Slowly he turned back to the bar, rested his foot on the rail, and, with a mirthless laugh and a shrug of his shoulders, reached for the bottle again. He poured the whisky glass full to the brim--and laughed once more and shrugged his shoulders as his fingers curled around it. He raised the glass--and held it poised halfway to his lips. Quick-running steps came up the street, the swinging doors of the Blazing Star burst open and a call boy shoved in his head. "Wreckers out! Wreckers out!" he bawled. "Number Eighty's gone to glory in Spider Cut. Everybody's killed"--and he was gone, a grimy-faced harbinger of death and disaster; gone, speeding with his summons to wherever men were gathered throughout the little town. An instant Flannagan stood motionless as one transformed from flesh to sculptured clay--then the glass slid from his fingers and crashed into tinkling splinters on the floor. The liquor splashed his boots. Number Eighty was the eastbound Coast Express! Like one who moves in unknown places through the dark, so, then, Flannagan moved toward the door. Men looked at him in amazement, and stood aside to let him pass. Something was tugging at his heart, beating at his brain, impelling him forward; a force irresistible, that, in its first, sudden, overwhelming surge he could not understand, could not grasp, could not focus into concrete form--could only obey. He passed out through the doors, and then for the first time a cry rang from his lips. There were no halting, stumbling, uncertain steps now. Men running down the street called to Flannagan as he sped past them. Flannagan made no answer, did not look their way; his face, strained and full of dumb anguish, was set toward the station. He gained the platform and raced along it. Shouts came from across the yards. Up and down the spurs fluttered the fore-shortened little yard engine, coughing sparks and wheezing from her exhaust as she bustled the wrecking train together; lamps swung and twinkled like fireflies, for it was just opening spring and the dark fell early; and in front of the roundhouse, the 1014, blowing hard from her safety under a full head of steam, like a thoroughbred that scents the race, was already on the table. With a heave of his great shoulders and a sweep of his arms, Flannagan won through the group of trainmen, shop hands, and loungers clustered around the door, and took the stairs four at a leap. A light burned in the super's office, but the voices came from the despatchers' room. And there in the doorway Flannagan halted--halted just for a second's pause while his eyes swept the scene before him.