“She’s spurting,” observed Roberts, watching all this, as the runaway started on a prodigious dash.
“I see she is,” nodded Ralph, grimly trying to hold No. 93 over, yet aware that she was already set at her highest possible point of tension.
“And we’re getting near.”
“Yes, there are the station lights ahead.”
About four hundred yards to the left the runaway dashed past a deserted station. Ralph never let up on speed. The chase had now led to the cut-off, a stretch of about twenty miles. Where this ran into the main again there was an important station. This point Ralph was sure had been advised of the situation from headquarters if Glidden had done his duty, and the young railroader felt sure that he had.
“Hello; now it is a chase!” exclaimed Roberts.
In circling into the cut-off No. 93 had passed a series of switches, finally sending her down the same rails taken by the runaway.
“It’s now or never, and pretty quick at that,” said Ralph to his fireman. “Crowd her, Roberts.”
“She’s doing pretty nigh her best as it is,” replied the fireman. “I don’t know as she’ll stand much more crowding.”
“That’s better,” said Ralph in a satisfied tone, as, fired up to the limit, the old rattletrap made a few more pounds of steam.