“Speed up to get ahead of fire in Shadow Valley.”
“Wreck of 33 between Hardwell and Timber Brook. Reported spread across right of way.”
The second message struck Ralph to the heart. He had feared it. Poor Cherry! He felt that she might be seriously injured, or even dead.
When he saw doctors, nurses, and a hospital outfit getting aboard one of the Pullmans he was more than convinced that the wreck had been a terrible catastrophe.
“If those strikers did it, it will break the back of the strike,” declared Haley, with confidence.
Ralph felt no interest in the strike just then. He was visualizing Cherry Hopkins’ pretty figure writhing in a tangle of flaming wood and scorching iron.
If Cherry was killed or disfigured, her mother surely would die. Supervisor Hopkins might lose all his family at one blow! Ralph found himself considering the supervisor’s case with a feeling of sympathy which he had never supposed he would have for the crotchety railroad official.
There were several railroad detectives riding on the locomotive when Number 202 pulled out of Shadow Valley Station; but they talked among themselves. The crew of the locomotive had too much to do right then to engage in any conversation.
Ralph hung out of his window, watching the ribbons of steel ahead of the pilot. Where the track was straight, the mild glare of the headlight glistened along the rails for yards upon yards. He could mark every joint of the steel rods.
At times he glanced skyward. That angry glare quenched such light as remained of the misted stars. The train mounted the remainder of the grade and then took the straight pitch down to that curve on the side of Shadow Valley which had already been the scene of several exciting events for the young railroader.
Now and then they flew past a closed station where only the night lamps and switch targets revealed life. The small hamlets near these stations, themselves endangered by the fire below—especially, if the wind rose—were all but deserted. All the able-bodied men had joined the State fire guard in opposing the forest fire.