The hand on the throttle relaxed and fell. At the instant the engineer had made the nicely balanced coupling, he had lost consciousness!
CHAPTER XV
ONCE MORE ON THE RAILS
The doctor, who had been brought from just across the street from the station, pronounced it “heart.” Either over-excitement or over-work. It was no accident; just a death from natural causes.
Then, thought Ralph, how about the big accident policy Byron Marks had carried and paid on all these years?
But at just this moment there were other matters of importance to think of. Supervisor Hopkins had at once bustled out to see what had happened. In five minutes the Midnight Flyer was scheduled to pull out of the Rockton terminal.
“Here, boy!” he said, grabbing one of the youngsters who called the crews from their boarding houses. “Let’s see your list. What! Nothing but freight crews?”
“And there ain’t one of ’em but has put in twelve hours and has got to take his eight hours’ sleep,” said the boy. “They’d half kill me if I tried to pry ’em out of the hay.”
“Wait until your advice is called for, boy,” responded Mr. Hopkins shortly.
The boy winked behind the supervisor’s back and some of the bystanders chuckled. The supervisor pored over the list.
“Not a passenger engine crew free until two-thirty.”