But Engineer Callahan had no notion of failing. When he had drawn the
hammer on his superior officer, advising discretion and a seat on Jimmy
Shovel's box, the 1010 was racking out over the switches in the Western
Division yards. Three minutes later the electric beam of Tischer's
following headlight sought and found the first section on the long tangent
leading up to the high plains, and the race was in full swing.
At Morning Dew, the first night telegraph station out of the capital, the
two sections were no more than a scant quarter of a mile apart; and the
operator tried to flag the second section down, as reported. This did not
happen again until several stations had been passed, and Callahan set his
jaw and gave the 1010 more throttle. But at Lossing, a town of some size,
the board was down and a man ran out at the crossing, swinging a red
light.
Callahan looked well to the switches, with the steam shut off and his hand
dropping instinctively to the air; and the superintendent shrank into his
corner and gripped the window ledge when the special roared past the
warning signals and on through the town beyond. He had maintained a dazed
silence since the episode of the flourished hammer, but now he was moved
to yell across the cab.
"I suppose you know what you're in for, if you live to get out of this!
It's twenty years, in this State, to pass a danger signal!" This is not
all that the superintendent said: there were forewords and interjections,
emphatic but unprintable.
Callahan's reply was another flourish of the hammer, and a sudden
outpulling of the throttle-bar; and the superintendent subsided again.
But enforced silence and the grindstone of conscious helplessness will
sharpen the dullest wit. The swerving lurch of the 1010 around the next
curve set Halkett clutching for hand-holds, and the injector lever fell
within his grasp. What he did not know about the working parts of a modern
locomotive was very considerable; but he did know that an injector, half
opened, will waste water as fast as an inch pipe will discharge it. And
without water the Irishman would have to stop.
Callahan heard the chuckling of the wasting boiler feed before he had gone
a mile beyond the curve. It was a discovery to excuse bad language, but
his protest was lamb-like.
"No more av that, if ye plaze, Misther Halkett, or me an' Jimmy Shovel'll
have to--Ah! would yez, now?"
Before his promotion to the superintendency Halkett had been a ward boss
in the metropolis of the State. Thinking he saw his chance, he took it,
and the blow knocked Callahan silly for the moment. Afterward there was a
small free-for-all buffeting match in the narrow cab in which the fireman
took a hand, and during which the racing 1010 was suffered to find her way
alone. When it was over, Callahan spat out a broken tooth and gave his
orders concisely.
"Up wid him over the coal, an' we'll put him back in the car where he
belongs. Now, thin!"
Halkett had to go, and he went, not altogether unwillingly. And when it
came to jumping across from the rear of the tender to the forward
vestibule of the Naught-seven, or being chucked across, he jumped.
Now it so chanced that the governor and his first lieutenant in the great
railway steal had weighty matters to discuss, and they had not missed the
superintendent or the lawyer, supposing them to be still out on the rear
platform enjoying the scenery. Wherefore Halkett's sudden appearance,
mauled, begrimed and breathless from his late tussle with the two
enginemen, was the first intimation of wrong-going that had penetrated to
the inner sanctum of the private car.
"What's that you say, Mr. Halkett?--on the Western Division? Whereabouts?"
demanded the governor.
"Between Lossing and Skipjack siding--if we haven't passed the siding in
the last two or three minutes. I've been too busy to notice," was the
reply.
"And you say you were on the engine? Why the devil didn't you call your
man down?"
"I knocked him down," gritted the superintendent, savagely, "and I'd have
beat his face in for him if there hadn't been two of them. It's a plot of
some kind, and Callahan knows what he is about. He had me held up with a
hammer till just a few minutes ago, and he's running past stop-signals and
over red lights like a madman!"
Bucks and Guilford exchanged convictions by the road of the eye, and the
governor said:
"This is pretty serious, Major. Have you anything to suggest?" And without
waiting for a reply he turned upon Halkett: "Where is Mr. Hawk?"
"I don't know. I supposed he was in here with you. Or maybe he's out on
the rear platform."
The three of them went to the rear, passing the private secretary
comfortably asleep in his wicker chair. When they stepped out upon the
recessed observation platform they found it empty.
"He must have suspected something and dropped off in the yard or at the
shops," said Halkett. And at the saying of it he shrank back involuntarily
and added: "Ah! Look at that, will you?"
The car had just thundered past another station, and Callahan had underrun
one more stop-signal at full speed. At the same instant Tischer's
headlight swung into view, half blinding them with its glare.
"What is that following us?" asked Bucks.
"It's the fast mail," said Halkett.
Guilford turned livid and caught at the hand-rail.
"S-s-say--are you sure of that?" he gasped.
"Of course: it was an hour and thirty-five minutes late, and we are on its
time."
"Then we can't stop unless somebody throws us on a siding!" quavered the
receiver, who had a small spirit in a large body. "I told M'Tosh to give
the mail orders to make up her lost time or I'd fire the engineer--told
him to cut out all the stops this side of Agua Caliente!"
"That's what you get for your infernal meddling!" snapped Halkett. In
catastrophic moments many barriers go down; deference to superior officers
among the earliest.
But the master spirit of the junto was still cool and collected.
"This is no time to quarrel," he said. "The thing to be done is to stop
this train without getting ourselves ripped open by that fellow behind the
headlight yonder. The stop-signals prove that Hawk and the others are
doing their best, but we must do ours. What do you say, Halkett?"
"There is only one thing," replied the superintendent; "we've got to make
the Irishman run ahead fast enough and far enough to give us room to stop
or take a siding."
The governor planned it in a few curt sentences. Was there a weapon to be
had? Danforth, the private secretary, roused from his nap in the wicker
chair, was able to produce a serviceable revolver. Two minutes later, the
sleep still tingling in his nerves to augment another tingling less
pleasurable, the secretary had spanned the terrible gap separating the car
from the engine and was making his way over the coal, fluttering his
handkerchief in token of his peaceful intentions.
He was charged with a message to Callahan, mandatory in its first form,
and bribe-promising in its second; and he was covered from the forward
vestibule of the private car by the revolver in the hands of a resolute
and determined state executive.
"One of them's comin' ahead over the coal," warned James Shovel; and
Callahan found his hammer.
"Run ahead an' take a siding, is ut?" he shouted, glaring down on the
messenger. "I have me ordhers fr'm betther men than thim that sint you. Go
back an' tell thim so."
"You'll be paid if you do, and you'll be shot if you don't," yelled the
secretary, persuasively.
"Tell the boss he can't shoot two av us to wanst; an' the wan that's
left'll slap on the air," was Callahan's answer; and he slacked off a
little to bring the following train within easy striking distance.
Danforth went painfully and carefully back with this defiance, and while
he was bridging the nerve-trying gap, another station with the stop-board
down and red lights frantically swinging was passed with a roar and a
whistle shriek.
"Fwhat are they doing now?" called Callahan to his fireman.
"They've gone inside again," was the reply.
"Go back an' thry the tank," was the command; and Jimmy Shovel climbed
over the coal and let himself down feet foremost into the manhole. When he
slid back to the footplate his legs were wet to the mid shin.
"It's only up to there," he reported, measuring with his hand.
Callahan looked at his watch. There was yet a full hour's run ahead of
him, and there was no more than a scant foot of water in the tank with
which to make it.
Thereafter he forgot the Naught-seven, and whatever menace it held for
him, and was concerned chiefly with the thing mechanical. Would the water
last him through? He had once made one hundred and seventy miles on a
special run with the 1010 without refilling his tank; but that was with
the light engine alone. Now he had the private car behind him, and it
seemed at times to pull with all the drag of a heavy train.
But one expedient remained, and that carried with it the risk of his life.
An engine, not overburdened, uses less water proportionately to miles run
as the speed is increased. He could outpace the safe-guarding mail, save
water--and take the chance of being shot in the back from the forward
vestibule of the Naught-seven when he had gained lead enough to make a
main-line stop safe for the men behind him.
Callahan thought once of the child mothered by the Sisters of Loretto in
the convent at the capital, shut his eyes to that and to all things
extraneous, and sent the 1010 about her business. At the first reversed
curve he hung out of his window for a backward look. Tischer's headlight
had disappeared and his protection was gone.
On the rear platform of the private car four men watched the threatening
second section fade into the night.
"Our man has thought better of it," said the governor, marking the
increased speed and the disappearance of the menacing headlight.
Guilford's sigh of relief was almost a groan.
"My God!" he said; "it makes me cold to think what might happen if he
should pull us over into the other State!"
But Halkett was still smarting from the indignities put upon him, and his
comment was a vindictive threat.
"I'll send that damned Irishman over the road for this, if it is the last
thing I ever do!" he declared; and he confirmed it with an oath.
But Callahan was getting his punishment as he went along. He had scarcely
settled the 1010 into her gait for the final run against the failing water
supply when another station came in sight. It was a small cattle town, and
in addition to the swinging red lights and a huge bonfire to illuminate
the yards, the obstructionists had torn down the loading corral and were
piling the lumber on the track.
Once again Callahan's nerve flickered, and he shut off the steam. But
before it was too late he reflected that the barrier was meant only to
scare him into stopping. One minute later the air was full of flying
splinters, and that danger was passed. But one of the broken planks came
through the cab window, missing the engineer by no more than a
hand's-breadth. And the shower of splinters, sucked in by the whirl of the
train, broke glass in the private car and sprinkled the quartet on the
platform with split kindling and wreckage.
"What was that?" gasped the receiver.
Halkett pointed to the bonfire, receding like a fading star in the
rearward distance.
"Our friends are beginning to throw stones, since clods won't stop him."
he said.
Bucks shook his head.
"If that is the case, we'll have to be doing something on our own account.
The next obstruction may derail us."
Halkett stepped into the car and pulled the cord of the automatic air.
"No good," he muttered. "The Irishman bled our tank before he started.
Help me set the hand brakes, a couple of you."
Danforth and the governor took hold of the brake wheel with him, and for a
minute or two the terrible speed slackened a little. Then some part of the
disused hand-gear gave way under the three-man strain and that hope was
gone.
"There's one thing left," said the superintendent, indomitable to the
last. "We'll uncouple and let him drop us behind."
The space in the forward vestibule was narrow and cramped, and with the
strain of the dragging car to make the pin stick, it took two of them
lying flat, waiting for the back-surging moment and wiggling it for slack,
to pull it. The coupling dropped out of the hook and the engine shot ahead
to the length of the safety-chains; thus far, but no farther.
Halkett stood up.
"It's up to you, Danforth," he said, raising his voice to be heard above
the pounding roar of the wheels. "You're the youngest and lightest: get
down on the 1010's brake-beam and unhook those chains."
The secretary looked once into the trap with the dodging jaws and the
backward-flying bottom and declined the honor.
"I can't get down there," he cried. "And I shouldn't know what to do if I
could."
Once more the superintendent exhibited his nerve. He had nothing at stake
save a desire to defeat Callahan; but he had the persistent courage of the
bull-terrier. With Bucks and the secretary to steady him he lowered
himself in the gap till he could stand upon the brake-beam of the 1010's
tender and grope with one free hand for the hook of the nearest
safety-chain. Death nipped at him every time the engine gave or took up
the slack of the loose coupling, but he dodged and hung on until he had
satisfied himself.
"It's no good," he announced, when they had dragged him by main strength
back to a footing in the narrow vestibule. "The hooks are bent into the
links. We're due to go wherever that damned Irishman is taking us."
Shovel was firing, and the trailing smoke and cinders quickly made the
forward vestibule untenable. When they were driven in, Bucks and the
receiver went through to the rear platform, where they were presently
joined by Halkett and Danforth.
"I've been trying the air again," said the superintendent, "but it's no
go. What's next?"
The governor gave the word.
"Wait," he said; and the four of them clung to the hand-rails, swaying and
bending to the bounding lurches of the flying car.
* * * * *
Mile after mile reels from beneath the relentless wheels, and still the
speed increases. Station Donerail is passed, and now the pace is so
furious that the watchers on the railed platform can not make out the
signals in the volleying wake of dust. Station Schofield is passed, and
again the signals, if any there be, are swiftly drowned in the gray
dust-smother. From Schofield to Agua Caliente is but a scant ten miles;
and as the flying train rushes on toward the State boundary, two faces in
the quartet of watchers show tense and drawn under the yellow light of the
Pintsch platform lamp.
The governor swings himself unsteadily to the right-hand railing and the
long look ahead brings the twinkling arc-star of the tower light on
Breezeland Inn into view. He turns to Guilford, who has fallen limp into
one of the platform chairs.
"In five minutes more we shall pass Agua Caliente," he says. "Will you
kill the Irishman, or shall I?" Guilford's lips move, but there is no
audible reply; and Bucks takes Danforth's weapon and passes quickly and
alone to the forward vestibule.
The station of Agua Caliente swings into the field of 1010's electric
headlight. Callahan's tank has been bone dry for twenty minutes, and he is
watching the glass water-gage where the water shows now only when the
engine lurches heavily to the left. He knows that the crown-sheet of the
fire-box is bare, and that any moment it may give down and the end will
come. Yet his gauntleted hand never falls from the throttle-bar to the
air-cock, and his eyes never leave the bubble appearing and disappearing
at longer intervals in the heel of the water-glass.
Shovel has stopped firing, and is hanging out of his window for the
straining look ahead. Suddenly he drops to the footplate to grip
Callahan's arm.
"See!" he says. "They have set the switch to throw us in on the siding!"
In one motion the flutter of the exhaust ceases, and the huge ten-wheeler
buckles to the sudden setting of the brakes. The man standing in the
forward vestibule of the Naught-seven lowers his weapon. Apparently it is
not going to be necessary to kill the engineer, after all.
But Callahan's nerve has failed him only for the moment. There is one
chance in ten thousand that the circumambulating side track is empty; one
and one only, and no way to make sure of it. Beyond the station, as
Callahan well knows, the siding comes again into the main line, and the
switch is a straight-rail "safety." Once again the thought of his
motherless child flickers into the engineer's brain; then he releases the
air and throws his weight backward upon the throttle-bar. Two gasps and a
heart-beat decide it; and before the man in the vestibule can level his
weapon and fire, the one-car train has shot around the station, heaving
and lurching over the uneven rails of the siding, and grinding shrilly
over the points of the safety switch to race on the down grade to Megilp.
At the mining-camp the station is in darkness save for the goggle eyes of
an automobile drawn up beside the platform, and deep silence reigns but
for the muffled, irregular thud of the auto-car's motor. But the beam of
the 1010's headlight shows the small station building massed by men, a
score of them poising for a spring to the platforms of the private car
when the slackening speed shall permit. A bullet tears into the woodwork
at Callahan's elbow, and another breaks the glass of the window beside
him, but he makes the stop as steadily as if death were not snapping at
him from behind and roaring in his ears from the belly of the burned
engine.
"Be doomping yer fire lively, now, Jimmy, b'y," he says, dropping from his
box to help. And while they wrestle with the dumping-bar, these two, the
poising figures have swarmed upon the Naught-seven, and a voice is lifted
above the Babel of others in sharp protest.
"Put away that rope, boys! There's law here, and by God, we're going to
maintain it!"
At this a man pushes his way out of the thick of the crowd and climbs to a
seat beside the chauffeur in the waiting automobile.
"They've got him," he says shortly. "To the hotel for all you're worth,
Hudgins; our part is to get this on the wires before one o'clock. Full
speed; and never mind the ruts."