Then they heard repeated short blasts of a whistle to the southward. The men paused and looked at Andrews.
"Pile it in! Hurry!" he yelled.
"Who are you?" demanded the keeper. "What's this train!"
Andrews seemed not to hear him. Four Confederate soldiers who were standing several hundred yards away yelled and pointed in the direction of the whistling.
"'Board," called Andrews. As he climbed into the cab of the General, Tom saw that his face had become suddenly drawn. There was no talking now. The race had reached the final test of strength. While Tom, in the tender, yanked logs loose from the pile, Andrews stood ready to pass them to Knight, who shoved them into the fire-box.
"The wood's wet," said Knight. The others heard him and made no reply. He worked with the drafts, coaxing the fire. Occasionally, Brown glanced at the steam gauge; then the two engineers would exchange glances. Slowly the needle of the gauge crept up.
In the box-car the men silently dropped ties upon the tracks. Sometimes there was a mumble of satisfaction as a tie fell squarely across the rails; or a grunt of disgust when one tumbled end for end and landed out of position.
Running a mile or so behind them, they caught occasional glimpses of the smoke of the Texas. There were moments when the smoke paused and mounted straight into the sky; then a few seconds later it flattened out and rose in a long black stream. The Texas was running from obstruction to obstruction, clearing the way and pressing forward. How had they done it? How had they passed the broken rail, the ties along the track, the box-cars and the snag? Those questions were pounding in the brains of Andrews' men.
If ever a man combined determination with luck it was Fuller. He had started on foot from Big Shanty in complete ignorance of what was happening to his stolen train. Undoubtedly, if he had known that a party of Northern raiders had taken it, he would have waited until a locomotive came from Atlanta. The idea of running after a locomotive would have seemed too ridiculous. But, expecting to find it abandoned around each curve, he raced on and on until they came to the hand car; then the Yonah. When the Yonah had run out of fuel, the New York was there to carry him to the Rome engine. When the Rome engine had been stopped by the break in the track, they had come to the Texas. They had shunted and outraced the train, jumped the broken track, and avoided wrecking on obstructions so many times that they had lost count. And still they pressed on. The force of Fuller's determination seemed greater than the force of the steam which flashed against the pistons of the Texas.
Fuller and Murphy, still sitting on the edge of the tender, saw the abandoned box-car as they swerved around the bend. Fuller waved his arms up and down slowly to the engineer as a signal to come to a gradual stop. They coasted down upon the box-car, picked it up and carried it on with them. Fuller and Murphy climbed to the top of it; Murphy, staying at the rear end to repeat the signals of Fuller, who was perched on the front.