“Yes; both firemen, and Bamberg, the engineer of the freight. The other man was a postal clerk; and his mate had an arm and a leg broken.”
“Many injuries?”
“Astonishingly few, when there was such a good chance for a general massacre. Both men on the second section engine jumped, and both were hurt, though not badly. There was nobody in the split caboose when it was hit. On the Mail, Cargill, who was running, got off with a pretty bad scalp wound. An express messenger had his foot jammed; and the train baggageman had a lot of trunks shaken down on him. In the coaches there were a few people thrown out of their seats and hurt by the sudden stop; but in the sleepers there were a good many who slept straight through it, incredible as that may sound.”
“I know,” said Maxwell; “I’ve seen that happen more than once, when the Pullmans stayed on the rails.” Then, with a slight backward nod of his head he changed the subject abruptly. “Bascom—has he been handling it all right?”
“He’s a dandy!” said Benson. “Personally, I’d about as soon associate with any one of a dozen Copah tin-horns that I could name as to foregather with Mr. Judson Bascom. But he’s onto his job, all right. He laid this temporary track himself; I haven’t butted in at all, either here or at Fordyce’s end.”
“How did you happen to get here? I thought you were up Red Butte way,” said the superintendent.
“I was; but I came down to Brewster on Six last night, meaning to go through to Angels. While we were changing engines I ran upstairs to get some maps and papers out of my office, and took too long about it; the train got away from me and I chased out with the wreck-wagons. That’s how near I came to being mixed up in this thing myself.”
“And you want to go on to Angels now?”
“Yes; when I get a chance. Those irrigation people in Mesquite Valley are howling to have an unloading spur built up from the old copper-mine track, and I thought I’d go and look the ground over.”
The superintendent’s frown was expressive of impatient dissatisfaction.