By this time Dawson had got his big lifter in position, with its huge steel arm overreaching the fallen engine, and was giving his orders quietly, but with clean-cut precision.
"Man that hand-fall and take slack! Pay off, Darby," to the hoister engineer. "That's right; more slack!"
The great tackling-hook, as big around as a man's thigh, settled accurately over the 195.
"There you are!" snapped Dawson. "Now make your hitch, boys, and be lively about it. You've got just about one minute to do it in!"
"Heavens to Betsey!" said McCloskey. "He's going to pick it up at one hitch—and without blocking!"
"Hands off, Mac," said Lidgerwood good-naturedly. "If Fred didn't know this trade before, he's learning it pretty rapidly now."
"That's all right, but if he doesn't break something before he gets through——"
But Dawson was breaking nothing. Having designed locomotives, he knew to the fraction of an inch where the balancing hitch should be made for lifting one. Also machinery, and the breaking strains of it, were as his daily bread. While McCloskey was still prophesying failure, he was giving the word to Darby, the hoister engineer.
"Now then, Billy, try your hitch! Put the strain on a little at a time and often. Steady!—now you've got her—keep her coming!"
Slowly the big freight-puller rose out of its furrow in the gravel, righting itself to the perpendicular as it came. Anticipating the inward swing of it, Dawson was showing his men how to place ties and rails for a short temporary track, and when he gave Darby the stop signal, the hoisting cables were singing like piano strings, and the big engine was swinging bodily in the air in the grip of the crane tackle, poised to a nicety above the steel placed to receive it.