A RUNAWAY TRAIN
“Hurry in, Ward, or the lamp will be out!”
Alex, who had now been night operator at Foothills six months, closed the station door behind him, and laughingly flicked his rain-soaked cap toward the day operator, whom he had just come to relieve.
“Is it raining that hard? You look like a drowned rat for sure,” said Saunders as he reached for his hat and coat. “Why didn’t you stay at home, and ’phone down? I would have been glad to work for you—not.”
“Wait until you are out in it, and you’ll not laugh,” declared Alex, struggling out of his dripping ulster. “It is the worst storm this spring.”
“And wait until you see the fun you are going to have with the wire to-night, and you’ll not indulge in an over-abundance of smiles. I haven’t had a dot from the despatcher since six o’clock. Had to get clearance for Nineteen around by MQ, and now we’ve lost them.”
“There is someone now,” said Alex, as the instruments began clicking.
“It’s somebody west. IC, I think. Yes; Indian Canyon,” said Saunders, pausing as he turned to the door. “What is he after? He certainly can’t make himself heard by X if we can’t.”
“X, X, X,” rapidly repeated the sounder, calling Exeter, the despatching office. “X, X, X! Qk!”
Alex and Saunders looked at one another with a start. Several times the operator at Indian Canyon repeated the call, more urgently, then as hurriedly began calling Imken, the next station east of him.
“There must be something wrong,” declared Alex, stepping to the instrument table. Saunders followed him.
“IM, IM, IC, Qk! Qk!” clicked the sounder.
“IM, IM—”
“I, I, IM,” came the response, and the two operators at Foothills listened closely.
“A wild string of loaded ore cars just passed here,” buzzed the instruments. “Were going forty miles an hour. They’ll be down there in no time. If there’s anything on the main line get it off. I can’t raise X for orders.”
The two listening operators exchanged glances of alarm, and anxiously awaited Imken’s response. For a moment the sounder made a succession of inarticulate dots, then ticked excitedly, “Yes, yes! OK! OK!” and closed.
“What did he mean by that?” asked Saunders beneath his breath. “That there was something on the main track there?”
“Perhaps a switch engine cutting out ore empties. We’ll know in a minute.”
The wire again snapped open, and whirred, “I got it off—the yard engine! Just in time! Here they come now! Like thunder!
“There—they’re by! Are ten of them. All loaded. Going like an avalanche. Lucky thing the yard engine was—”
Sharply the operator at Indian Canyon broke in to hurriedly call Terryville, the next station east.
“But the runaways won’t pass Terryville, will they?” Alex exclaimed. “Won’t the grades between there and Imken pull them up?”
Saunders shook his head. “Ten loaded ore cars travelling at that rate would climb those grades.”
“Then they will be down here—and in twenty or thirty minutes! And there’s the Accommodation coming from the east,” said Alex rapidly, “and we can’t reach anyone to stop her!”
Saunders stared. “That’s so. I’d forgotten her. But what can we do?” he demanded helplessly.
Terryville answered, and in strained silence they awaited his report. “Yes, they are coming. I thought it was thunder.
“Here they are now,” he added an instant after.
“They’re past!”
“They’ll reach us! What shall we do?” gasped Saunders.
Alex turned from the table, and as the Indian Canyon operator hastily called Jakes Creek, the last station intervening, began striding up and down the room, thinking rapidly.
If they only had more battery—could make the current in the wire stronger! Immediately on the thought came remembrance of the emergency battery he had made the previous year at Watson Siding. He spun about toward the office water-cooler. But only to utter an exclamation of disappointment. This cooler was of tin—of course useless for such a purpose.
Hurriedly he began casting about for a substitute. “Billy, think of something we can make a big battery jar of!” he cried. “To strengthen the wire!”
“A battery? But what would we do for bluestone? I used the last yesterday!”
Alex returned to the table, and threw himself hopelessly into the chair.
At the moment the Jakes Creek operator answered his call, and received the message of warning.
“Say,” said Saunders, “perhaps some of the other fellows on the wire have bluestone and the other stuff, and could make a battery!”
Alex uttered a shout. “That’s it!” he cried, and springing to the telegraph key, as soon as the wire closed, called Indian Canyon. “Have you any extra battery material there?” he sent quickly.
“No. Why—”
Abruptly Alex cut him off and called Imken. He also responded in the negative. But from Terryville came a prompt “Yes. Why—”
“Have you one of those big stoneware water-coolers there?”
“Yes, but wh—”
“Do you know how to make a battery?”
“No.”
“Well, listen—”
The instruments had suddenly failed to respond. A minute passed, and another. Five went by, and Alex sank back in the chair in despair. Undoubtedly the storm had broken the wire somewhere.
“Everything against us!” he declared bitterly. “And the runaways will be down here now in fifteen or twenty minutes. What can we do?”
“I can’t think of anything but throwing the west switch,” said Saunders. “And loaded, and going at the speed they are, they’ll make a mess of everything on the siding. But that’s the only way I can think of stopping them.”
“If there was any way a fellow could get aboard the runaways—”
Alex broke off sharply. Would it not be possible to board the runaway train as he and Jack had boarded the engine on the day of the forest fire? Say, from a hand-car?
He started to his feet. “Billy, get me a lantern, quick!
“I’m going for the section-boss, and see if we can’t board the runaways from the hand-car,” he explained as he caught up and began struggling into his coat. “I did that once at Bixton—boarded an engine.”
“Board it! How?”
“Run ahead of it, and let it catch us.”
Saunders sprang for the lantern, lit it, and catching it up, Alex was out the door, and off across the tracks through the still pouring rain for the lights of the section foreman’s house. Darting through the gate, he ran about to the kitchen door, and without ceremony flung it open. The foreman was at the table, at his supper. He started to his feet.
“Joe, there is a wild ore train coming down from the Canyon,” explained Alex breathlessly, “and the wire has failed east so we can’t clear the line. Couldn’t we get the jigger out and board the runaways by letting them catch us?”
An instant the section-boss stared, then with the promptitude of the old railroader seized his cap, exclaiming “Go ahead!” and together they dashed out to the gate, and across the tracks in the direction of the tool-house.
“Where did they start from? How many cars?” asked the foreman as they ran.
“Indian Canyon. Ten, and all loaded.”
The section-man whistled. “They’ll be going twenty-five or thirty miles an hour. We will be taking a big chance. But if we can catch them just over the grade beyond the sand-pits I guess we can do it. That will have slackened them.
“Here we are.”
As they halted before the section-house door the boss uttered a cry. “I haven’t the key!”
Alex swung the lantern about, and discovered a pile of ties. “Smash it in,” he suggested, dropping the lantern. One on either side they caught up a tie, swayed back, and hurled it forward. There was a crash, and the door swung open.
Catching up the lantern, they dashed in, threw from the hand-car its collection of tools, placed the light upon it, ran it out, and swung it onto the rails.
“Do you hear them?” asked Alex as he threw off his coat. The foreman dropped to his knees and placed his ear to the rails, listened a moment, and sprang to his feet. “Yes, they’re coming! Come on!
“Run her a ways first.” They pushed the car ahead, quickly had it on the run, and springing aboard, seized the handles, and one on either side, began pumping up and down with all their strength.
As they neared the station the door opened and Saunders ran to the edge of the platform. “The wire came O K and I just heard Z pass Thirty-three,” he shouted, “but couldn’t make them hear me. He reported the superintendent’s—”
They whirled by, and the rest was lost.
“Did you catch it?” shouted Alex above the roar of the car.
“I think he meant,” shouted the foreman as he swung up and down, “superintendent’s car ... attached to the Accommodation ... heard he was coming ... makes it bad.... We need every minute QQQ and Old Jerry ... the engineer ... ’ll be breaking his neck ... to bring her ... through on time!
“Do you hear ... runaways yet?”
“No.”
THEY WHIRLED BY, AND THE REST WAS LOST.
On they rushed through the darkness, bobbing up and down like jumping-jacks, the little car rumbling and screeching, and bounding forward like a live thing.
The terrific and unaccustomed strain began to tell on Alex. Perspiration broke out on his forehead, his muscles began to burn, and his breath to shorten.
“How much farther ... to the grade?” he panted.
“Here it is now. Six hundred yards to the top.”
As they felt the resistance of the incline Alex began to weaken and gasp for breath. Grimly, however, he clenched his teeth, and fought on; and at last the section-man suddenly ceased working, and announced “Here we are. Let up.” With a gasp of relief Alex dropped to a sitting position on the side of the car.
“There it comes,” said the foreman a moment after, and listening Alex heard a sound as of distant thunder.
“How long before they’ll be here?”
“Five minutes, perhaps. And now,” said the section-boss, “just how are we going to work this thing?”
“Well, when we boarded the engine at Bixton,” explained Alex, getting his breath, “we simply waited at the head of a grade until it was within about two hundred yards of us, then lit out just as hard as we could go, and as she bumped us, we jumped.”
“All right. We’ll do the same.”
As the foreman spoke, the rain, which had decreased to a drizzle, entirely ceased, and a moment after the moon appeared. He and Alex at once turned toward the station.
Just beyond was a long, black, snake-like object, shooting along the rails toward them.
The runaway!
On it swept over the glistening irons, the rumble quickly increasing to a roar. With an echoing crash it flashed by the station, and on.
Nearer it came, the cars leaping and writhing; roaring, pounding, screeching.
“Ready!” warned the foreman, springing to the ground behind the hand-car. Alex joined him, and gazing over their shoulder, watching, they braced themselves for the shove.
The runaways reached the incline, and swept on upward. Anxiously the two watched as they waited. Would the incline check them?
“I don’t see that they’re slowing,” Alex said somewhat nervously.
“It won’t tell until they are half way up the grade,” declared the section-man. “But, get ready. We can’t wait to see.
“Go!” he cried. Running the car forward, they leaped aboard, and again were pumping with all their might.
THE ENGINEER STEPPED DOWN FROM HIS CAB TO GRASP ALEX’S
HAND.
For a few moments the roar behind them seemed to decrease. Then suddenly it broke on them afresh, and the head of the train swept over the rise.
“Now pull yourself together for an extra spurt when I give the word,” shouted the foreman, who manned the forward handles, and faced the rear, “then turn about and get ready to jump.”
Roaring, screaming, clanking, the runaways thundered down upon them.
“Hit it up!” cried the section-man. With every muscle tense they whirled the handles up and down like human engines.
“Let go! Turn about!”
Alex sprang back from the flying handles, and faced about. The foreman edged by them, and joined him.
Nearer, towering over them, rushed the leading ore car.
“Be sure and jump high and grab hard,” shouted the foreman.
“Ready! Jump!”
With a bound they went into the air, and the great car flung itself at them. Both reached the top of the end-board with their outstretched hands, and gripped tenaciously. As they swung against it, it seemed the car would shake them off. But clinging desperately, they got their feet on the brake-beam, and in another moment had tumbled headlong within.
Alex sank down on the rough ore in a heap, gasping. The seasoned section-man, however, was on his feet and at the nearby hand-brake in a twinkle. Tightening it, he scrambled back over the bounding car to the next.
Ten minutes later, screeching and groaning as though in protest, the runaways came to a final stop.
Another ten minutes, and the engineer of the Accommodation suddenly threw on his air as he rounded a curve to discover a lantern swinging across the rails ahead of him.
“Hello there, Jerry! Say, you’re not good enough for a passenger run,” said the section foreman humorously as he approached the astonished engineer. “We’re going to put you back pushing ore cars. There’s a string here just ahead of you.”
When he had explained the engineer stepped down from his cab to grasp Alex’s hand. “Oh, it was more the foreman than I,” Alex declared. “I couldn’t have worked it alone.”
A moment later the superintendent appeared. “Why, let me see,” he exclaimed on seeing Alex. “Are you not the lad I helped fix up an emergency battery at Watson Siding last spring? And who has been responsible for two or three other similar clever affairs?
“My boy, young as you are, my name’s not Cameron if I don’t see that you have a try-out at the division office before the month is out,” he announced decisively. “We need men there with a head like yours.”
THE WAIT WAS NOT LONG.