“That’s who!” answered the man addressed, 263 panting hard. “We’re stalled about a mile down the cut. Coal given out, no steam. Saw your fire, didn’t want to freeze to death quite, so––”
“We guessed that you were the Overland,” piped in a fresh, boyish voice. “Packed up some eatables, and here we are. How do you like my new railroad rocket signals, Engineer Fairbanks?” and Archie Graham, the young inventor, picked himself up from the snow.
CHAPTER XXXI
CONCLUSION
One hour after daybreak the vicinity of the snowbound Overland Express resembled a picture, rather than a forlorn blockade.
The lone adventurers who had made the trip from the stalled freight had been a relief party indeed. The engineer was a railroader of long experience, and he had thought out the dilemma of the refugees. He and his companions had broken open a freight car and had brought each a good load. There was coffee, sugar, crackers, canned meats, a ham, and, what was most welcome to anxious mothers and their babes, a whole crate of condensed milk.
There never was a more jolly breakfast than that aboard the snowbound coaches. There was plenty to eat and to spare all around, and plenty more at the stalled freight, everybody knew. In front of the engine many a merry jest went the rounds, as the train crews and some of the passengers 265 broiled pieces of succulent ham on the end of pointed twigs.
“You see, it was this way,” Archie Graham explained to the young engineer of No. 999. “I was just watching a chance for washouts or snowstorms to get on a train diving into the danger. Those red bombs are my invention. I shoot them from a gun. I can send them a mile or gauge them to go fifty feet. They ignite when they drop, and by sending out a lot of them they are bound to land somewhere near the train you aim at. The engineer is bound to take notice, just as you did, of the glare, and that’s where they beat the fusees and save the running back of a brakeman.”