Frank L Packard

The Wire Devils Frank L Packard

TWO switch lights twinkled; one at the east, and one at the west end of the siding. For therest all was blackness. Half way between the switch lights, snuggled close against thesingle-tracked main line, the station, little more than a shanty and too insignificant to boasta night operator, loomed up shadowy and indistinct. Away to the westward, like jaggedpoints sticking up into the night and standing out in relief against the skyline, the Rockiesreared their peaks. And the spell of the brooding mountains seemed to lie over all thedesolate, butte-broken surrounding country-for all was utter silence. And then there came a sound, low at first, like a strange muttering from somewhere tothe westward. It died away, grew louder, was hushed again-and broke into a sustained roar. Camethen the quick, short gasps of the exhaust-it was a freight, and a heavy one. And suddenly, from up the track, circling an intervening butte, an electric headlight cut streaming throughthe black. It touched the little station in a queerly inquisitive way in the sweep of its arc, lingered an instant over the platform, then swung to the right of way, and held there, themetals glistening like polished silver ribbons under the flood of ligh