Lyle had drawn back from the lever or he would have been annihilated. Then as the fire 215 swept into his face, he uttered a last frightful yell, gave a spring and landed somewhere along the side of the track.
The young fireman was fairly appalled. Such a situation he had never confronted before. The cab was ablaze in a dozen different places. The tops of the cars behind had also ignited. Ralph did not know what to do. Even if he could have stopped the train, it would be destruction to do so now.
Suddenly the locomotive dove through the last fire stretch. Ahead somewhere Ralph caught the fierce blast of a locomotive shrieking for orders. For life or death the train must be stopped.
He flew towards the throttle but could not reach it safely. The great bar threatened death. Twice he tried to reach the throttle and drew back in time to escape the descending bar. At a third effort he managed to slip the latch of the throttle, but received a fearful graze of one hand. Then, exhausted from exertion and excitement, the young fireman saw the locomotive slow down not a hundred yards from a stalled train.
The passenger coaches were soon vacated by the passengers, while the train crew beat out the flames where the cars were on fire.
The Limited Mail made no return trip to Stanley Junction that night. The following morning, 216 however, when the swamp fire had subsided, the train was taken back to the Great Northern and then to terminus.
Lyle, the engineer, was found badly burned and delirious in the swamp, where he would have perished only for the water in which he landed when he jumped from the locomotive cab. He was taken to a hospital.
There was a great deal of talk about the latest exploit of the young fireman of the Limited Mail, and Ralph did not suffer any in the estimation of the railroad people and his many friends.
One evening he came home from an interview with a local lawyer concerning the interests of his young friend, Earl Danvers.
Ralph felt quite sanguine that he could obtain redress for Earl from his heartless relations, and was thinking about it when he discovered his mother pacing up and down the front walk of the house in an agitated, anxious way.