“We stood there a minute, hardly darin’ t’ breathe, a-watchin’ thet fire. It licked out at th’ cab, an’ quicker’n I kin tell it, th’ wood was blazin’ away in great shape. Then, all of a sudden, I happened t’ think o’ somethin’ that sent a cold chill down my back, an’ made me sick an’ weak. Here was we poundin’ along at forty miles an hour, with orders t’ take th’ sidin’ fer Number Three at th’ Junction, five mile ahead. It looked to me as though they’d be about a thousand people killed inside of a mighty few minutes.”
He stopped to take a fresh chew of tobacco, and Allan saw that his hands were trembling at the memory of that fearful moment.
“Well,” he continued, “as I was a-sayin’, I could feel my hair a-raisin’ right up on my head. I looked around at Tom, an’ I could tell by his set face that he was thinkin’ of th’ same thing I was.
“‘Boys,’ he says, low-like, ‘I’m goin’ forrerd. I’ve got to shet her off. I hadn’t no business t’ run away.’
“An’ without waitin’ fer either o’ us t’ answer, forrerd he went, climbin’ over th’ coal an’ down into th’ burnin’ cab. It was like goin’ into a furnace, but he never faltered—right on he went—right on into th’ fire—an’ in a minute I felt th’ jerk as he reversed her an’ threw on th’ brakes. It seemed t’ me as though we’d never come to a stop, but we did, an’ then th’ brakeman an’ me went forrerd over th’ coal t’ git Tom out. But it warn’t no use. He was layin’ dead on his seat, still holdin’ to th’ throttle.
“We lifted him down, an’ by that time th’ conductor an’ a lot o’ th’ passengers come a-runnin’ up. An’ then folks begun tellin’ me my face was burned,” and Pat indicated his scars with a rapid gesture. “Till then, I’d never even felt it. When y’re in it, y’ know, y’ only feel it fer others, not fer yourself.”
That ended the story-telling. There was something in that tale of sacrifice which made other tales seem idle and empty.
The dawn was just tingeing the sky in the east when the train rushed into the great, echoing train-shed at Cincinnati. The men got out and hurried forward to the dining-room, where a lunch of coffee and sandwiches awaited them. Here, too, were the train-master and division superintendent, trim-built, well-groomed men, with alert eyes, who knew the value of kind words and appreciative criticism when it came to managing men. Lunch was hastily eaten, and then the whole crowd proceeded to the special inspection train, where it stood on the side-track ready to start on its two hundred mile trip eastward. And a peculiar looking train it was—consisting, besides the engine, of only one car, a tall, ungainly, boarded structure, open at one end, and, facing the open end, tiers of seats stretching upward to the roof.
Into this the men poured and took their seats, so that every one could see the long stretch of track as it slid backward under them. Almost at once the signal came to start, and the gaily decorated engine—draped from end to end in green, that all might know it was the “Irish Brigade” out on its inspection tour—pulled out through the “ditch,” as the deep cut within the city limits is called, past the vast stock-yards and out upon the level track beyond. Instantly silence settled upon the car, broken only by the puffing of the engine and the clanking of the wheels over the rails. Seventy pairs of eyes were bent upon the track, the road-bed, the right of way, noting every detail. Seventy pairs of ears listened to the tale the wheels were telling of the track’s condition. It was a serious and solemn moment.
Allan, too, looked out upon all this, and his heart fell within him. Surely, no track could be more perfect, no road-bed better kept. It must be this section which would win the prize. Yet, when that section had been left behind and the next one entered on, he could detect no difference. How could anybody rate one section higher than another, when all alike were perfect? And what possible chance was there for Twenty-one?