midnight
Human hands had torn up three sections of rail . The same human hands had rolled a two-ton boulder in the right of way . He did not know whether the express car -- or what little remained of it -- had been robbed or not . From midnight until two o'clock the lines were hot . A wrecking train was on its way from the east , another from division headquarters to the west . Ceaselessly headquarters demanded new information , and bit by bit the terrible tragedy was told even as the men and women in it died and the few souls from the prairies around Bleak House Station fought to save lives . Then a new word crept in on the wires .