that I could not hold her. The reply was: 'Hell!' The train dispatcher,
on the strength of my message that I would hold the train, had permitted
another to leave the last station in the opposite direction. There was a
lower station near the junction where the day operator slept. I started
for it on foot. The night was dark, and I fell into a culvert and was
knocked senseless." Owing to the vigilance of the two engineers on
the locomotives, who saw each other approaching on the straight single
track, nothing more dreadful happened than a summons to the thoughtless
operator to appear before the general manager at Toronto. On reaching
the manager's office, his trial for neglect of duty was fortunately
interrupted by the call of two Englishmen; and while their conversation
proceeded, Edison slipped quietly out of the room, hurried to the Grand
Trunk freight depot, found a conductor he knew taking out a freight
train for Sarnia, and was not happy until the ferry-boat from Sarnia had
landed him once more on the Michigan shore. The Grand Trunk still owes
Mr. Edison the wages due him at the time he thus withdrew from its
service, but the claim has never been pressed.

The same winter of 1863-64, while at Port Huron, Edison had a further
opportunity of displaying his ingenuity. An ice-jam had broken the light
telegraph cable laid in the bed of the river across to Sarnia, and thus
communication was interrupted. The river is three-quarters of a mile
wide, and could not be crossed on foot; nor could the cable be repaired.
Edison at once suggested using the steam whistle of the locomotive,
and by manipulating the valve conversed the short and long outbursts of
shrill sound into the Morse code. An operator on the Sarnia shore was
quick enough to catch the significance of the strange whistling, and
messages were thus sent in wireless fashion across the ice-floes in the
river. It is said that such signals were also interchanged by military
telegraphers during the war, and possibly Edison may have heard of