IN THE DARK
After leaving Brushingham, Harvey and his crew merely duplicated the
enemy's performance of the afternoon. The C. & S.C. employees were
thrown out before they had become thoroughly settled, and with each new
capture messages flew back to Mattison at Manchester, giving him and Jim
Weeks a detailed account of the progress of the train. The greatest care
was exercised to keep news of the train from Truesdale. Wherever there
was a possibility of the ejected men reaching a telephone, they were
actually taken in custody and placed under guard. The operators were
instructed to answer all messages from the Truesdale despatcher as
intelligently as possible, in order to continue the deception.
It was a long, hard ride. Harvey was called upon constantly to exercise
ingenuity in the handling of his forces, and though Mallory was of great
assistance, the strain of responsibility rested upon Harvey. He was
tired when he started, but as the night wore on toward morning, nothing
but his sound nerves kept him on his feet. At two-thirty o'clock they
were within twenty miles of Truesdale, and Harvey and Mallory were
both in the engine, anxiously looking for obstructions. From Mattison's
despatches they knew that reenforcements were flying down over an open
road, but the collecting of a second force had taken time, and it was
nearly midnight before the second train was on its way, a hundred and
sixty-five miles from Harvey's present location.
Nearly all Harvey's men had been dropped along the line, and he was in
no position for a conflict, particularly as he had no knowledge of the
enemy's location or preparedness. Mallory was for pausing until the
other train should reach them, probably about daylight. He argued that
they had nothing to gain and everything to lose. Harvey, undecided,
referred to his map, spreading it out on the fireman's bench while
Mallory lighted matches and held them over the paper. Harvey ran his
finger down the line to Sawyerville.
“Just north of the Sawyerville station,” he said, “there is a curve and
a deep cut. I am inclined to think that if they try to block the road
they'll do it there. The quarries are right at hand, and all they need
to do is to roll a few rocks down.”
“Do you think they would try that?” asked Mallory. “It would block them
worse than it would us.”
“I don't know about that, but I'll feel a lot easier when we're through
that cut with open country between us and Truesdale. Run slow, Donohue,
and put out your headlight. Mallory, you see that the train is perfectly
dark. We might as well try a little bluffing even if we do strike them.
They won't know but what we've got five hundred men aboard, and the
others will reach us before they find it out.”
Mallory clambered over the coal in the tender, while the fireman crawled
out on the running board and extinguished the headlight. The night was
very dark, and Jawn leaned out of the cab window, his left hand gripping
the throttle lever. The fireman was badly in need of sleep, and showed a
tendency to grumble in a half-incoherent way, but Jawn was as silent as
at the start. To Harvey, who even in the excitement was afraid to
sit down for fear of falling asleep, the engineer was a marvel in his
machine-like self-control.
Slowly the line of empty cars rolled along. Jawn's eyes were glued
to the track in front, which to Harvey seemed a constantly resolving
confusion of shadows. The tall gray telegraph poles crept by with
monotonous regularity until Harvey turned away and looked out at the dim
meadows on the left, over which was spread a ghostly film of mist.
“There's the cut,” said Jawn.
Harvey looked forward, but could see nothing. Jawn, however, gradually
slackened speed until they were barely moving. Mallory appeared on the
tender and came over the coal to the apron, where he stood leaning out
with one arm around the cab door-post. The fireman heaped a shovel with
coal, and staggering wearily into the cab he knocked open the door of
the fire-box from which a dull glow tempered the darkness. Harvey seated
himself on the fireman's seat, holding himself stiffly erect and trying
to distinguish the track before. Jawn slowly brought the train to a
stop.
“What is it?” asked Harvey. “See anything ahead?”
“No. We're about two hundred yards from the curve.”
Harvey turned to Mallory.
“We'd better throw out a few men ahead, Mallory, to see that the track
is clear.”
“Haven't got many left, not more than half a dozen altogether.”
Harvey stepped down and stretched his tired limbs.
“I'll go myself,” he said. “Call one of your men up here.”
Mallory climbed back on the tender and whistled. A man who had been
sitting on the steps of the first car came forward.
“You wait here, Donohue,” said Harvey. “If everything is all right,
I'll come back.” He struck a match and looked at his watch. “We've been
taking time enough. It's three-fifteen now. I'll walk along the top of
the cut on the left-hand side, and you “--to the detective--“you take
the other side. Keep within easy hail--” He paused abruptly. Through the
crisp night air came the roll and snort of an engine. There was a long
silence in the cab.
“She's running slow,” said Jawn, at length.
Harvey stood breaking the match into bits. The noise of the other train
came slowly nearer, but so slowly that all listened breathlessly. After
a little they could hear the rumbling of an exhaust, and Jawn muttered,
“She's stopped.”
“We'd better wait,” said Mallory. “It's more than likely that they have
another gang ready for us. They probably will be coming this way before
long.”
Harvey stepped up to the fireman's seat again, and fixed his eyes on
the black cut ahead. It was still dark, but he could now distinguish the
deep shadow which marked the spot where the track bent sharply to the
left between its rock walls. For some time all were silent, listening to
the noise of the other engine. Jawn sat on his bench, which he had not
left for hours, ready either for going ahead or for backing, as the
circumstances should dictate. Mallory moved to the step and swung out as
before, watching and listening. The fireman swung his arms and shifted
his feet in an effort to keep awake.
Occasionally they could hear men shouting, then there would be no sound
save the subdued hiss of steam. After a long wait a bell rang, and
Jawn's grasp tightened, but the other engine gave only a few coughs and
stopped again. The ensuing silence was broken by Harvey stepping to the
tender and beckoning to the detective, who had been sitting on the coal.
“All right,” said Harvey. “We'll go ahead and see what they're up to.
You take the right bank, and keep close to the edge where I can talk
to you if necessary.” He swung out of the cab and began laboriously to
climb up the seamed sloping rock, which reached a man's height above the
cab roof.
Excepting the occasional cracks and jagged projections there was no
foothold, and it was at the expense of cut and scraped hands that he
scrambled up the soft limestone and reached the top. He sat for a moment
on the ground to recover his breath and to pull himself together. The
detective was standing on the opposite bank and Harvey rose and
stumbled forward. They crept along, climbing fences and tripping through
underbrush. As they rounded the curve the ground began to slope away,
and soon they could see the headlight of an engine. Behind it, at the
Sawyerville platform, stretched a train of lighted cars.
Harvey and the detective had been talking across the cut, but now for
the sake of caution they went on in silence. Harvey slipped around a
farmyard that backed up to the track, and struck into the woods that lie
north of Sawyerville almost up to the station and its lonely cluster of
houses. Stepping quietly along a bridle path he soon came within earshot
of the station.
Little knots of men stood on the platform talking excitedly. The new
station agent and operator was running about in his shirt sleeves with
his hand full of papers. Within the cars were crowds of men; Harvey
estimated that there were several hundred. Standing near the engine,
the centre of a small group, was a large man whom Harvey thought
was McNally, but he could not be certain at that distance and in the
uncertain light of flickering station lamps.
Harvey's sporting blood was up, and with entire forgetfulness of his
exhaustion he crept slowly forward, worming through the brush and long
grass behind a snake fence. Slowly he progressed until only a muddy
road intervened between him and the north end of the platform. Taking
advantage of a noisy blow-off from the engine, he piled some brush up in
front of him and stretched out at full length with his chin on his arm,
viewing the scene through the opening between the two lowest rails of
the fence. Now he could easily recognize McNally, and without being
able to distinguish words could even hear him talking. Suddenly McNally
stepped out from the group and called down the platform,--
“Blake, are Wilkins and the boys back yet?”
The reply was lost to Harvey, but McNally shouted,--
“If they aren't here in five minutes, go ahead.”
That told Harvey just what he wanted to know, and slowly turning he
began crawling back. But before he had gone very far, he heard a sound
which suggested possibilities. It was the wheezing of his own engine at
the other end of the curve. Now that he stopped to think, he realized
that it must have been perfectly audible to McNally's party. From this
it was naturally to be inferred that “the boys” had been sent out on a
mission similar to his own. It occurred to him that he and they might
have passed, and that the repassing might not so easily be accomplished.
He increased his efforts and soon was deep enough in the woods to get to
his feet and run. When he drew near the farmhouse he took a detour and
passed it with fifty yards to spare. He could not afford to rouse any
dogs. He was getting into the open when three or four men appeared
directly in front of him, walking slowly from a strip of woods toward
the track. Harvey dug his heel into the ground and dodged back, but the
men saw him and without a word started in pursuit.
The chase was not a long one. Harvey was completely hemmed in, and
exhausted as he was and spent with running, he was soon overhauled. He
tried to call out, but one of the men gripped his mouth.
Mallory, as soon as Harvey was out of sight, settled down to await his
return with more or less impatience. The fireman leaned against the
forward end of the tender and promptly fell asleep, but Jawn waked him
with a growl, whereupon the exhausted man stood erect, struggling to
bring his rebellious nerves under control. As the minutes slipped by
Jawn's eyes shifted from track to bank and back to the cut again. The
clouds that lingered from the afternoon rain hid every star save one
near the horizon, which struggled to announce the coming dawn.
Ten minutes passed, and fifteen. Then came the warning bell of the other
locomotive, followed by a quick succession of puffs as the big drivers
gripped the rails. Jawn leaned far out the window and scanned the banks
of the cut. No one was in sight. He ducked in and seized the throttle
lever.
“Hold on,” said Mallory. “Are they coming this way?”
“Yes.”
Mallory seized his arm.
“Back up, then. We can't meet them.”
Jawn jerked his elbow from Mallory's grasp and opened the throttle.
“Are you crazy, man!” Mallory shouted. “Stop her! You'll kill us!”
Jawn opened her a little wider. For an instant Mallory looked at him in
wonder, then he sprang forward and jammed the lever close to the boiler.
“Reverse!” he ordered.
For reply Jawn turned on Mallory and crowded him back. Weak-nerved from
the long strain, suffering for lack of sleep, the two men broke down
for the moment, and struggled about the cab. The fireman stumbled back
against the boiler with a dazed face, but after a moment he recovered
and rushed between the two men.
“This ain't right!” he screamed. “If you two fight, we're ditched.”
As he spoke, the detective who had gone with Harvey came slipping and
tumbling down the cut, and clambered aboard the engine. Jawn and Mallory
fell back against the opposite benches and glared at each other. Jawn
suddenly reached for the throttle.
“Wait a minute,” gasped Mallory; “she's stopped.”
Half reluctantly Jawn listened. Sure enough, the other train had paused,
evidently just around the curve.
“The man's right,” Mallory went on. “We haven't got any business
scrapping; we've got to pull together. Now tell me what you were trying
to do.”
Jawn looked out ahead before he replied,--
“I ain't going to leave Mr. West down there.”
“Isn't Mr. West back?” asked the detective, in a startled tone. “He's
had time enough to go clear to the station and back. I went pretty near
to it myself. They've got a train full of men. It looks like business.”
“Hear that, Donohue?” said Mallory. “What do you think we can do against
a gang like that?”
“That don't make no difference, Mr. Mattison says, 'Hold the line if you
lose an engine doing it,' and I'm going to hold it.”
“But stop to think, man. There isn't a possible chance of holding it.
We'll do more good by dodging back and keeping them guessing until the
relief comes. As it stands now we are perfectly helpless.”
“Now look here,” said Jawn. “You go back and fetch every man you got.”
“What are you up to?”
“No difference what I'm up to. You fetch your men.”
Mallory looked sharply at Jawn, then he motioned to the detective, who
dropped to the ground and hurried back.
“What's your plan?” Mallory asked again. But Jawn shook his head and
watched the cut.
In a moment the detective reappeared followed by five others. All six
came crowding upon the apron. Without leaving his seat Jawn gave his
orders,--
“Get on the tender, as high up as you can, and when we go at 'em, yell
like hell.”
With startled, wondering faces the men clambered back, Mallory among
them, taking positions on the tank and on what was left of the coal.
From around the curve another succession of puffs drew Jawn's eyes to
the front, and his grip tightened.
“Hold on, back there,” he called, “and don't yell till I holler. Fire
up, Billy.”
Billy fired up and the engine moved slowly forward. She crept cautiously
toward the curve, foot by foot. On the rock wall dead ahead a yellow
light flashed, and then crept around toward them. Jawn waited until it
was almost full in his eyes.
“Whistle, Billy,” he said.
The hoarse whistle shrieked, and the other engine seemed to start, then
hesitate.
“Now,” said Jawn, without looking around, and he let out a tremendous
yell of “At 'em, boys!” The men on the tender promptly raised an uproar,
the fireman shouted as he jerked the whistle cord, and Jawn sat with one
eye on the indicator, the other on the approaching headlight, his bass
voice all the while roaring out a fiery challenge not unmixed with
profanity.
The engineer of McNally's special had received no orders to sacrifice
his engine, and had no desire to sacrifice himself. He wavered, stopped,
then tried to back. But Jawn let out another notch, and rammed his
bull nose into and through the other's pilot with such force that both
locomotives left the track.