CHASING A RUNAWAY
"What's the programme?" asked Roberts, after filling the fire box with
coal.
"We must beat the speed of that runaway locomotive," replied Ralph.
The wild engine was going at a terrific rate of progress. Ralph could
only surmise where she had been started on her mad career. The motive,
her intended destination, how long she would last out--all this he could
only guess at.
A drift of cinders struck his face as he shot No. 93 across a switch and
out upon the in track of the north branch. At the same time he bent his
ear and listened critically to the chug-chug of the escape valves.
"Some one is aboard of that engine," he told Roberts.
"Then it's a chase instead of a race," said the fireman. "All right. You
boss and watch out ahead."
Pursued and pursuer were now on parallel tracks. Ralph wondered if he
could be mistaken, and the locomotive ahead a special or returning from
duty.
To test this he gave a familiar challenge call. From ignorance or
defiance there was no response. Ralph was sure that the locomotive was
in charge of some one. Its movements, the cinder drift, the wheeze of
the safety valve, told that the machinery was being manipulated.
Ralph cast up in his mind all the facts and probabilities of the
hairbreadth exploit in which he was participating. He acted on the
belief that the locomotive he was chasing was wild, or soon to be put in
action as one. It would be run to some intended point, abandoned, and
sent full speed ahead on its errand of destruction.
Ralph did not know what might be ahead on either track. The schedule, he
remembered, showed no moving rolling stock this side of the north main.
He urged his fireman to fire up to the limit and did some rapid
calculating as to the chances for the next twenty miles.
The locomotive ahead was fully a mile away before Roberts got old 93 in
the right trim, as he expressed it. He clucked audibly as his pet began
to snort and quiver. Pieces of the machinery rattled warningly, but that
only amused him.
"She's loose-jointed," he admitted to Ralph; "but she'll hold together,
I reckon, if you can only keep her to the rails. That fellow ahead is
sprinting, but we're catching up fast. What's the ticket?"
"Our only hope is to beat the runaway and switch or bump her."
"There'll be some damage."
"There will probably be worse damage if we don't stop her."
The paralleled tracks widened a few miles further on to get to the solid
side of a boggy reach. It was here that No. 93 came fairly abreast of
the runaway. It was here, too, that the furnace door of the runaway was
opened to admit coal, and the back flare of the hissing embers outlined
the figure of a man in the cab.
"She's spurting," observed Roberts, watching all this, as the runaway
started on a prodigious dash.
"I see she is," nodded Ralph, grimly trying to hold No. 93 over, yet
aware that she was already set at her highest possible point of tension.
"And we're getting near."
"Yes, there are the station lights ahead."
About four hundred yards to the left the runaway dashed past a deserted
station. Ralph never let up on speed. The chase had now led to the
cut-off, a stretch of about twenty miles. Where this ran into the main
again there was an important station. This point Ralph was sure had been
advised of the situation from headquarters if Glidden had done his duty,
and the young railroader felt sure that he had.
"Hello; now it is a chase!" exclaimed Roberts.
In circling into the cut-off No. 93 had passed a series of switches,
finally sending her down the same rails taken by the runaway.
"It's now or never, and pretty quick at that," said Ralph to his
fireman. "Crowd her, Roberts."
"She's doing pretty nigh her best as it is," replied the fireman. "I
don't know as she'll stand much more crowding."
"That's better," said Ralph in a satisfied tone, as, fired up to the
limit, the old rattletrap made a few more pounds of steam.
"Going to scare or bump the fellow ahead?" grinned Roberts, his grimed
face dripping with perspiration. "We're after her close now. It's our
chance to gain. They don't dare to coal up for fear of losing speed."
A score of desperate ideas as to overtaking, crippling, wrecking or
getting aboard of the runaway thronged the mind of the young railroader.
They were gaining now in leaps and bounds.
It was at a risk, however, Ralph realized fully. No. 93 was shaking and
wobbling, at times her clattering arose to a grinding squeal of the
wheels, as though she resented the terrific strain put upon her powers
of speed and endurance.
"Whew! there was a tilt," whistled Roberts, as No. 93 scurried a curve
where she threatened to dip clear over sideways into a swampy stretch
which had undermined the solid roadbed.
Ralph gave a sudden gasp. He had watched every movement of the
machinery. To his expert, careful ear every sound and quiver had
conveyed a certain intelligent meaning.
Now, however, No. 93 was emitting strange noises--there was a new sound,
and it boded trouble.
It came from the driving rod. Roberts caught the grinding, snapping
sound, stared hard from his window, craning his neck, his eyes goggling,
and then drew back towards the tender with a shout:
"Go easy, Fairbanks; something's tearing loose--look out!"
The warning came none too soon. Ralph slipped from his seat and dropped
backwards into the tender just in time.
A giant steel arm had shot through the front of the cab. It was the
right driving rod. It came aloft and then down, tearing a great hole in
the floor. It shattered the cab to pieces with half a dozen giant
strokes. It smashed against the driving wheels with a force that
threatened to wreck them.
Then it tried to pound off the cylinder. The flying arms next took the
roof supports, snapping them like pipe stems, and buried the fireman in
a heap of debris.
"Jump!" gasped Roberts.
"I stay," breathed Ralph.
And, stripped of everything except her cylinder, No. 93 dashed on--a
wreck.