Dawson climbed up to the main-line embankment where Darby could see him, and where he could see all the parts of his problem at once. Then his hands went up to beckon the slacking signals. At the lifting of his finger there was a growling of gears and a backward racing of machinery, a groan of relaxing strains, and a cry of "All gone!" and the 195 stood upright, ready to be hauled out when the temporary track should be extended to a connection with the main line.
"Let's go up to the other end and see how your understudy is making it, Mac," said the gratified superintendent. "It is quite evident that we can't tell this young man anything he doesn't already know about picking up locomotives."
On the way up the track he asked about Clay and Green, the engineer and fireman who were in the wreck.
"They are not badly hurt," said the trainmaster. "They both jumped—on Green's side, luckily. Clay was bruised considerably, and Green says he knows he plowed up fifty yards of gravel with his face before he stopped—and he looked it. They both went home on 201."
Lidgerwood was examining the cross-ties, which were cut and scarred by the flanges of many derailed wheels.
"You have no notion of what did it?" he queried, turning abruptly upon McCloskey.
"Only a guess, and it couldn't be verified in a thousand years. The '95 went off first, and Clay and Green both say it felt as if a rail had turned over on the outside of the curve."
"What did you find when you got here?"
"Chaos and Old Night: a pile of scrap with a hole torn in the middle of it as if by an explosion, and a fire going."
"Of course, you couldn't tell anything about the cause, under such conditions."