"Then stop her!" he drawled. "Don't make a fool of yourself! Show your red and hold her here until you get Big Cloud on the wire--they're both running the _same_ way, aren't they, you blamed idiot! Everything's out of the road far enough east of here on account of the Limited to give 'em time at headquarters to take care of things. Let 'em have it at Big Cloud." And Big Cloud got it. Spence, the despatcher, on the early night trick, got it--and Carleton and Regan, at their homes, got it in a hurried call from Spence over their private keys, that brought them running to headquarters. "I've cleared the line," said Spence. "The Limited is holding at Elk River till Brook's Cut reports Owsley through--then she's to trail along." Carleton nodded, and took a chair beside the despatcher's table. Regan, as ever with him in times of stress, tugged at his mustache, and paced up and down the room. He stepped once in front of Carleton and laughed shortly--and there was more in his words, a whole lot more, than he realized then. "The Lord knows where he'll stop now with the bit in his teeth, but suppose he'd been heading the other way _into_ the Limited--h'm! Head-on--instead of just tying up all the blamed traffic between here and the Elk--what? We can thank God for that!" Carleton didn't answer, except by another nod. He was listening to Spence at the key, asking Brook's Cut why they didn't report Owsley through. The rain rattled at the window panes, and the sashes shook under the gusts of wind; out in the yards below the switch lights showed blurred and indistinct. Regan paced the room more and more impatiently. Carleton's face began to go hard. Spence hung tensely over the table, his fingers on the key, waiting for the sounder to break, waiting for the Brook's Cut call. It was only seven miles from Elk River, where the stalled passengers of the Limited--will you remember this?--grumbled and complained, pettish in their discontent at the delay, only seven miles from there to Brook's Cut, the first station east--only seven miles, but the minutes passed, and still Brook's Cut answered: "No." And Carleton's face grew harder still, and Regan swore deep down under his breath from a full heart, and Spence grew white and rigid in his chair. And so they waited there, waited with the sense of disaster growing cold upon them--waited--but Brook's Cut never reported Owsley "in" or "out" that night.