"Made it!" he cried, but in a faint, hoarse tone--"made it, but just in time!"
He was so overcome that it was his sheer weight rather than any exertion of muscle that pulled bar 4 over into place. Then Ralph staggered back, and fairly fell into the armchair.
The ordeal had been a terrible one. He understood how a man's hair turned white sometimes in an hour. His teeth were chattering, his cheeks blanched. He turned his eyes to the north, chained to the chair momentarily in a kind of a dread stupor.
A flagman across the rails was yelling up at him. He had witnessed Ralph's sensational proceedings, and was staring at the broken window panes. Ralph did not hear him.
Instead, his ears were filled with a grinding on the north rails. Tearing down them, swaying from side to side, shrieking out constantly for clear tracks, a locomotive with one car attached reached the far depot end and went its length like a flash of light.
"The special!" breathed Ralph,--"on time!"
[CHAPTER XI--SPOILING FOR A FIGHT]
As Ralph spoke the special was a blur as it passed the tower, a flying spot as it flashed to the in rails, a speck as it turned the curve.
Ralph sat motionless till he caught its whistle past the limits tower. Then he realized that his crucial test was past and done.
The telephone bell rang noisily. The dial indicator began to move. The delayed freights set up a piping call for service. For five minutes Ralph jumped actively from lever to lever. He was glad of the task--it diverted his mind from the harrowing ordeal that had so nearly unmanned him.