His hands were no longer trembling when he once more wound the crank of the telephone and held the receiver to his ear.  There was an answering skirl of the bell, and then a voice said:  “Hello!  This is Goodloe:  what’s wanted?”

Judson wasted no time in explanations.  “This is Judson—­John Judson.  Get Timanyoni on your wire, quick, and catch Mr. Lidgerwood’s special.  Tell Bradford and Williams to run slow, looking for trouble.  Do you get that?”

A confused medley of rumblings and clankings crashed in over the wire, and in the midst of the interruption Judson heard Goodloe put down the receiver.  In a flash he knew what was happening at Little Butte station.  The delayed passenger-train from the west had arrived, and the agent was obliged to break off and attend to his duties.

Anxiously Judson twirled the crank, again and yet again.  Since Goodloe had not cut off the connection, the mingled clamor of the station came to the listening ear; the incessant clicking of the telegraph instruments on Goodloe’s table, the trundling roar of a baggage-truck on the station platform, the cacophonous screech of the passenger-engine’s pop-valve.  With the phut of the closing safety-valve came the conductor’s cry of “All aboard!” and then the long-drawn sobs of the big engine as Cranford started the train.  Judson knew that in all human probability the superintendent’s special had already passed Timanyoni, the last chance for a telegraphic warning; and here was the passenger slipping away, also without warning.

Goodloe came back to the telephone when the train clatter had died away, and took up the broken conversation.

“Are you there yet, John?” he called.  And when Judson’s yelp answered him:  “All right; now, what was it you were trying to tell me about the special?”

Judson did not swear; the seconds were too vitally precious.  He merely repeated his warning, with a hoarse prayer for haste.

There was another pause, a break in the clicking of Goodloe’s telegraph instruments, and then the agent’s voice came back over the wire:  “Can’t reach the special.  It passed Timanyoni ten minutes ago.”

Judson’s heart was in his mouth, and he had to swallow twice before he could go on.

“Where does it meet the passenger?” he demanded.

“You can search me,” replied the Little Butte agent, who was not of those who go out of their way to borrow trouble.  Then, suddenly:  “Hold the ’phone a minute; the despatcher’s calling me, right now.”

There was a third trying interval of waiting for the man in the darkened room at the Wire-Silver head-quarters; an interval shot through with pricklings of feverish impatience, mingled with a lively sense of the risk he was running; and then Goodloe called again.

“Trouble,” he said shortly.  “Angels didn’t know that Cranford had made up so much time.  Now he tries to give me an order to hold the passenger—­after it’s gone by.  So long.  I’m going to take a lantern and mog along up the track to see where they come together.”