“I thought this was Fuller’s train,” he said. “It’s Fuller’s engine.”
“Yes, it is Fuller’s engine, but he’s to follow me with his regular train and another engine. This is a special carrying ammunition for General Beauregard, and I must have the right of way clear along the line!”
The dispatcher scanned the train. He saw nothing to excite his suspicions. The baggage cars were closed, and might easily be filled with powder and shot; the men in the engine, and the two brakemen on the top of one car had a perfectly natural appearance.
“Well, you can’t move on yet,” he announced. “Here’s a telegram saying a local freight from the north will soon be here, and you must wait till she comes up.”
Andrews bit his lip in sheer vexation. He had reasoned that this irregular freight train would already be at Kingston on his arrival, and he hated the idea of a delay. The loiterers on the platform were listening eagerly to the conversation; he felt that he was attracting too much attention. But there was no help for it. He could not go forward on this single-track railroad until the exasperating freight had reached the station.
“All right,” he answered, endeavoring to look unconcerned, “shunt us off.”
Within three minutes the train had been shifted from the main track to a side track, and a curious crowd had gathered around “The General.”
It was a critical situation. The idlers began to ply the occupants of the cab with a hundred questions which must be answered in some shape unless suspicion was to be aroused—and suspicion, under such circumstances, would mean the holding back of the train, and the failure of the expedition.
“Where did you come from?” “How much powder have you got on board?” “Why did you take Fuller’s engine?” “Why is Beauregard in such a hurry for ammunition?” were among the queries hurled at the defenceless heads of the four conspirators.
George, as he gazed out upon the Kingstonians, began to feel rather nervous. He realized that one contradictory answer, one slip of the tongue, might spoil everything. And in this case to spoil was a verb meaning imprisonment and ultimate death.