When Tim returned to the editorial room after lunch that day the
managing editor summoned him to his office.
"I've got an assignment that is somewhat different from your usual run
of things," explained Carson, "but I'm sure you'll enjoy it. The
Southwestern railroad is speeding up the time of its midnight mail. The
new schedule calls for an average speed of fifty-one miles an hour. The
superintendent of this division has invited me to send a reporter on the
first trip tonight. How would you like to ride the cab of the mail down
to Vinton?"
"I'd like it, Mr. Carson," replied Tim. "I've always wanted to ride in
the cab of a fast train."
"You'll have your chance tonight," smiled the managing editor, "for if I
know anything about train schedules the mail is going to throw the miles
up her stack when she hits her stride."
Carson telephoned the railroad offices that Tim would ride the cab that
night.
"You'd better go down to the station about eleven o'clock," said the
managing editor. "You'll get your pass at the ticket office. Then go
down to the roundhouse and get aboard the engine there. The engineer and
conductor will be expecting you. This is quite an event for the railroad
people and I want to give them a good yarn. I'll send Ralph to Vinton
this afternoon in the _Good News_ and he'll wait there and bring you
home in the morning. One of the staff photographers will be at the
station to take flash-lights when the mail pulls out."
"I'll finish my aviation column for tomorrow," said Tim, "and then get
some old clothes for I don't imagine it will be any too clean on the
engine."
When Ralph returned from an assignment he was told to take the _Good
News_ and fly to Vinton, there to await the arrival of Tim on the
midnight mail.
Tim accompanied his flying companion to the airport and helped him wheel
the _Good News_ out of the hangar.
"Traveling on a train will seem kind of slow compared to the _Good
News_," suggested Ralph.
"I don't know about that," replied Tim. "The mail's new schedule is a
hair raiser and they'll have to pound the steel pretty hard to make
their time. It won't be any picnic, I can tell you that."
Ralph, satisfied that the motor was thoroughly warm and ready for its
task, waved at Tim.
"See you in the morning," he called. Then he whipped the _Good News_
across the field and streaked into the southwest.
Tim watched the plane until it disappeared before he turned to the car
which had brought them from town. On his way back to the city he drove
leisurely, thoroughly enjoying the sweetness of the spring afternoon.
The road swung onto a viaduct that spanned the myriad rails of the
Southwestern. A transcontinental limited was pulling into the long
station, feathery puffs of steam drifting away from the safety valve.
The train came to a stop, porters swung their stools down on the
platform and the passengers descended. The engineer dropped down from
the cab and started oiling around the iron speedster of the rails.
There was something thrilling, fascinating about it and Tim looked
forward with high interest to his trip that night. He drove on up town,
returning the car to the garage.
After dinner alone he walked to his room, found a suit of coveralls and
an old cap and bandanna handkerchief. These he rolled up and wrapped in
paper. That done he sat down for an hour of reading the latest aviation
journals and at eight o'clock he set his alarm clock for ten-thirty and
laid down for a nap.
The next thing Tim knew the alarm was ringing steadily and he roused
himself from the deep sleep into which he had fallen. He washed his face
and hands in cold water and felt greatly refreshed, ready for whatever
the night might have in store in the way of adventure.
On the way to the station Tim stopped at an all night restaurant and
enjoyed a platter of delicious country sausage. Then he continued his
walk toward the railroad yards.
The reporter descended the steps from the viaduct and entered the
brightly lighted station. It was two minutes to eleven when he walked up
to the ticket window and introduced himself. The agent on duty handed
him his credentials and told him the shortest way to the roundhouse.
Tim left the station and its glow of light. Outside the night air was
cool and he pulled his leather jacket closer around him. Great arc
lights gleamed at intervals in the yard and a chugging switch engine
disturbed the quiet.
Three blocks from the station was the roundhouse with its countless
chimneys and numberless doors. Tim picked his way carefully over the
switches, skirted the yawning pit that marked the turn-table and entered
the master mechanic's office at the roundhouse.
The master mechanic, old Tom Johnson, was checking over the schedule of
the mail with Fred Henshaw, who was to pull the mail.
"What do you want?" growled Johnson when he saw Tim standing in the
doorway.
"I'm from the _News_," replied Tim. "The superintendent wanted a
reporter to ride the mail tonight."
"What's your name?" asked the master mechanic.
"Tim Murphy."
"Oh, so you're the flying reporter," smiled Johnson as he got out of his
chair and shook hands with Tim. "I've read a lot about you. Glad to know
you. Meet Fred Henshaw. He'll give you a few thrills tonight."
Tim and the engineer shook hands.
"We won't go as fast as you do by plane," smiled the engineer, "But
we'll go places." "I'm looking forward to the trip," said Tim. "It will
be a real experience."
The telephone rang and the master mechanic answered.
"The dispatcher says the mail will be in on the advertised," he said.
"That gives us a break for the test run."
Henshaw nodded and motioned for Tim to accompany him into the
roundhouse.
Electric lights high up under the roof tried vainly to pierce the
shadows which shrouded the hulking monsters of the rails as they rested
in their stalls. There must have been fourteen or fifteen locomotives in
the roundhouse, some of them dead; others breathing slowly and
rhythmically, awaiting their turn to be called for service on the road.
At the far end of the roundhouse there was a glare of light as hostlers
finished grooming the 1064 for its run that night on the mail.
The 1064 was the latest thing the Southwestern boasted in the way of
fast-passenger motive power. It was capable of hauling sixteen all-steel
Pullmans at seventy miles an hour and was as sleek and trim as a
greyhound.
The engineer took his torch and made a final inspection to be sure that
everything was in readiness for the test run. Then he extinguished the
torch, threw it up into the cab, and motioned for Tim to follow him.
The little engineer scrambled up the steps and swung into the cab. Tim
followed but with not nearly as much grace.
The fireman was busy with a long firehook and the glow from the open
door of the firebox lighted the cab with a ruddy brilliance. When the
iron doors of the firebox slammed shut and the fireman straightened up,
the engineer introduced his fireman, Harry Benson.
Introductions completed, the engine crew fixed a place for Tim on the
seat behind the engineer.
Henshaw looked at his watch. It was eleven forty-five. He stuck his head
out the window and looked at the turn-table. It had been swung into
place ready for the 1064 to steam out of the house.
Harry Benson started the bell ringer, Henshaw released the air and
opened the throttle a notch. The 1064 came to life, steam hissed from
its cylinders, the drivers quivered and moved slowly in the reverse
motion. The 1064 slid out of the roundhouse, rocked a little as it went
over the turn-table and then eased down the darkened yards until it came
to a stop near the end of the long train shed.
At eleven-fifty a penetrating whistle came through the night to be
followed several minutes later by the blazing headlight of the westbound
mail.
The long string of mail cars came to a halt in front of the station, the
engine which had brought them in was cut off, and steamed down the yard
on its way to the roundhouse. A lantern at the head end of the mail
signalled for the 1064 to back down and Henshaw set the engine in motion
again.
With a delicate handling of the air he nosed the tender of the 1064
against the head mail car. The work of coupling the engine to the train
was a matter of seconds. Then Henshaw tested the air. It worked
perfectly and the midnight mail was ready to continue its westward race
across the continent.
The interior of the cab was lighted by a green-shaded bulb just above
the gauges on the boiler. The sides were in the shadows and there was no
reflection to bother the engineer as he stared into the night.
The conductor ran forward along the train and handed a sheaf of order
tissues into the cab. Henshaw and his fireman read them together to make
sure that they understood every order.
"Slow order for that new bridge at Raleigh is going to hurt," was the
only comment the engineer made as he climbed back on his box.
Mail trucks rumbled along the platform as extra crews hastened the work
of unloading and loading the mail. Then they were through. The mail was
ready for the open steel.
The conductor's lantern at the back end of the train flashed in the
"high ball" and Henshaw answered with two short, defiant blasts of the
whistle.
The engineer dusted the rails with sand, opened the throttle, and the
1064 settled down to its night's work. With nine steel cars of mail to
hold it down, the giant engine plunged out of the yards.
Over the switches they clattered, the cab rocking and reeling as they
struck the frogs. They had a straight shot through the yards to the main
line and Henshaw wasted no time in getting the 1064 into its stride.
They flashed past the outer signal towers and now only two twin ribbons
of steel lay ahead of them. The mail was speeding down the right-hand
westbound track. They would meet the eastbound trains coming down the
left-hand pair of rails.
The needle on the speed indicator mounted steadily as Henshaw opened the
throttle notch by notch. The 1064's exhaust was a steady, deafening
volley that made conversation impossible.
Block signals popped up in the searching rays of the headlight to
disappear in the thunder of the train almost before Tim had time to read
their signals. But the engineer saw them all and knew that the steel
highway ahead of him was clear.
Harry Benson was busy feeding the fire. He swayed to and fro in the
glare from the open firebox. First to the tender, then to the cab with a
scoop of coal, then back to the tender for more coal.
By the time the mail was five miles out of Atkinson, Henshaw had the
1064 near the peak of its stride. They were rolling down the line at
better than seventy miles an hour. It was a dizzy pace and the cab
rocked and rolled over the steel.
Tim marveled at the easy grace of the fireman as he swung back and forth
between the cab and the tender, feeding great shovels of coal into the
hungry firebox.
The mail flashed through sleeping villages and past darkened farmhouses.
The country through which they were speeding was sparsely settled and
there were few grade crossings. Only occasionally did Henshaw reach for
the whistle cord and send a sharp warning into the night.
Raleigh was their first scheduled stop and five miles this side of the
city they slid down into a valley where a roaring stream rushed under
the rails. A repair crew had been strengthening the bridge and had not
quite completed their work. As a result the dispatcher had put out a
slow order which called for a speed not in excess of thirty miles an
hour over the bridge. Henshaw glanced at his watch and grumbled to
himself as he pinched the mail down to comply with the orders. The air
brakes ground hard on the wheels and Tim looked back at the train.
Sparks were flying from every truck, cascading in showers along the
right-of-way.
They rumbled over the bridge and Henshaw opened up again. Every minute
counted and he rolled the mail into Raleigh at a lively clip.
There was no need to handle the mail as he would a crack
transcontinental limited with extra fare passengers and a diner full of
chinaware and Henshaw whipped the mail into the station and ground her
down hard. They stopped with a jerk that jarred every bone in Tim's
body.
The doors of the mail cars were rolled open and the crew started tossing
the pouches. Henshaw picked up his torch, lighted it, and dropped down
to oil around while Benson pulled the spout down from the nearby water
tank and gave the engine a drink.
High speed means lots of steam and steam means water and more water.
Hundreds of gallons gushed into the tank on the tender and the fireman
had just completed his task when they got the highball. He was still on
top of the tender when Henshaw cracked his throttle and started the mail
on another leg of its fast run.
The fireman scrambled down off the swaying tender, opened the firebox,
and started throwing in coal like a man possessed. There was a slight
grade out of the station at Raleigh and the laboring exhaust fairly
pulled the fire out the stack.
Once over the grade the 1064 hit her stride and they rolled away along
the foothills of the Great Smokies. This particular main stem of the
Southwestern ran through the foothills for several hundred miles,
finally finding a pass through which the rails continued their journey
to the coast.
The running would be more precarious now and there was only one more
stop and that for water at the village of Tanktown, a hamlet where a few
railroad men made their home.
Tim was fascinated by the precision with which the great locomotive
worked, with the confidence the engineer displayed in its handling and
with the dexterity of the fireman as he fed fuel to the firebox.
On and on rushed the mail, the speed never under sixty miles an hour and
sometimes well over seventy. Just before they plunged into the foothills
they struck a stretch of ten miles of almost straight track with only
one or two gentle grades.
Henshaw yelled at his fireman and Benson grinned and motioned for the
engineer to open the throttle. The bar went back into the last notch and
Tim felt the engine pulsate with new power. The needle on the speed
indicator climbed to seventy-five and kept on. It paused at eighty and
then went on up to eighty-three. They were bouncing around in the cab
when the little air whistle which the conductor uses in signalling the
engine peeped.
Henshaw waited until the conductor had signalled several times before he
eased off on the throttle and they dropped down to the slow pace of
sixty-five miles an hour.
"I guess we gave the boys behind a thrill," yelled Henshaw and the
fireman nodded as he straightened up to rest his weary muscles.
Once in the foothills where the grades were frequent and the curves
tighter, their speed dropped below sixty miles an hour.
When they stopped at Tanktown for coal and water, they were seven
minutes ahead of their schedule and Henshaw took ample time to touch up
the journals and bearings of the great engine with liberal doses of oil.
The conductor ran forward.
"What's the idea," he demanded. "Were you trying to put us all in the
ditch?" "Keep cool, keep cool," grinned Henshaw. "Our orders were to
make time and we made it."
"Our orders didn't call for eighty-three miles an hour," sputtered the
trainman. "Next time you try a stunt like that I'll pull the air on
you."
"You'll lose time if you do," smiled the engineer. "You sit back in your
mail cars and I'll do the worrying about keeping the train on the
rails."
The fireman yelled that he was ready to go. Henshaw looked at his watch
and climbed into the cab.
The whistle blasted two short, sharp calls and the flagman on the back
end swung aboard. The mail sped on the last lap of its inaugural run on
the new schedule.
Mile after mile disappeared behind the red lights of the last car. They
were less than forty miles from the end of the division when they swung
around a curve to see the rails ahead of them disappear in an inferno of
flame.
Henshaw jammed on the air and leaned far out of the cab. Tim dropped
down in the gangway and looked ahead. A small patch of timber through
which the right-of-way passed was on fire, and a wall of flame barred
their way.
The engineer pinched his train down to a stop about two hundred yards
from the burning timber. Even at that distance they could hear the roar
of the flames and feel the heat from the cauldron of fire.
"Looks like this is the end of your run," said Tim.
"Don't know," replied the engineer. "We might make it."
"Going to try and run the fire?" asked the fireman.
"Orders say to get the mail through to the west end on time," said the
engineer, "And orders are orders. What say, boys?"
"I say yes," grinned the fireman. "The steel ought to hold us and we can
coast through without much push or pull on the rails."
"I'm riding the mail," said Tim when the engineer turned to him.
"Then here we go," decided Henshaw. He threw over the reverse lever and
started backing away from the flames. When the 1064 was a mile from the
burning timber he brought the train to a stop.
Mail clerks and trainmen had their heads out the doors, wondering what
the engineer was going to do.
The conductor hurried up.
"We'll have to stay here," he told the engineer.
"Stay here? Well, I guess not," replied Henshaw. "Orders say 'on time'
at the west end. If you're going to stay with this train, swing on and
make it snappy. We're going to run for it."
The conductor protested but the engineer set his train in motion and the
conductor finally swung on one of the mail cars and climbed inside.
The 1064 picked up speed rapidly and they rolled down on the fire.
"Duck down behind the boiler when I yell," said the engineer and Tim and
the fireman nodded that they understood.
The distance between the pilot and the flames was decreasing rapidly.
Tim slid off the box behind the engineer and clung to one side of the
cab. The world ahead was a wall of fire that leaped toward the heavens.
Tim heard the engineer yell and he ducked behind the head of the boiler.
The engine swayed sickeningly but held to the steel. There was the roar
of the fire, the stifling heat that seemed to sear its way into his
lungs, hot brands filled the cab and he felt his hair scorching in the
terrific heat. Then the engine stumbled onto cool steel and they were
through the burning timber and into the cool night air again.
Tim shook the cinders from his hair and straightened up. He looked for
the engineer and found Henshaw industriously beating out tongues of
flame which were licking around the window. Between flailing his arms at
the fire he would stop momentarily to widen out on the throttle as the
1064 swung into her stride again.
The reporter turned to the fireman's side of the cab. Benson was
missing.
With a cry of alarm, Tim summoned the engineer from his side of the cab.
"The fireman's gone!" he cried.
Both of them felt the hand of death grip at their hearts. Perhaps a
lurch of the cab had thrown Benson out and into the flaming woods. There
would have been no chance for his survival and they looked at each other
with horror written in their faces.
The shock of the sudden tragedy left Tim speechless and the engineer
climbed slowly back to his throttle. There was no joy in the cab of the
1064 over their victory with the flames for Henshaw had lost the best
fireman he had ever had.
Tim was used to sudden shocks but the one of turning to look for the
fireman and finding him gone was one that would remain with him through
life.
The needle on the steam gauge wavered and started down as the 1064 made
its heavy demands for power. Someone must keep the fire hot.
Henshaw glanced anxiously at his watch.
"We're right on the dot now," he shouted at Tim. "If you can throw the
black diamonds for about thirty minutes we'll go into the west end on
time."
"I'll do my best," shouted Tim above the noise of the madly working
machinery.
A foot lever which operated a small steam engine opened the door of the
firebox and Tim stepped on the lever. The heavy iron doors swung open
and he looked into a white-hot pit. The fire was thin in spots and he
picked up Benson's scoop, set his legs for the pitch and roll of the
cab, and swung a scoop of coal into the firebox. The first one went
where he intended it but on the second attempt they struck a tight curve
and most of the coal went up the engineer's neck.
Henshaw laughed.
"Better luck next time," he shouted encouragingly.
Tim took a fresh grip on the scoop and in less than five minutes had an
even bed of coal scattered over the firebox.
There was something strange and mysterious about the woods being on fire
and it troubled Tim, who sought some solution as he swayed from tender
to firebox and back to tender. Here it was, the spring of the year, and
that patch of woods afire. A campfire started by tramps might have
spread, but Tim doubted that thought. Sparks from a passing train might
have been the cause but for some reason, perhaps just a newspaperman's
intuition, he felt that there was something sinister behind the cause of
the fire.
"Take it easy, we're almost in," shouted Henshaw as he pointed to the
lights of Vinton as they swung around a curve.
Tim stuck his scoop into the coal pile and straightened up for the first
time since he had taken the fireman's place.
The muscles in his back ached and his arms were sore, but he felt that
he had earned his ride. His thoughts still on the fire, he stepped over
to the engineer's side of the cab.
"Anything of special value on tonight?" he asked.
"Don't know for sure," replied Henshaw as he eased up on the throttle.
"There were rumors back at Atkinson that there was a lot of _specie_
aboard for some coast bank. Never can tell but the mail usually has a
pouch or two of valuable mail."
Tim was silent as Henshaw guided the mail through the maze of tracks
that marked the east entrance of the yards at Vinton. Green and red
lights blinked out of the night at them.
There was the hollow roar as they rumbled past long lines of freight
cars on the sidings, the sharp exhaust of a laboring switch engine, the
multiple lights of the roundhouse and finally the station itself loomed
in the rays of their headlight.
At the far end of the big depot Tim could see another engine waiting to
be hooked onto their train to continue the mail's dash for the coast.
Henshaw cracked his throttle just enough to bring them in with a
flourish and stopped his scorched string of mail cars at the station on
time to the second.
When Tim dropped out of the cab he was astounded to see Colonel Robert
Searle, head of the state police, striding toward him.
"Hello, Murphy," said the officer, "what's this I hear about you fellows
running through a piece of burning timber?"
"That's right, Colonel," said Tim. "We struck a patch about forty miles
down the line and it looked for a time like we weren't going to get
through. Then Mr. Henshaw, the engineer, decided to run for it."
"You didn't waste much time when you first stopped for the fire did
you?"
"Not any more than we had to," said the engineer. "The string of
varnished cars was stepping on a fast schedule."
"Then that explains why there wasn't a million dollar robbery on this
line tonight," said the head of the state police.