"Probably about thirty minutes."
Forty minutes passed before they heard the whistle of the second train; then five minutes of anxious waiting before it came into the station. The first freight, in the meantime, had pulled up on another side track, waiting patiently for the arrival of the passenger train which Andrews' men had stolen.
The special train stopped, blocking the path of the General, just as the first had done.
"Oh, Lord," said Andrews. He sprang from the cab. "Move up there! Get out of my way! I'm running a special powder train! Pull up ahead!"
"I'll pull up if it'll do you any good," answered the engineer. "There's another special train right behind me."
"How far behind you?"
"Oh, twenty minutes, maybe. What are you running a powder train for? Who are you going to give the powder to? The Yanks?"
"To Beauregard!"
"You've got some trouble ahead. The Yanks have captured the line between you and Beauregard—two hundred miles of it—from Tuscumbia to Bridgeport!"
The conductor and the engineer of the first train had joined them. "You'd better turn back and go the other way," said the conductor. "If you go up there, the Yanks will get your powder."