Every moment I expected my unwelcome visitors would seize me, and in their insane glee practise upon me some savage torture.  Would they never cease?  For nearly thirty minutes I sat still as death, where they had flung me.  Safety lay in not attracting their attention; but a dreadful ordeal was in store for me.

The instrument, which had been silent for a time, again awoke to life.  The dispatcher was calling my office.  Like a flash the order to detain the down express that he had sent came back to my memory, and with a thrill of horror I remembered that I had omitted to turn the red lamp.  The dispatcher, I knew, wanted to ask me if the train had arrived.  Involuntarily I started to my feet.

The only sounds now to be heard were the ticking of the instrument and the ceaseless cries of the storm.  The Indians, the instant they heard the former, ceased their uncivilized mirth, again looked apprehensively at the mysterious instrument, and hurriedly glanced at me.  Their treacherous, suspicious natures were thoroughly aroused on seeing me looking eagerly toward the instrument.  I knew not how near the train might be; act I must.  I thought of the fearful loss of life which would surely occur unless I could reach the cord that hung above the instrument, and with one pull swing round the red lamp and let it beam across the track.  I had received the order to expose the light, and unless I did so I knew full well the Company would hold me responsible for any accident that might occur.  I had written the order in the order-book when receiving it.

All this passed through my mind like a flash.  I did not dread the Company, but I could not let scores of lives be sacrificed in order to save my own.  I had always thought I was not the stuff brave men are made of, but when put to the test I gloried in finding that I was not a coward.

I was quite calm as I began carelessly to walk over to the instrument.  The drunken savages were upon me almost immediately.  As they felled me to the floor, my ears caught the distant rumbling of the east-bound locomotive.  The Indians also had heard the noise, and as they turned to listen I once more sprang to my feet and dashed past them.  One of them I passed in safety, but as I dodged the big brave he struck viciously at me with the broken bottle.

His aim was but too true; the ragged mouth of the bottle opened my face like a conical bullet.  I had only a few more steps to go.  Before I fell I knew that I had turned the light.

* * * * *

The conductor put me on the train and took me to Winnipeg, where I remained in the hospital for three weeks.

The Indians had gone when he entered the station.  He had seen the order in the book, and had waited the arrival of the west-bound express, which arrived five minutes later.  Had he not seen the red light he would have gone on, and the trains would have met about two miles east of the station.