Livid with rage, his long black hair streaming in the wind as he ran after them, Wilkes Booth fired his pistol at them, while the motley crowd his cry had aroused sent a scattering volley after the train. Nobody was hurt then, but the danger to everybody had just begun.
There was instant pursuit. The train-crew, startled by the sound of the departing train, came running from the station. They actually started to run along the track after the flying locomotive. They jerked a hand-car off a siding and chased the fugitives with that. At a station not far off, they found a locomotive lying with steam up. They seized that and thundered ahead. Now hunters and hunted were on more even terms. The hunters reached Kingston, Georgia, within four minutes after the hunted had left. The latter had had to make frequent stops, to cut the wires, to take on fuel, to bundle into the freight cars ties that could be used to start fires for the burning of bridges, and to tear up an occasional rail. This last expedient delayed their pursuers but little. When a missing rail was sighted, the Confederates stopped, tore up a rail behind them, slipped it into the vacant place, and rushed ahead again.
Andrews was running the captured train on its regular time schedule, so he could not exceed a certain speed. From Kingston, however, where the only other train of the day met this one, he expected a free road and plenty of time to burn every bridge he passed. He did meet the regular train at Kingston, but alas! it carried on its engine a red flag. That meant that a second section of the same train was coming behind it. There was nothing to do but to wait for this second section. The railroad was single-track, so trains could pass only where there was a siding. But in every moment of waiting there lurked the danger of detection. Southerners, soldiers, and civilians, crowded about the locomotive as she lay helplessly still on the Kingston sidetrack, puffing away precious steam and precious time.
"Whar's yer passengers?" asked one man. "I cum hyar to meet up with Cunnel Tompkins. Whar's he'n the rest of 'em?"
"We were ordered to drop everything at Big Shanty," explained Andrews, "except these three cars. They're full of powder. I'm on General Beauregard's staff and am taking the stuff to him at Corinth. Jove, there's the whistle of the second section. I'm glad to hear it."
He was indeed glad. At one of his stops, he had bundled most of his men into the freight cars. The cars were battered old things without any locks. If a carelessly curious hand were to slide back one of the doors and reveal within, not powder, but armed men, all their lives would pay the forfeit. Andrews was in the cab with engineer, fireman, and Tom, who had been helping the fireman feed wood into the maw of the furnace on every mile of the run. His young back ached with the strain of the unaccustomed toil. His young neck felt the touch of the noose that threatened them all.
"Tom, you run ahead and throw that switch for us as soon as the other train pulls in," said Andrews. "We mustn't keep General Beauregard waiting for this powder a minute longer than we can help. He needs it to blow the Yankees to smithereens."
So Tom ran ahead, stood by the switch as the second section came in, and promptly threw the switch as it passed. But his train did not move and a brakeman jumped off the rear platform of the caboose of the second section, as it slowed down, told Tom he was an ass and a fool, pushed him out of the way and reset the switch.
"You plum fool," shouted the brakeman, after much stronger expressions, "didn't ye see the flag fur section three?"