"THEY'RE AFTER US!"
At Big Shanty, the chatter of the train crew and passengers at breakfast
died as though the world had been struck dumb. The hissing of escaping
steam was followed by the whir of wheels slipping on the track. William
Fuller, the conductor of the train, was the first to his feet. He ran to
the door, with Anthony Murphy, a railroad man who had been a passenger on
the train, following him. They were in time to see the _General_, with
three freight cars, swing around the bend and disappear. On the tender, a
man arose, waved his arms and yelled. The yell came drifting back to them
above the noise of the stolen engine.
"Deserters!" exclaimed Fuller. He raced up the track, with the engineer and
the fireman of the train following him. They were so hopelessly
outdistanced that the crowd laughed.
Murphy found the station agent. "Get a horse and ride back to Marietta," he
ordered. "Telegraph Atlanta--train stolen--start a train in pursuit." He,
too, joined in the chase up the tracks.
It was Fuller's idea that his train had been taken by conscripts who were
deserting from the Confederate encampment on the other side of the tracks.
He believed that they would run the engine until they had put several miles
between them and Big Shanty, and then take refuge in the woods. He had been
warned in Atlanta, just before he left on this run, to keep a sharp watch
for deserting conscripts; it was for that reason he had scrutinized the
passengers in his train so closely.
With Fuller in the lead, they rounded curve after curve of the track,
hoping each time to find the abandoned engine.
"I can't go any farther," panted the engineer.
"Come on!" yelled Fuller.
The men yanked off their coats, tossed them aside, and settled down into a
trot. Murphy was still bringing up the rear.
Presently they came to Moon Station. Not far away there was a miniature
flat-car of the type which is loaded with tools and supplies and pushed
along the track. Ahead of them the road swept down in a gentle grade.
"Throw that on the track," ordered Fuller. The four men, puffing from their
long run, took the corners of the little car and dragged it to the tracks.
Fuller started them with a shove, then scrambled aboard.
"I sent the agent riding back to Marietta," panted Murphy.
"At Etowah," replied Fuller, "they have an engine--the _Yonah_. It belongs
to the iron works. If it isn't up at the mills we'll take it."
"Has it steam up?" asked Murphy.
"I don't know. If it hasn't, we're done."
The hand-car was coasting easily down the grade; it rounded a sharp bend.
"Jump!" yelled the engineer.
His warning came too late. The car reached the spot where Andrews' men had
torn up the rail; its wheels left the track and it spun about, scattering
the men over the ground.
"Anybody hurt?" demanded Fuller, scrambling to his feet.
"No," they answered. All of them were bruised and the fireman's cheek was
cut. "It's nothing," he said. They righted the car and dragged it to the
track.
"Look at that!" called Fuller, pointing to the broken telegraph wires.
"This isn't a conscript's job."
"What do you think?" asked Murphy. "The Yanks?"
"Probably. Get that car back on the tracks, anyway. Grab some of those
fence rails. We've about reached the bottom of the grade, and we can pole
the car faster than we can walk. I can't run another inch."
They found two light rails, boarded the car and coasted to the bottom of
the grade. Then began the tedious work of poling. It was, as Fuller had
said, faster than walking. On level track they could go five or six miles
an hour; on the upgrades, two of them walked while the other two poled.
At the top of the last grade before they came to Etowah, they looked down
and saw the _Yonah_ a mile away, upon the turn-table. The locomotive was
being turned for its trip up the branch to the iron works!
"Give a push!" yelled Fuller. "In another minute we're lost."
The four men ran beside the hand car and started down the grade, jumping
aboard when they could run no faster. The car slipped to and fro on the
tracks, yanked them about the curves.
"Keep a sharp lookout ahead on the tracks," ordered Fuller. But the way was
clear. If Andrews had stopped at this point to obstruct the track, the
pursuit which followed would have been impossible. The _Yonah_ would have
been on its way up the branch before the hand car arrived.
As it was, the engineer of the _Yonah_ was climbing aboard when his
attention was attracted by the yells of the men on the approaching car,
flying down the track as fast as a hand car ever traveled. He waited,
wondering what was wrong.
Fuller ran to the _Yonah_, while his men pushed the hand car from the
track. "We'll have to take this engine," he said. "The Yanks have stolen my
train!" The three men joined him, and before the engineer could protest,
they were pushing at the bar of the turn-table, swinging the locomotive
around.
"I haven't much fuel," said the engineer.
"You have enough to get us to Kingston," answered Fuller. "Get aboard
there!"
The _Yonah_ slipped from the turn-table, swung into the main track and
started in pursuit. The throttle was open wide.
Fuller and Murphy exchanged glances; the same thought had crossed their
minds. If the Yanks had torn up the track ahead of them, the _Yonah_ would
be wrecked, and, traveling at such speed, a wreck meant death for them all.
The _Yonah_ would hurl itself from the track, and end in a steaming,
smoldering ruin. Yet the two men kept their thoughts to themselves and said
nothing. Caution at that moment might mean that they would lose the race.
It was better to lose in a wreck than to lose by delaying. The _Yonah_--it
was a light engine--fairly danced upon the rails.
Passengers along the way who had been disappointed once by a train which
did not stop for them, gazed in amazement as the engine flashed past.
Fuller, sitting behind the engineer, leaned out of the window and peered
ahead, watching the track anxiously. Murphy, with the two men who had come
with them, stood by the brakes, ready to apply them when Fuller gave the
signal. They were two miles from Kingston when Fuller lurched across the
cab and pulled the whistle cord. It was that long shrieking blast which
Andrews' men had heard as the _General_ swung around the bend of the
side-track into the main line.
Andrews, as Kingston dropped behind them, stood leaning against the side of
the cab, his chin in his hand, and his eyes closed. Tom, stripped to his
waist, was struggling back and forth between the tender and the engine with
logs of wood which he shoved into the fire-box. The _General_ was belching
great clouds of black smoke; red sparks flashed back over the train like a
plume waving in the breeze.
"That's enough," yelled Knight. "We've got a full head of steam now. Push
her, Brown, push her!"
And still Andrews stood there, with his eyes closed, thinking. Tom
clambered to the fireman's seat.
"Stop here!" called Andrews suddenly.
Tom sprang for the brake.
"Rip down those wires," Andrews continued. "Two of you men--you and
you--load those ties in the freight car." He pointed to a pile which lay
near the track. "Put some of them on the rails." Then when they were under
way again, he yelled to Knight, "Stop around that next bend--we'll tear up
a rail."
The men streamed out again, when the train had come to a stop; they
wrenched at the spikes with their inadequate tools, but the oak ties held
them stubbornly. The task was little more than half completed when Andrews
came running.
"Pry it up--don't bother about the rest of the spikes. Give a hand, here."
They slid a bar under the rail and pulled upward, straining. Slowly it
bent; then broke. The men tumbled over each other down the embankment, a
mixture of bodies, legs, arms and tools, with the rail clattering after
them. Miraculously, no one was hurt. Tom was at the bottom of the heap; he
struggled loose and climbed up to the track.
Andrews snatched his hat off and ran, waving it, back to the engine.
"'Board!" he shouted. The _General_ rushed forward, under full power.
Andrews sat beside Tom in the fireman's seat. "The people who are chasing
us will be held up by the freight trains at Kingston," he said. "It will
probably be ten minutes before they can get clear of the station. It was a
gamble, stopping to tear up that rail. I was afraid they'd come up on us.
That will block them, though." He looked back along the track. "We'll be in
Adairsville soon. We have to meet the through freight there."
"Wood!" yelled Knight. Tom slid down from his seat and struggled with the
logs. Andrews moved over to Brown and yelled in his ear. Brown, without
taking his eyes off the track ahead of him, nodded. He had the throttle
open wide, and the _General_ was swaying perilously on the curves. Long
moments passed while the engine seemed to travel on the outer wheels; then,
as the track straightened, to come crashing down.
Tom was becoming accustomed to the swaying, jerking floor of the cab. He
hurried back and forth between the tender and the fire-box, crouching to
keep his balance, struggling with the heavy logs. He was covered with soot,
and the sweat made tiny rivulets in the black as it streamed down his body.
His shirt had been caught by a puff of wind and carried out of the cab. He
lifted the lid of the fireman's seat and threw his coat and cape into the
box.
Andrews sat beside him again, glancing nervously at his watch. "If we are
more than an hour late at Adairsville, the through freight may pull out and
block the road. Then there's the southbound passenger train."
"At Adairsville?" asked Tom.
"No, at Calhoun," answered Andrews. "There is the same danger with that as
with the freight. If we don't come within an hour of the time we're due, it
has a right to go ahead and meet us at the next station." They were
rounding a curve which gave them a clear view of the track behind for
several miles. The pursuing engine was not in sight.
The speed of the _General_ slackened. Tom glanced ahead and saw
Adairsville.
"Are we going to stop?" he asked.
"Yes. I want to get that freight started south. They might wait, when they
see that this is not the passenger train. Work up a full head of steam
while we're here, Knight."
Tom put more fuel upon the fire. The train slid into the station at
Adairsville and stopped. The freight train was standing on the side-track,
ready to pull out. Andrews jumped to the platform:
"I'm running this special train to Chattanooga," he announced. "Some of
Beauregard's troops have been cut off by Mitchel. Is the passenger train
waiting for me at Calhoun?"
"I don't know," answered the amazed station agent. The conductor and the
engineer of the freight train came running up.
"What's this--what's this?" asked the conductor.
"Special powder train," answered the station agent.
"Your way is clear to Kingston," said Andrews. "The passenger train is
waiting there. I have to be going."
"But the southbound passenger train!" protested the conductor. "It has left
Calhoun by this time. You'd better wait here."
"If I meet any train, I'll blow it off the face of the earth!" answered
Andrews. "I have twenty tons of powder in those cars." He waved toward the
empty box-cars--empty except for the sixteen men in the last. He swung
aboard the _General_.
"Go ahead," he ordered.
Knight was at the throttle. After the one curve which took them out of
sight of Adairsville, the tracks stretched straight ahead of them, and
there was a slight down grade. Knight opened the throttle wide. The
_General_ plunged forward in huge leaps, swaying through space. There were
moments when all the wheels seemed clear of the tracks, when the locomotive
seemed to fly; at other times it settled on the tracks and shook as though
it were about to drop in pieces. Behind them, the freight cars lashed back
and forth, throwing the men on the floor when they tried to rise.
"Wood!" yelled Brown.
Tom took up his struggle with the logs. Now he picked them up and heaved
them into the cab, then followed, holding to the tender, and stuffed them
into the flames. He stopped once for breath, and looked at Knight. The
engineer's face was screwed into a grimace; his jaw was set, his eyes half
closed, and his head thrust forward into the wind which swept past them.
Occasionally he closed the throttle a few notches, as though he were
tempering the speed just enough to keep the _General_ from leaping into the
air. He seemed to be controlling a live monster, bent on carrying them to
destruction.
Outside, the country flitted past them, a blur of trees and hills.
Andrews lurched across the cab and shouted to Knight: "Calhoun--around
bend!" Knight nodded and slackened off on the throttle. The _General_
drifted into a normal speed which, by comparison, was mere crawling; it hit
the curve, swayed and settled down upon the tracks.
"Brake!" screamed Knight.
Brown and Tom lunged for the wheel and twisted. When it was set, Tom leaned
from the cab and saw that they were bearing down upon the passenger train,
its whistle screeching a warning. The two engines stopped within twenty
yards of collision.
Andrews ducked out on the running board of the _General_. "Get back!" he
yelled, waving frantically.
The engineer of the passenger train did not wait to ask questions; he
reversed his locomotive and slid back into Calhoun, taking the main track.
That left the side-track for Andrews. The engineer of the passenger train,
in his anxiety to be far away from the train which had almost wrecked him,
had backed so far that his rear car was blocking the other end of the
side-track.
"Draw up and let me out," called Andrews.
But the engineer descended from his cab. "What do yon mean by running me
down that way?" he demanded explosively. "You're over an hour late. I have
the right of way." Then as he came closer: "Who are you?"
"I have the right of way here," answered Andrews. "This is a special powder
train."
"Special or no special," answered the engineer, "no man can run a train
like that on this road. Show me your orders."
"Get your train out of my way," answered Andrews. He was calm again now,
and his tone showed nothing of the agony of suspense raging within him.
"I refuse to clear the track until you show me your orders for running like
that."
Andrews glanced at Tom. And there was meaning in that glance. Tom swung
from the engine and strolled back along the train, ready to call the men.
"Get your train out of my way," answered, Andrews evenly. He pulled out his
watch. "I'll give you thirty seconds to start your train forward. At the
end of that time I'll have my men do it for you, and I'll take you to
Chattanooga with me--charged with aiding the enemy!"
The engineer began to splutter; then he paused, turned suddenly and strode
off toward his engine. The passenger train pulled slowly ahead. Tom ran to
the switch, threw the handle, and swung aboard the _General_ as it passed
him.
"Whew!" said Andrews. "I thought we were going to have trouble there."
"Do you think the passenger train will pull out?" asked Tom. "That would
block 'em."
"No," answered Andrews. "He'll stay there. I wanted to tell him that the
way was clear to Adairsville ... but I couldn't. It might mean a wreck, if
they are still pursuing us. That would be terrible--it's a passenger
train."
Tom nodded. Brown yelled for more wood. When the fire had been stoked, Tom
took his seat beside Andrews.
"We've left them behind now, I think," continued the leader. "That tangle
of freight at Kingston will stop them."
A deep rumble, rising above the noise of the _General_ struck their ears.
For a moment they did not know what it was; then Tom exclaimed, "Thunder!
Look!" He pointed to the black sky. Already the rain was splashing down
upon them, streaking the forward windows of the cab.
"We're near the Reseca bridge now," said Andrews. Then he added: "If only
the rain doesn't come down hard enough to put out our fires! It may take us
longer.... Hey, Knight! Stop here! We'll tear up the rails!"
The _General_ glided around a sharp curve in the road and came to a stop.
The men jumped out from the box-car.
"Pull up some rails here, men," ordered Andrews. "Break the wires, Scott."
Scott was already halfway up a telegraph pole.
"We dumped some ties out on the road back there," said Ross. "They're lying
across the rails."
"Good!" answered Andrews. "I think we've left them behind, but we can't
take any chances. We may have to spend more time at the bridges starting
the fires."
He ran back to where the men were working at the rail, grabbed the iron bar
and rained blows down upon the spikes. When half of the spikes had been
drawn, he yelled, "Pry this up!" They put the iron bar beneath the rail,
and pulled. Slowly the remaining spikes gave way, and the _inside rail of
the curve_ rattled down the embankment.
"Now for the other side," ordered Andrews.
The men were beginning to attack the spikes when a prolonged blast of a
locomotive whistle sounded to the south. There was an instant of quiet;
then Andrews yelled:
"Come on! They're after us, but that rail will be enough to wreck them!"
They ran for the train.