As he knew only the approximate time that the special would leave Cincinnati, it was necessary to prepare several plans, the one to be adopted depending upon the exact time the train pulled out from the Grand Central depot. From Cincinnati to Loveland he had a double track to work with, but from Loveland east, only a single track, and it was necessary to so arrange the schedule that no train would interfere with the special and at the same time to provide that they be interfered with as little as possible. Another difficulty arose from the fact that it was impossible to tell exactly how fast the special would run, and Allan’s brow wrinkled perplexedly as he bent above the time-card.
“I tell you what I’m going to do,” he said, at last, “I’m going over the road with this train myself. I’m not going to take any chances.”
And that night, with the time-card in his pocket and his plans carefully laid, Allan boarded the accommodation for Cincinnati.
The man in whose behalf this extraordinary order had been issued was no less a personage than a candidate for the Presidency of the United States. His election had been thought fairly certain, but hinged upon New York State. This, he had been confidently assured by the party leaders, he would carry without difficulty; and he had not visited it except early in the campaign, for a few speeches. He had then devoted his attention to some doubtful states in the middle west, when, with the election only ten days off, he had received a message urging him to reach New York at the earliest possible moment, that unexpected opposition had developed there, and that every moment was precious. In this strait, he had appealed to the railroads, and they had leaped to his aid.
Not because of the man, nor because of the fact that he was a candidate for the greatest office within the gift of the people of this republic; but because they regarded his election as vital to their welfare. For the railroads had fallen among troublous times. The business regeneration of the past few years had affected them deeply. Whether rightly or wrongly, the American public, or a large portion of it, had come to believe that railroad management was corrupt and wasteful, that it discriminated against its patrons and used its wealth and influence to secure the passage of laws inimicable to public welfare. So severe measures had been taken to curtail this power, and to protect the interests of both the stockholders of the roads and of the people who gave them business. The issuing of passes had been forbidden; a commission had been established by the government to prevent and punish any discrimination in favour of any shipper of freight; laws had been passed curtailing the hours of railway employees; in many states the legal fare to be charged passengers had been reduced by act of legislature from three to two cents a mile, and there had sprung up a wide-spread demand that freight rates be also regulated by law. Many roads felt that ruin was staring them in the face, and an all-important question with them was the election of a president who would regard them with friendly eyes and who would throw his influence against any revolutionary measures which might be aimed at them.
It was not wonderful, then, that they should have rushed to the assistance of this man, since his opponent was pledged to work for the very measures which the roads dreaded; and that, when his election seemed in danger, they should have placed their resources absolutely at his disposal, and have given him right of way over everything. He had been hurried across the plains of Missouri, shot into Saint Louis, flung across the prairies of Illinois and Indiana, and now, at 9.45 o’clock in the morning, the train shot into the Grand Union station at Cincinnati, and came to a stop with a jerk.
Ten minutes before, Allan, able at last to time the exact minute of its arrival, had sent out the messages which would govern its movements from Cincinnati to Wadsworth. There were to be no stops, except one for water, and, if all went well, He was determined to cover the hundred miles in a hundred minutes. He knew his engine and knew the engineer—957, with Tom Michaels, lean, gray-haired, a bundle of nerves, a man to take chances if necessary, yet never to take one that was unnecessary; and he believed that the distance could be covered in that time.
Three minutes were allowed in which to change engines, and half a dozen men were waiting to make the change. The air-hose was uncoupled and the old engine backed away. While the 957 was run down and coupled up, four men with flaring torches had been making an examination of the coach and private car, and in just three minutes, or at 9.48 A. M., the conductor held up his hand and Michaels gently opened the throttle.
The old engineer’s face was gleaming. It was the first time in his long life at the throttle that he had ever been given a free track and told to go ahead. But he nursed her carefully over the network of tracks in the yards, out through the ditch and past the stock-yards before he really let her out. Then, slowly and slowly, he drew the throttle open, and with every instant the great engine gathered speed, while the fireman, equally interested and enthusiastic, nursed the fire until the fire-box was a pit of white-hot, swirling flame.