Callahan waved his hand. "I've got to have track there by to-morrow
night."
"I've got to dump a hundred cars of rock in there before we shall have
anything to lay track on; and I've got to pick the rock up all the way
from here to Goose River."
They walked together to the station.
When the night grew too dark for Callahan he had but one higher
thought--Bucks. Bucks was five hundred miles away at McCloud, but he
already had the particulars and was waiting at a key ready to take up
the trouble of his favorite division. Callahan at the wire in Sleepy
Cat told his story, and Bucks at the other end listened and asked
questions. He listened to every detail of the disaster, to the cold
hard figures of Agnew's estimates--which nothing could alter, jot or
tittle--and to Callahan's despairing question as to how he could
possibly save the unlooked-for avalanche of fruit.
For some time after the returns were in, Bucks was silent; silent so
long that the copper-haired man twisted in his chair, looked vacantly
around the office and chewed a cigar into strings. Then the sounder at
his hand clicked. He recognized Bucks sending in the three words
lightly spelled on his ear and jumped from his seat. Just three words
Bucks had sent and signed off. What galvanized Callahan was that the
words were so simple, so all-covering, and so easy. "Why didn't I
think of that?" groaned Callahan, mentally.
Then he reflected that he was nothing but a redheaded Irishman, anyway,
while Bucks was a genius. It never showed more clearly, Callahan
thought, than when he received the three words, "Send for Glover."