone. Night operators at small stations have to take care of their own lamps and fires, sweep out, and, in short, be porter as well as operator; and for the privilege of being allowed to stay about, I used to do this work for the night man of the office in question. His name was Harry Burgess. After a few weeks he was transferred up the road to a day office, and by his help I was made night operator in his stead. Need I say how proud I felt when I received a message from the Chief Despatcher telling me to report for duty that night? I think I was the proudest man, or boy rather, on earth. Just think of it! Night operator, porter, and baggage-man, working from seven o'clock in the evening until seven o'clock in the morning, and receiving the magnificent sum of forty dollars a month!

I had heretofore had Burgess to fall back upon in copying messages or orders, but now I was alone. I got through the first night very well, because all I had to do was to take a few commercial messages, "O. S." trains, and load some ten big sample trunks on No. 2. The trains were all on time, so there were no orders. I was proud of my success, and went off duty at seven o'clock with the feeling that my services were well nigh indispensable to the road.

The second night everything went smoothly until toward eleven o'clock, when the despatcher began to call "Mn," and gave the

66

signal "9." Now, the signal "9" means train orders." The situation was anything but pleasant for me, because I had never yet, on my own responsibility, taken a train order. I did not answer the despatcher at once, as I should have done, for I hoped he would get tired of calling me, and would call " Og" and give him the order. But he didn't. He just kept on calling, increasing his speed all the time. In desperation I went out on the platform and stamped around for five minutes to keep warm, thinking he would stop when he found I did not answer. But when I returned, instead of calling me on one wire, he had his operator calling me on the commercial line, while he was pounding away on the railroad wire. At the rate at which those two sounders were going they sounded to me like the crack of doom. I finally mustered up courage and answered.

The first thing the despatcher said was, "Where in h―l have you been?"

I didn't think that was a very nice thing for him to say, so I simply replied, "Out fixing my batteries."

"Well," he said, "I'll fix you when I get through with you. Now copy 3."

66

'Copy 3" means to take three copies of the order that follows. I grabbed my manifold order-book and stylus, and prepared to copy. There is a rule printed in large bold type in all time cards which says, "Despatchers, in sending train orders to operators, will accommodate their speed to the abilities of the operators. In all cases they will send plainly and distinctly." If the despatcher had sent according to my ability just then, he would have sent that order by mail. But instead, from the first word, he fired it at me so fast, that before I had started to take it he was way down in the body of it. I had written down only the order number and date when I broke and said, "G. A. To." That made him madder than ever, and he went at me again with increased violence. I think I broke him about ten times, and finally he said, "For heaven's sake, go wake up the day man." Strangely enough I got all of his nasty remarks without any trouble, while having so much difficulty with the order. However, I finally got it all down, repeated it back to him, and got his O. K.

When the train arrived, the conductor and the engineer came in the office, and I gave them the order. The conductor glanced at it for a moment, and then said, “Say, kid, which foot did you use in copying this?"

My copy

wasn't very clear, but he finally deciphered it, and they both signed it; the despatcher gave me the" complete," and they left. As soon as the train, which was No. 22, a livestock express, had departed, I made my O. S. report, and heaved a big sigh of relief.

66

at heart, and as near a wreck as a man could be. I finally told the despatcher that Nos. 21 and 22 were in the ditch, and he snapped back, "D-n it, I've been expecting it. I've ordered out the wrecking outfit. You turn your red light, and hold everything that comes along. Meanwhile go and call the day man. I want an operator there."

When the day man came in, halfdressed, he said, "Well, what's the matter?"

I was speechless. I simply pointed to the order, and the brakeman told him the rest. I never spent such a night in my life. The day man regaled me with charming little incidents about men he knew who, for having been criminally negligent, had been shot by infuriated engineers, or sent up for ten years. He seemed to take a fiendish delight in telling me these things. I would have run away if I hadn't been too weak. About seven o'clock he patronizingly told me that it wasn't my fault at all; that the despatcher had given a "lap order," and that the blame was on him. The reaction was almost as bad as the first feeling of horror. I went home and, after a light breakfast, to bed; but not to sleep, for every time I closed my eyes, visions of wrecks, penitentiaries, dead men, and ruined homes crowded upon my disordered brain.

Scarcely had the tail-lights disappeared around the bend when the despatcher called again, and said, "For God's sake, stop that train."

I said, "I can't. She's gone." "Well," he said, "there's a good chance for a fine smash-up to-night."

That scared me, and I looked at my retained copy of the order. It read all right, but all the same I felt creepy. About thirty minutes afterward the hind brakeman came tramping back, and cheerfully saluted me with, Well, I reckon you've raised h-1 to-night. No. 21 and No. 22 are up against each other hard about a mile and a half east of here. They met on a curve, and engines, box-cars, and live-stock are piled up in a fine heap. No one is killed, but one engineer and a fireman are pretty badly scalded, and Shorty Jones, the head man, has a broken leg, caused by jumping. You better tell the despatcher."

Visions of the penitentiary for criminal neglect on my part danced before my disordered brain; all my knowledge of telegraphy fled; I was weak in the knees, sick

About half-past ten they sent for me from the office. I went over, and Webster, the agent, said that the superintendent wanted to see me. I had never seen the superintendent, and he seemed to me to be about as far off as the President of the United States, but I mustered up courage and went in. I saw a kindly looking gentleman seated before Webster's desk, but I was too much frightened to speak and stood there like a clam. Presently Mr. Brink, the superintendent, turned to Webster, and said, "I wonder why that night man doesn't come?"

I tremblingly replied, "I am the night man, sir."

He looked at me for a moment, and smilingly said, "Why, my lad, I thought you were a messenger boy." He then asked me for my story of the wreck. When I had told it, he seemed satisfied, and gave me

much good advice; but in the end he said that I was too young to have the position, and I was discharged. But he added that in a few years he would be glad to have me

come back to the road. The next day I went back to school.

that I was an expert operator and desired a position. Mr. Bunnell must have been under a hypnotic spell, for by return mail he wrote, enclosing me a pass to Alfreda, Kansas, and

AN ENCOUNTER WITH TRAIN ROBBERS.

My first attempt at holding an office had proved such a failure that I thought I should never have the heart to apply for another. I worked faithfully in school about a month, and then the fever to try again took hold of me. I knew it would be no use to apply to Mr. Brink, so I wrote to Mr. R. B. Bunnell, Superintendent of Telegraph of the P. Q. & X. Railroad, at Kansas City, Mo., saying

directing me to assume charge of the night office there, at $37.50 a month. This was a slight decrease from my former salary, but I didn't care. I wanted a chance to redeem myself, and I felt confident that I could be more successful in my second attempt. So I packed my few belongings, bade good-by to the school, and away I went.

When I left "Mn," I said nothing about my destination to anyone. I did not know a thing about Alfreda, except that it was near the border line between Kansas and Colorado. The brakeman on the train, in talking to me, told me it was a very pleasant place; but when he said so, I fancied I detected a sarcastic ring in his voice, and I was in no doubt about it when I arrived and saw what a desolate, dreary place Alfreda was. The only things in sight were a water-tank, a pump-house, and the telegraph office; and I wish you might have seen that office. It was simply the bed of a box-car, taken off the trucks, and set down with one end toward the track. A small platform, two windows, a door, and the signal board perched high on a pole completed the outfit.

I arrived at 6.30 in the morning; there wasn't a living soul in sight. An hour later a man who proved to be the pumper came along. He looked at me, and after I had made myself known, he grinned and said, "Well, I hopes as how yez'll loike the place. Burke, the man who was here afore ye, got scared off by thramps."

I found that there was no day operator, and the only house around was the section house, two miles up the track. The operator and pumper boarded there with the sec

tion boss; but the company was magnanimous enough to furnish a railroad velocipede for their use. How I felt the first night, stuck away out there in that box-car, two

66

month, I went to work at seven o'clock as usual. It was a black night, threatening a big storm. The pumper had not gone home yet, and he remarked that it was going to be a woild night," but that he hoped "the whistlin' of the wind" would "kape me company." Then he jumped on the velocipede, and off he went.

miles from the nearest house and twelve miles from the nearest town, I must leave it to be imagined. My heart sank and I had many misgivings, but I set my teeth hard and determined to do my best, with a hope that I might be promoted to a better office. I did win promotion, but I wouldn't go through my experiences there again for the whole road.

I didn't much relish the idea of the storm, for I knew the reputation of Kansas as a cyclone State, and my boxcar office was not well adapted to stand a hurricane. However, I went inside, and after lighting my lamps, sat down and wrote letters, when I was not taking train orders. This office was kept up because it was a convenient place to deliver orders to freight trains at night when they stopped for water. About 12.30 in the morning my door opened suddenly, and a man stepped quickly in. I was startled, because this was almost the only man besides the pumper and the train-crews who had been there since I came. Once in a while a stray tramp had gone through, but this man was not a tramp. He wore a long overcoat buttoned up to his chin, with the collar turned up. A slouch hat pulled well down over his eyes so far concealed his face that his features were hardly visible. He came over to my desk and asked, "What time is there a passenger train east tonight?"

I answered that one went through at half-past one, the Overland Flyer, but it did not stop. Quick as a flash he pulled a revolver, and, poking it in my face, said: "Young man, you turn your red light and stop that train or I will make a vacancy in this office mighty quick."

66

The longer I gazed down the barrel of that revolver the bigger it grew, and it looked as if it were loaded to the muzzle with buckshot. When it had grown to about the size of a Gatling gun I concluded that discretion was the better part of valor" and turned my red light. Meanwhile the door opened again, and three more men came in. These were masked, and as soon as I saw them I knew that they were going to try to hold up the Overland Flyer. Often this train carried large amounts of bullion and currency East, and I supposed they had heard that there was a shipment to go through that