“You're not going to jump?” squealed the inventor.
“You bet I am!” replied the mechanic, making a flying leap.
He was gone.
The Alcomotive was now without any semblance of a controlling hand.
There was no way for Hawkins to reach the contrivance, for the car was four or five feet distant from the train proper, and to attempt a leap or a climb to the Alcomotive, with the whole affair rocking and swaying as it was, would simply have been to pave the way for a neat “Herbert Hawkins” on the marble block of their plot in Greenwood Cemetery.
“Well, what under the sun——” began Hawkins.
“Good heavens! This train! The people!” I gasped.
“Well—well—well—let us find the conductor. He'll know what to do!”
“Yes, but he can't stop the machine—and we're backing along at certainly fifty miles an hour; and any minute we may run into the next train behind.”
“Come! Come! Find the conductor!”