Keyed up with the excitement of it all, Jeff, also armed with an ax that he had hastily seized from an open tool box on one of the flat cars, followed them, and soon he found himself in the thick of things. Piled up across the right of way and down the embankment on either side were what an hour ago had been ten big red and yellow freight cars. Now they were junk; just a mass of terribly twisted, splintered and crushed wood and iron, all mixed up with railroad ties and corkscrew-looking rails that had been torn from the roadbed by the force of the catastrophe.
Tim, the boss wrecker, stopped a moment and looked the mess over. In particular he looked at the fire that was raging at the other end of the wreck.
“Looks like that fire was going to help us some in getting this thing clear. But we can’t wait for that. Hello, Tracy,” the last was said to a railroad man who came out of the smoke, followed by two others. He was the conductor of the luckless freight.
“Hello, Tim. Rotten mess, ain’t it?”
“You said it. Any one hurt? How’s the engineer and fireman?”
“Both back in our hack. Pretty well shaken up but outside of a slight burn that Norton got they are both all right. They’ll be out to lend a hand as soon as they get some of the cinders picked out o’ their hides.”
“Fine. All right, men. We clear the eastbound track first. You, Casey, take your men and get that No. 1 derrick up here. You, Saunders, start to cut away and move that stuff so we can get the derrick up to the first car. Come on, men, snap to it. Casey, tell that biscuit-shooter of ours to get that hot coffee and sandwiches on the job in a hurry. We want a snack before the cold gets into us. Shake a leg. Shake both of ’em.”
The wreckers went into action. The engine’s big headlight illuminated the scene and made the night as light as day. Men with crowbars and axes fell to clearing the wreckage that might obstruct the movement of the derrick. Another crew attended to the laying of temporary tracks by means of which the engine could be shunted from the front to the rear of the wrecking train so that the first of the big derricks could be moved slowly up into place close to the wreck.
All this was accomplished in a remarkably short time considering the work involved, and while Jeff worked and sweated with the rest of the men and gulped down innumerable cups of steaming coffee and ate all the sandwiches he could consume as they were brought up by the grinning negro cook of the wrecking train, the first big derrick was moved up into place and like a giant elephant began to slowly nose its way into the wreck.
Then didn’t the men work! With this giant helper the task of clearing one track seemed to simplify. The men burrowed into the wreckage like so many field mice, carrying the chains of the derrick with them. These they snapped around heavy trucks, backed away and gave the signal, and the derrick would slowly lift the obstruction out of the way and swing it around onto one of the flat cars or off onto the embankment where it was deposited for the time being. Whole sections of freight cars were lifted by this mastodontic machine, as slowly it crept further and further into the heart of the wreckage foot by foot, clearing one track so that the line would be partially opened as soon as possible.