Produced by Darleen Dove, Roger Frank, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net Held for Orders Being Stories of Railroad Life By Frank H. Spearman _Illustrations by JAY HAMBIDGE_ New York McCLURE, PHILLIPS & COMPANY MCMI COPYRIGHT, 1900, BY S. S. MCCLURE CO. 1901, BY MCCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO. First impression, October, 1901 Second impression, November, 1901 _To_ John Francis Cordeal [Illustration: Shockley] Contents THE SWITCHMAN'S STORY--SHOCKLEY THE WIPER'S STORY--HOW MCGRATH GOT AN ENGINE THE ROADMASTER'S STORY--THE SPIDER WATER THE STRIKER'S STORY--MCTERZA THE DESPATCHER'S STORY--THE LAST ORDER THE NIGHTMAN'S STORY--BULLHEAD THE MASTER MECHANIC'S STORY--DELAROO THE OPERATOR'S STORY--DE MOLAY FOUR THE TRAINMASTER'S STORY--OF THE OLD GUARD THE YELLOW MAIL STORY--JIMMIE THE WIND Illustrations Shockley Chris Cooney Hailey McTerza Old Man Nicholson Dave Hawk Jimmie the Wind Held for Orders The Switchman's Story SHOCKLEY "He's rather a bad lot, I guess," wrote Bucks to Callahan, "but I am satisfied of one thing--you can't run that yard with a Sunday-school superintendent. He won't make you any trouble unless he gets to drinking. If that happens, _don't have any words with him_." Bucks underscored three times. "Simply crawl into a cyclone cellar and wire me. Sending you eighteen loads of steel to-night, and six cars of ties. Blair reports section 10 ready for track layers and Mear's outfit moving into the Palisade Cañon. Push the stuff to the front." It was getting dark, and Callahan sat in that part of the Benkleton depot he called the office, pulling at a muddy root that went unaccountably hot in sudden flashes. He took the pipe from his mouth, leaving his foot on the table, and looked at the bowl resentfully, wondering again if there could be powder in that infernal tobacco of Rubedo's. The mouthpiece he eyed as a desperate man might ponder a final shift. The pipe had originally come from God's Country, with a Beautiful Amber Mouthpiece, and a Beautiful Bowl; but it was a present from his sister and had been bought at a dry-goods store. Once when thinking--or, if you please, when not thinking--Callahan had held a lighted match to the Beautiful Amber Mouthpiece instead of to the tobacco, and in the fire that ensued they had hard work to save the depot.