Another scratching showed that Watson had heard and understood. But Waggie began to bark again. George was filled with vexation. “Why did I let Waggie go in the car?” he asked himself.
Just then a welcome whistle proclaimed that the third freight train was approaching. It was time; the delay at Kingston must have occupied nearly an hour—it seemed like a whole day—and the men about the railroad station were becoming skeptical. They could not understand why the mysterious commander of the powder-train should persist in wanting to go on after hearing that Mitchell was so near.
When George returned to the engine the new freight went by on the main track directly in the wake of the second freight, which had been sent half a mile down the line, to the southward. The main track was now clear for Andrews. But the intrepid leader seemed to be facing fresh trouble. He was standing on the step of the cab, addressing the old man who had charge of the switches.
“Switch me off to the main track at once,” thundered Andrews. “Don’t you see, fool, that the last local freight is in, and I have a clear road!”
There was a provokingly obstinate twist about the switch-tender’s mouth.
“Switch yourself off,” he snarled. “I shan’t take the responsibility for doing it. You may be what you say you are, but I haven’t anything to prove it. You’re a fool, anyway, to run right into the arms of the Yankee general.”
His fellow-townsmen indulged in a murmur of approval. The men in the cab saw that another minute would decide their fate, adversely or otherwise.
“I order you to switch me off—in the name of the Confederate Government!” shouted the leader.
More citizens were running over from the station to find out the cause of the disturbance.
“I don’t know you, and I won’t take any orders from you!” said the switch-tender, more doggedly than ever. He walked over to the station, where he hung up the keys of the switch in the room of the ticket-seller.