It broke off with significant suddenness, and the agent turned to the man
who had first spoken. "You are going to be sorry for this, Mr. Grant," he
said and then tried to slip away, but one of the others pulled the door to
and stood with his back to it while Grant, smiling, said, "I'm quite
willing to take my chances. Have the stock-cars passed Perry's siding?"
"I don't know," said the agent.
"Then, hadn't you better call them up and see? We are giving you the first
chance of doing it out of courtesy, but one of us is a good operator."
"I was on the Baltimore and Ohio road," said one man. "You needn't play
any tricks with me."
The agent sat down at the telegraph instrument, and looked up when it
rapped out an answer to his message.
"Stock train left Birch Hollow. No sign of her yet."
"That's all right," said the man who had served the B. and O. "Tell them
to side-track her for half an hour, anyway, after your loco comes through.
It's necessary. Don't worry 'bout any questions, but tell them to keep us
a clear road, now."
The agent, who saw that the other man was prepared to do the work himself,
complied, and the latter once more nodded when the instrument clicked out
the answer.
"Make out your bill," said Grant, taking a wallet from his pocket.
"No," said the agent; "we're going to have the law of you."
Grant laughed. "It strikes me there is very little law in this country
now, and your company would a good deal sooner have the dollars than a
letter telling them you had let us take one of their locomotives away from
you."
"That," said the agent reflectively, "sounds quite sensible. Well, I'll
take the dollars. It doesn't commit us to anything."
The bills were counted over, and as the men went out Grant turned in the
doorway. "It would not be advisable for you to wire any of the folks along
the line to stop us," he said. "We are going through to Boynton as fast as
your engineer can shove his loco along, and if anybody switched us into a
side-track it would only mean the smashing up of a good deal of the
company's property."
He had gone out in another moment, and, in a few more, climbed into the
locomotive cab, while somebody coupled on a calaboose in the rear. Then,
he showed the engineer several bills and the agent's receipt together.
"If you can hold your tongue and get us through to Boynton five minutes
under the mail schedule time, the dollars are yours," he said.
The engineer looked doubtful for a moment, then, his eyes twinkling, he
took the bills.
"Well," he said, "you've got the agent's receipt, and the rest is not my
business. Sit tight, and we'll show you something very like flying
to-night."
Another man flung open the furnace door, a sudden stream of brightness
flashed out as he hurled in coal, the door shut with a clang, and there
was a whirr of slipping wheels as the engineer laid his hand on the lever.
The great locomotive panted, and Grant, staring out through the glasses,
saw a blinking light slide back to them. Then, the plates beneath him
trembled, the hammering wheels got hold, and the muffled clanging and
thudding swelled into a rhythmic din. The light darted past them, the
filmy whiteness which had streamed down through the big headlamp's glare
now beat in a bewildering rush against the quivering glass, and the
fan-shaped blaze of radiance drove on faster through the snow.
Five minutes passed, and Grant, who held a watch in his hand, glanced at
the engineer as the blaze whirled like a comet along the clean-cut edge of
a dusky bluff.
"You'll have to do better," he said.
"Wait till we have got her warmed up," said the man, who stood quietly
intent, his lean hand on the throttle. "Then you'll see something."
Grant sat down on a tool-locker, took out his cigar-case, and passed it to
Breckenridge who sat opposite him. Breckenridge's face was eager and there
was an unusual brightness in his eyes, for he was young and something
thrilled within him in unison with the vibration of the great machine.
There was, however, very little to see just then beyond the tense,
motionless figure of the man at the throttle and the damp-beaded face of
another forced up in the lurid glare from the furnace door. A dim
whiteness lashed the glasses, and when Breckenridge pressed his face to
one of them the blaze of radiance against which the smoke-stack was
projected blackly only intensified the obscurity they were speeding
through.
Still, there was much to feel and hear--the shrill wail of the wind that
buffeted their shelter, the bewildering throb and quiver of the locomotive
which, with its suggestion of Titanic effort, seemed to find a response in
human fibre, pounding and clashing with their burden of strain, and the
roar of the great drivers that rose and fell like a diapason. Perhaps
Breckenridge, who was also under a strain that night, was fanciful, but it
seemed to him there was hidden in the medley of sound a theme or motive
that voiced man's domination over the primeval forces of the universe, and
urged him to the endurance of stress, and great endeavour. It was, for the
most part, vague and elusive; but there were times when it rang exultingly
through the subtly harmonious din, reminding him of Wagnerian music.
Leaning forward, he touched Grant's knee. "Larry, it's bracing. The last
few months were making me a little sick of everything--but this gets hold
of one." Grant smiled, but Breckenridge saw how weary his bronzed face
showed in the dim lantern light. "There was a time, two or three years
ago, when I might have felt it as you seem to do," he said. "I don't seem
to have any feeling but tiredness left me now."
"You can't let go," said Breckenridge.
"No," and Grant sighed, "not until the State takes hold instead of me, or
the trouble's through."
Breckenridge said nothing further, and Grant sat huddled in a corner with
the thin blue cigar-smoke curling about him. He knew it was possible he
was taking a very heavy risk just then, since the homesteaders might have
changed their plans again; and his task was a double one, for he had not
only to save the stock train, but prevent an encounter between his
misguided followers and the cavalry. So there was silence between them
while, lurching, rocking, roaring, the great locomotive sped on through
the night, until the engineer, turning half-round, glanced at Grant.
"Is she making good enough time to suit you? Perry's siding is just ahead,
and we'll be on the Bitter Creek trestle five minutes after that," he
said.
Grant rose and leaned forward close to the glasses. He could see nothing
but the radiance from the headlamp whirling like a meteor through the
filmy haze; but the fierce vibration of everything, and the fashion in
which the snow smote the glasses, as in a solid stream, showed the pace at
which they were travelling. He looked round and saw that Breckenridge's
eyes were fixed upon him. His comrade's voice reached him faint and
strained through the hammering of the wheels.
"You feel tolerably sure Harper was right about the bridge?"