Seated in sumptuously furnished palace cars, annihilating space at the rate of sixty miles an hour, but few passengers ever give a thought to the telegraph operators of the road stuck away in towers or in dingy little depots, in swamps, on the tops of mountains, or on the bald prairies and sandy deserts of the west; and yet, these selfsame telegraph operators are a very important adjunct to the successful operation of the road, and a single error on the part of one of them might result in the loss of many lives and thousands of dollars.

The whole length of the railroad from starting point to terminus is literally under the eyes of the train despatcher. By means of reports sent in by hundreds of different operators, he knows the exact location of all trains at all times, the number of "loads" and "empties" in each train, the number of cars on each siding, the number of passing tracks and their capacity, the capabilities of the different engines, the gradients of the road, the condition of the roadbed, and, above all, he knows the personal characteristics of every conductor and engineer on the road. In fact if there is one man of more importance than another on a railroad it is the train despatcher. During his trick of eight hours he is the autocrat of the road, and his will in the running of trains is absolute. Therefore despatchers are chosen with very special regard for their fitness for the position. They must be expert telegraphers, quick at figures, and above all they must be as cool as ice, have nerves of steel, and must be capable of grasping a trying situation the minute an emergency arises. An old despatcher once said to me: "Sooner or later a despatcher, if he sticks to the business, will have his smash-up, and then down goes a reputation which possibly he has been years in building up, and his name is inscribed on the roll of 'has-beens.'"

Before the despatcher comes the operator, and the old Biblical saying, "Many are called but few are chosen," is well illustrated by the small number of good despatchers that are found; it is easy enough to find excellent operators, but a first-class despatcher is a rarity among them.

I learned telegraphy some fifteen or sixteen years ago at a school away out in western Kansas. After I had been there three or four months, I was the star of the class, and imagined that the spirit of Professor Morse had been reincarnated in me. No wire was too swift for me to work, no office too great for me to manage; in fact visions of a superintendency of telegraph flitted before my eyes. Such institutions as this school are very correctly named "ham factories."

During my stay at the school I formed the acquaintance of the night operator at the depot and it was my wont to spend most of my nights there picking up odds and ends of information. For my own benefit I used to copy everything that came along; but the young man in charge never left me entirely alone. Night operators at all small stations have to take care of their own lamps and fires, sweep out, handle baggage, and, in short, be porter as well as operator, and for the privilege of being allowed to stay about I used to do this work for the night man at the office in question. His name was Harry Burgess and he was as good a man as ever sat in front of a key. Some few weeks after this he was transferred to a day office up the road and by his help I was made night operator in his stead. Need I say how proud I felt when I received a message from the Chief Despatcher telling me to report for duty that night? I think I was the proudest man, or boy rather, on this earth. Just think! Night operator, porter and baggageman, working from seven o'clock in the evening until seven o'clock in the morning, and receiving the magnificent sum of forty dollars per month! It was enough to make my bosom swell with pride and it's a wonder I didn't burst.

Heretofore, I had had Burgess to fall back upon when I was copying messages or orders, but now I was alone and the responsibility was all mine. I managed to get through the first night very well, because all I had to do was to take a few "red" commercial messages, "O. S." the trains and load ten big sample trunks on No. 2. The trains were all on time and consequently there were no orders. I was proud of my success and went off duty at seven o'clock in the morning with a feeling that my services were well nigh indispensable to the road, and if anything were to happen to me, receivers would surely have to be appointed.

The second night everything went smoothly until towards eleven o'clock, when the despatcher began to call "MN," and gave the signal "9." Now the signal "9" means "Train Orders," and takes precedence over everything else on the wire. The situation was anything but pleasant for me, because I had never yet, on my own responsibility, taken a train order, and I stood in a wholesome fear of the results that might accrue from any error of mine. So I didn't answer the despatcher at once as I should have done because I hoped he would get tired of calling me and would tackle "OG," and give him the order. But he didn't. He just kept on calling me, increasing his speed all the time. In sheer desperation, I went out on the platform for five minutes and stamped around to keep warm, hoping all the time he would stop when he found I did not answer. But when I returned instead of calling me on one wire, he had his operator calling me on the commercial line while he was pounding away on the railroad wire. At the rate those two sounders were going they sounded to me like the crack of doom and I was becoming powerfully warm. I finally mustered up courage and answered him.

The first thing the despatcher said was:

"Where in h—l have you been?"

I didn't think that was a very nice thing for him to say, and he fired it at me so fast I could hardly read it, so I simply replied, "Out fixing my batteries."

"Well," he said, "your batteries will need fixing when I get through with you. Now copy 3."

"Copy 3," means to take three copies of the order that is to follow, so I grabbed my manifold order-book and stylus and prepared to copy. There is a rule printed in large bold type in all railroad time-cards which says, "Despatchers, in sending train orders to operators, will accommodate their speed to the abilities of the operators. In all cases they will send plainly and distinctly." If the despatcher had sent according to my ability just then he would have sent that order by train mail. But instead, from the very beginning, he fired it at me so fast, that before I had started to take it he was away down in the body of it. I had written down only the order number and date, when I broke and said, "G. A. To." That made him madder than ever and he went at me again with increased violence the sounder seeming like the roll of a drum. I think I broke him about ten times and finally he said, "For heaven's sake go wake up the day man. You're nothing but a ham." Strangely enough I could take all of his nasty remarks without any trouble while the order almost completely stumped me. However, I finally succeeded in putting it all down, repeated it back to him, and received his "O. K."

When the train arrived the conductor and engineer came in the office and I gave them the order. The conductor glanced at it for a moment and then said with a broad grin, "Say, kid, which foot did you use in copying this?" My copy wasn't very clear, but finally he deciphered it, and they both signed their names, the despatcher gave me the "complete," and they left. As soon as the train, which was No. 22, a livestock express, had departed, I made my O. S. report, and then heaved a big sigh of relief.

Scarcely had the tail-lights disappeared across the bridge and around the bend, when the despatcher called again and said, "For God's sake stop that train."

I said, "I can't. She's gone."

"Well," he snapped back, "there's a good chance for a fine smash-up this night."

That scared me almost out of my wits, and I looked at my copy of the order. But it read all right, and yet I felt mighty creepy. About thirty minutes afterwards, I heard a heavy step on the platform and in a second the hind brakeman came tramping in, and cheerfully saluted me with, "Well, I reckon you've raised h—l to-night. 21 and 22 are up against each other hard about a mile and a half east of here. They met on a curve and engines, box-cars, livestock and freight are piled up in fine shape."

"Any one killed?" I asked with a blanched face and sinking heart.

"Naw, no one is exactly killed, but one engineer and a fireman are pretty badly scalded, and 'Shorty' Jones, our head man, has a broken leg caused by jumping. You'd better tell the despatcher."

Visions of the penitentiary for criminal neglect danced before my disordered brain; all my knowledge of telegraphy fled; I was weak in the knees, sick at heart, and as near a complete wreck as a man could be. But something had to be done, so I finally told the despatcher that Nos. 21 and 22 were in the ditch, and he snapped back, "D—n it, I've been expecting it, and have ordered the wrecking outfit out from Watsego. You turn your red-light and hold everything that comes along. In the meantime go wake up the day man. I want an operator there, and not a ham."

When the day man came in, half dressed, he said, "Well, what the devil is the matter?"

Speech had entirely left me by this time, so I simply pointed to the order, and the brakeman told him the rest. Never in all my life have I spent such a night as that. The day man regaled me with charming little incidents, about men he knew, who, for having been criminally negligent, had been shot by infuriated engineers or had been sent up for ten years. He seemed to take a fiendish delight in telling me these things and my discomfiture was great. I would have run away if I hadn't been too weak. About seven o'clock in the morning, after a night of misery, he patronizingly told me, that it wasn't my fault at all; the despatcher had given a "lap order," and that the blame was on him. Well! the reaction was as bad, almost, as the first feeling of horror. I went home and after a light breakfast, retired to bed, but not to sleep, for every time I would close my eyes, visions of wrecks, penitentiaries, dead men and ruined homes came crowding upon my disordered brain.

About ten o'clock they sent for me to come to the office. I went over and Webster the agent said the superintendent wanted to see me. I had never seen the superintendent and he seemed to me to be about as far off as the President of the United States, but I screwed up my courage and went in. I saw a kindly-looking gentleman seated before Webster's desk, but I was too much frightened to speak and just stood there like a bump on a log. Presently, Mr. Brink, the superintendent, turned to Webster and said, "I wonder why that night man doesn't come?"

I tremblingly replied, "I am the night man, sir." He looked at me for a moment and smilingly said, "Why, bless my soul, my lad! I thought you were a messenger boy." He then asked me for my story of the wreck. When I had given it he seemed satisfied, and gave me lots of good advice; but in the end he said I was too young to have the position, and I was discharged. But he kindly added, that in a few years he would be glad to have me come back on the road, after I had acquired more experience. The next day I returned to school.