Some time after this I was in Fort Worth copying night reports at eighty dollars per month. The night force consisted of two other men besides myself. The "split trick" man worked until ten o'clock, the other chap stayed around until twelve, or until he was clear, while I hung on until "30" on report which came anywhere from one-thirty until four A. M. After midnight I had to handle all the business that came along.

When I had received "30" I would cut out the instruments and go home.

One morning, about two-thirty I had said "G. N." to Galveston, cut out the instruments, put out the lights in the operating room, and started to go home through the receiving room and I was about to put out the last light there, when the outer door opened and in staggered a half drunken ranchman who said,

"Hold on there, young fellow, I want to send a message to St. Louis."

"I'm sorry, but it's too late to send it now. All the instruments are cut out and we wont have St. Louis until eight o'clock in the morning. Come around then and some of the day force will send it for you."

"But," he said in a maudlin voice, "I've got nineteen cars of cattle out here that are going up there to-morrow and I want to notify my agents."

I persisted in my refusal and was beginning to get hot under the collar, but my bucolic friend also had a temper and showed it.

"D—n it," he said, "you send this message or there is going to be trouble."

"Not much, I won't send your confounded old message. Get out of this office: I'm going home."

Just then I heard an ominous click and in a second I was gazing down the barrel of a .45, and he said,

"Now will you send it? You'd better or I'll send you to a home that will be a permanent one."

A .45, especially when it is loaded, cocked and pointed at your head, with a half drunken galoot's finger on the trigger, is a powerful incentive to quick action.

"Give me your blamed old message, and I'll send it for you."

Now there wasn't a through wire to any place at the time, but I had thought of a scheme to stave him off. I took his telegram, went over and monkeyed around the switch board for a while, and then sat down to a local instrument and went through the form of sending a message. My whole salvation lay in the hope that he was not an operator and would fail to discover my ruse. I glanced at him furtively out of the corner of my eye, and there he stood, pistol in hand, grinning like a monkey and swaying to and fro like a reed in the wind. I didn't know what that grin portended for me, but after I had gone through the form of sending the telegram, I hung it up on the hook, and turned around with,

"There, I hope you are satisfied now. Your blamed old message has been sent."

"Satisfied! Why certainly I'm satisfied. I just wanted to show you that the Western Union Company wasn't the whole push. Come on over to the White Elephant with me and we'll have a drink together, just to show there's no hard feelings between us," and with that he put away his pistol and we went out. On the way over to the Elephant he said,

"Say, kid, did you think I'd shoot if you hadn't sent the message?"

"Well," I replied, "I wasn't taking any chances on the matter."

Then he laughed loud enough to be heard a block away and said, "Why, that pistol hasn't been loaded for six months, I was just running a bluff on you, and you bit like a fish."

Good joke, wasn't it? We had our drink, and his message was sent by one of the day force, at eight-twelve A. M.

The Morse telegraphic alphabet is exactly the same the world over, and yet each operator has a peculiarity to his sending, or "stuff," as it is called, that makes it easy to recognize an old friend, even though his name be changed.

In the early part of my career, when I was working days at X——, in Nebraska, at Sweeping Water there was a chap called Ned Kingsbury holding down the night job, and as wild a youngster as ever hit the road. One night when I was sitting up a little late I heard the despatcher give Ned an order for a train that ordinarily would not stop there. Ned repeated it back all right enough, and then gave the signal, "6," which meant that he had turned his red-light to the track and would hold it there until the order was delivered and understood. So far, so good. But the reckless little devil had forgotten to turn his red-board and proceeded to write to some of his numerous girls, and the first thing he knew that freight train went smashing by at a thirty-five mile clip, and Mr. Ned knew he was up against it.

In some states a railroader guilty of criminal negligence is sent up for a term of from one to ten years. The smash up that resulted from Ned's carelessness was a catastrophe of the fatal kind; one engineer was killed, and a fireman and brakeman or two laid up for months. He fully realized the magnitude of his offence and promptly skipped away from the wrath that was sure to follow, and nothing more was heard of him in that section of the country.

This all happened a number of years before I went to work in Fort Worth, and one morning I was doing a little "scooping," by working days, and sat down to send on the "DA" quad. I worked hard for about two hours on the polar side, and was sending to some cracker jack, who signed "KY." Shortly after that I changed over to the receiving side and "KY" did the sending to me. I had been taking about ten messages and the conviction was growing on me momentarily that the sending was very familiar and that I must have known the sender. Where had I heard that peculiar jerky sending before? It was as plain as print, but there was an individuality about it that belonged only to one man. All at once that night in Nebraska flashed on my mind and I knew my sender was none other than Ned Kingsbury. I broke him and said,

"Hello, Ned Kingsbury, where did you come from?"

"You've got the wrong man this time, sonny, my name is Pillsbury," he replied.

"Oh! come off. I'd know that combination of yours if I heard it in Halifax. Didn't you work at Sweeping Water, Nebraska, some time ago, and didn't you have some kind of a queer smash up there?"

Then he 'fessed up and said he had recognized my stuff as soon as he heard it, but hadn't said anything in hopes I wouldn't twig him.

"Don't give me away, old chap. I'm flying the flag now and have lost all my former brashness."

I never did.