“I can’t help it, Carleton. It’s got _me_. Time, and that sort of thing, may be all right, but it ain’t very promising when a man broods the way he does. I ain’t superstitious or anything like that, but I’ve a feeling I can’t just explain that somehow something’s going to break. Kind of premonition. Ever have anything like that? It gets on your mind and you can’t shake it off. It’s on me to-night worse than it’s ever been.” “Nonsense,” Carleton laughed. “Premonitions are out of date, because they’ve been traced back to their origin. Out here, I should say it was a case of too much of Dutchy’s lunch-counter pie. You ought to diet anyway, Tommy, you’re getting too fat. Hand over that fine-cut of yours, I------” He stopped as a sharp cry came from the dispatcher’s room, followed by an instant’s silence, then the crash of a chair sounded as, hastily pushed back, it fell to the floor. Quick steps echoed across the room, and the next moment Spence, with a white face and holding a sheet of tissue in his hand, burst in upon them. Carleton sprang to his feet. “What’s the matter, Spence?” he demanded sharply. “Number One,” the dispatcher jerked out, and extended the sheet on which he had scribbled the message as it came in off the sounder. Carleton snatched the paper, and Regan, leaping from his chair, looked over his shoulder. “Number One, engine 505, jumped track east of switch-back number two in Devil’s Slide. Report three known to be killed, others missing. Engineer Coogan and fireman Dahleen both hurt,” they read. Carleton was ever the man of action, and his voice rang hard as chilled steel. “Clear the line, Spence. Get your relief and wrecker out at once. Wire Dreamer Butte for their wrecker as well, so they can work from both ends. Now then, Tommy--my God, what’s the matter with you, are you crazy?” Regan was leaning over the back of his chair, his face strained, his arm outstretched, finger pointing to the wall. “I knew it,” he muttered hoarsely. “I knew it. That’s what it is.” Carleton’s eyes traveled from the master mechanic to the wall and back again in amazed bewilderment, then he shook Regan by the shoulder. “That’s what, what is?” he questioned brusquely. “Are you mad, man?” “The date,” whispered Regan, still pointing to where a large single-day calendar with big figures on it hung behind the super’s desk. “It’s the twenty-eighth.” “I don’t know what you mean, Tommy,”--Carleton’s voice was quiet, restrained. “Mean!” Regan burst out, with a hard laugh. “I don’t mean anything, do I? ‘tain’t anything to do with it, it’s just coincidence, mabbe, and mabbe it’s not. _It’s a year ago to-night Coogan was married._” For a moment Carleton did not speak; like Regan, he stared at the wall. “You think that----” “No, I don’t”--Regan caught him up roughly--“I don’t think anything at all. I only know it’s queer, ghastly queer.”