NIP AND TUCK
Engine No. 810 was running free through the night with a big string of
box-cars and gondolas tossing along behind her, dim shadows in the
dark. Her powerful electric headlight threw a beam, long and bright,
that burrowed into the black void far in front. But for this and the
few red-glowing chinks in her firebox and the thunder of the wheels,
the freight might have been some phantom reptile rushing through the
land with two red eyes in its tail.
Evans, the fireman, kicked impatiently at the slash-bar and hooked the
fire. The lurid glare from the white fires that curled and writhed
under the crown-sheet flung wide upon flying right-of-way and the woods
on either side, and played with the swirling ribbon of steam that was
hissing back from the dome. Bathed in the blinding light, the fireman
stood for a space, swinging his scoop with pendulum precision from
fire-box to coal-tank and back again; then the whole scene went out
suddenly.
Engineer Macdonald, leaning out over his armrest, chafed at the delay
as he choked her head for the Spruce Valley grade. The line was clear
as far as Indian Creek; but up there somewhere they would have to take
the siding for the first section of the Limited, eastbound.
With a glance at the indicator and the guages, the fireman jerked a
blackened thumb over his shoulder towards the coal-tank. Macdonald
shook his head.
"We'll fill her at Number Seven," he shouted.
They were bearing down upon the switch lights opposite Thorlakson. But
Macdonald was in a hurry and too anxious to take advantage of the grade
to stop for water there. The few scattered lights flicked by and they
were off again into the blackness ahead.
On the time-card No. 7 was a "blind" water tank farther on up the line,
the loneliest tank on the division. The surrounding country was wild
and uninhabited save for the isolated groups of loyal track-men who
stuck to their lonely but important posts during the blizzard months
with the same persistence that carried them through the fly season.
Engine 810 would take water there.
Fifteen minutes' run and Macdonald drew in his head, shut off steam,
opened the sander, threw the brakeshoes against the drivers and brought
everything to a shuddering standstill with the pilot slipping just past
the tank, while his fireman was scrambling back amongst the coal to
haul down the overhanging spout. And all of this was quite within the
prosaics of the night's work.
What immediately followed was not. There was nothing in the locality
to prepare them for it, while the hour was late and the night damp and
disagreeable--nothing to account for the flying figure of a girl
dashing wildly up the headlight's path, straight for the engine, arms
waving frantic signals.
The engineer's wondering profanity scarcely had begun to flow freely
before she was on top of them. Panting, wild-eyed, hair in riotous
disorder, this beautiful young woman climbed up into the cab with the
agility of an overpowering excitement, pouring out upon the astonished
enginemen a wonderful stream of incoherent "explanations."
Evans, who never before had seen a girl on the verge of hysteria, swore
deep and long under his breath, staring as if in a trance. He came to
himself only when the water overflowed the manhole, and he let go of
the spout with a carelessness that earned him a wetting as it lifted,
dripping, back into place.
No sooner had the girl set foot on the deck than she clambered into the
head brakeman's seat, nestling in alongside the boiler-head as far
forward as she could get, her feet on the fireman's lunch-pail, her
knees drawn up in clasped fingers and her eyes looking straight ahead
out of the narrow cab window. That it might be against the rules of
the road for strangers to ride on an engine apparently had not occurred
to her, for she seemed to take it for granted that she was entirely
welcome as long as she did not get in their way.
The fireman stared across at Macdonald and surreptitiously tapped his
forehead; the engineer stared back at Evans and winked knowingly. The
whole thing had taken but a few moments. A light was swinging out from
the top of the cars at the rear and Macdonald opened the throttle.
They were moving ahead before either of the two men could think of
anything but several variations of the word "damn."
In this manner did Miss Cristy Lawson come to take her first ride on an
engine. The night had been crowded with nerve-wracking excitement; but
in the elation which she experienced over this unexpected way out of
her difficulty, she felt renewed strength and confidence that surely
would see her through. Half an hour ago she had been lost in a welter
of despair; but she was all right now. Everything was all right now.
The story would get through yet; nothing could stop it now. And,
protected by the roar of the wheels, she cried a little in relief.
Just a moment of this, however. She was not ordinarily the crying
kind. The furnace glare presently filled the whole cab as the fireman
shovelled in more coal, and the novelty of her surroundings pressed
upon her to the temporary exclusion of everything else.
Wasn't the din something awful? She had no idea that a locomotive was
such a noisy place. She soon found herself getting more used to it and
watched the engineer with wonder and interest. Her idea of an
engineer, she found, had been formed by the illustrations in the
magazines; she had pictured him in her mind as a man who sat with hand
constantly on the throttle or the levers or whatever it was, bent far
forward, peering keenly and steadily from beneath the visor of his
greasy cap with eyes riveted unswervingly on every yard of track ahead.
She was surprised, therefore, to find that this engineer seemed almost
careless of attitude, leaning back in his cushioned seat, body jogging
loosely to the motions of the great machine. It was only occasionally
that he seemed to arouse enough interest to lean out of the window, and
scarcely ever did he touch the levers in front of him. Once he
actually got down from his seat and came over to the fireman's side to
shout something in that grimy individual's ear, and all the while they
were thundering along without any lessening of speed. What if
something should appear suddenly on the track in front of them? Her
heart leaped at the thought. She was sure he could not get back in
time to stop, and it was all very surprising to her.
Curiously her eyes roved over all the levers and queer instruments.
Certainly an engineer must have to carry a terrible lot in his head to
know how to manage them. There was a little knob, for instance; if she
were to give it a pull, something would happen somewhere, an explosion
perhaps,--dear knows what! She watched the hand of the indicator on
the boilerhead fluttering around the figure 190. She studied the
liquid in the glass tubes. A little apparatus, too, that looked like a
small whistle. Was it a whistle and when did they blow it? Steam was
bubbling out of a joint in a pipe right at her side; the hot water
dribbled on her dress once when she leaned too far over and she caught
the fireman grinning at her.
She laughed light-heartedly, taking a child-like joy out of this new
and thrilling experience. She could not help marvelling at the
unconcern with which these men attended to their work; they were
perfectly at home on this rolling engine.
Didn't it rock and jerk about, though? It was enough to tear out the
rails almost, it seemed to her, and her pulses quickened at the thought
that if anything should break! But it did not seem to, somehow.
The fireman's gloved hand seized the chain on the feed-door again and
jerked it open. She watched him toiling with his scoop, the white
glare beating upon the rugged lines of his face till it was a wonder he
could stand that fierce heat. There was a funny black smudge running
across his nose, and when he bent his back she saw that a buckle was
missing from his overalls and he had substituted a piece of coarse
twine. Was he married? If he was, why didn't his wife look after
those buckles? He worked hard enough to deserve to have little things
like that looked after for him. Why, she'd heard they even shovelled
as much as a whole ton of coal on a single trip!
The lurch of the engine as they swung around a curve drew her attention
to the track which was sweeping in upon them with dizzy continuity.
Out there, ahead of the big black body of the locomotive, the funneled
path of the headlight streamed away into the unknown. Far up the track
the white mile-boards on the poles caught it, ran toward them, flashed
at them and skipped out of sight behind. Tall weeds nodded in it as
they swept past. It poured out along the wet rails, which glistened in
the bright bath and let go only when the beam plunged away at a curve
and went exploring in the woods or rioted across a valley into panorama
on the other side.
Once a little rabbit sat in the middle of the track, staring the great
light in the eye with a fascination that threatened its life. The tiny
creature seemed to be paralyzed by the glare and they almost ran it
down before it tore away in sudden fright and its cotton-white tuft
vanished in the long grass.
But as the novelty of all this wore off, her mind reverted to the thing
that she was trying to do. The speeding engine, the flying track,
became merely the accessories which were carrying her nearer and nearer
her goal--a telegraph operator.
The fireman's watch hung on a hook alongside and the hands showed
twenty-five minutes past midnight. It was standard time both here and
in Toronto; so that would be the time at the _Recorder_ office
also--12.25 a.m. They would be well into the rush of the night's work
by now. The boys would be in from assignments and pounding out "copy"
in the city room. The wires would be warming up and the "flimsy"
arriving at the telegraph editor's desk in bunches, and old man
Jeffreys would be reaching in the left bottom drawer of his scarred old
desk for his little package of bread and cheese with an apple or a
banana to top it off; he always ate that twenty-five minutes after
midnight, just before the linotype men and the rest of the
composing-room staff, who ate at the all-night restaurant around the
corner, straggled back to their work.
Cristy began to go over the things she must do and to arrange them in
the order she must do them. The very first thing would be the messages
to McAllister and Brennan; there must be no delay in getting the police
into action. If they could surprise their quarry over at Waring's
house on the Island--catch them in the middle of it--it would provide a
dramatic climax to the sensational story. She could trust her editor
not to overlook any such opportunity and her eyes sparkled as she
pictured the uproar that would follow those messages in the _Recorder_
office. The old place would be buzzing and the whole staff on the jump
like a bunch of excited kids!
Impatiently she peered out ahead, looked for lights down the track,
glanced continually at the hands of the watch. She ran hastily over
the strong features of the sensation, marshalling her facts, getting
the general scheme of the story into her head in proper newspaper style
and planning a strong "lead."
She became so engrossed in this that not until a vibrant shudder passed
through the engine did she notice. The engineer was leaning out the
window on his side of the cab, one hand on a lever. She threw a quick
glance out the narrow window in front of her and saw that they were
bowling down a straight stretch of track and that far ahead in the
darkness were little specks of light.
A station! It must be the station at last!
Anxiously she watched the far-away dots arrange themselves slowly into
switch lights beside the track. The larger lights on the right--those
would be station windows. Another light, a red one--the order board
was out against them and the train would have to stop!
She cried out in her excitement and satisfaction. She felt like
opening the narrow window, rushing out along the running-board to the
front of the engine and cheering!
They were beginning to slow up now. A man came out and stood on the
platform, some papers in his hand. She could see him quite plainly in
his shirtsleeves in the glare of the powerful headlight. That must be
the night operator--the Mecca of all her hopes.
The hands of the fireman's watch indicated 12.30.
They rolled in beside the platform and the long string of freight cars
bumped, groaned, squeaked and stopped. A lantern came bobbing along
the tops of the cars from the rear. The conductor dropped off the
caboose and jogged forward beside his train.
Macdonald drew in his head and looked across the cab. But the seat was
empty. The girl had slipped away already and presently he caught sight
of her, disappearing into the station.