BURNING OIL-TANKS.
This was the case on a certain drizzling Sunday in March of the new-century year, when, at 6.30 a.m., the world beyond the hill intruded itself upon Glen Gardner's peacefulness in such strange and sudden fashion that old Mrs. Bergstresser collapsed from the shock. What made it worse was the fact that there had been a dance the night before at Farmer Apgar's, and half-past six found most of the village dozing comfortably. There was really nothing to do before church-time. So they all thought, at least, little suspecting that even now, as they slept, a long oil-train was puffing up the steep grade from Easton, bringing sixty cars loaded with crude petroleum and trouble.
On came the oil-train, its front engine panting as the drivers slipped, and the "pusher" back of the caboose shouldering up the load with snorts of impatience. Ouf! The front of the train climbs over the ridge at Hampton Junction, half a mile back of Glen Gardner, where the Jersey Central tracks reach their highest point. Now they are all right. There is a long down grade ahead for three miles. The pusher gives a final shove at the rear end, and cuts loose, glad to be rid of the job. The men in the caboose wave good-by to the fireman and engineer as they drop away.
Hello! What's that jerk? They look out and see the last oil-car just clearing the divide. It's nothing; they're over now; they're running faster. Queer place, this! There's a spring here with two streams that part in the middle like a woman's hair; one goes down the east side, the other down the west side. What? Broken in two?
The caboose crew start to run forward; a brakeman on the front half starts to run back. Thirty-seven cars behind the engine a coupling has snapped, and the train is taking the down grade in two sections: twenty-three loaded oil-cars are running away, and a million gallons of oil are chasing two million gallons down a mountain-side!
Everything now depends upon the brakeman on the forward section. He is the only man who can judge the danger, and signal the engineer what to do. The engineer does not even know that anything is wrong. It is plainly the brakeman's business to keep the front half of the train out of the way of the rear half. They must go faster, faster as the runaway cars gain on them. Any one can see that it is undesirable to have two million gallons of oil struck by a million gallons coming at forty miles an hour.
Yet the brakeman does the wrong thing (no man can be sure how he will act in imminent peril); the brakeman signals the engineer to stop. Perhaps he planned a gradual slow-up to block the flying section gently; perhaps he did not realize how fast the runaway was coming. Most likely he lost his head entirely, as better men have done in less serious crises. At any rate, the front section presently drew up with grinding brakes on the ledge of track that stretches along the cheek of the mountain just over the slope where the slumbering village lay, not five feet from Carling's warehouse, beyond which were the coal-yards and the wooden houses of Glen Gardner, the post-office, the hardware store, and the main street. Of all places for that train to stop, this was the worst.
"SNYDER, WHITE AS A GHOST, RACED AHEAD OF THE FIRE."