He did what he could to cut out the Bauxite stop for the special, ordering Donohue to tell the junction man to set his signals at "clear" for the train, and at "stop" for the 416. It was only a make-shift. In the natural order of things the engineer of the special would make the Bauxite stop anyway, signal or no signal, since it is a nation-wide railroad rule that no train shall pass a junction without stopping.
Past that the boss grabbed up an official time-card and began to study it hurriedly and to jot down figures. I wondered if he wasn't tempted—just the least little bit in the world, you know.
Here was a thing shaping itself up—a thing for which he wasn't in the least responsible—and if it should work out to the catastrophe that nobody seemed to be able to prevent, the chief of the grafters, and probably a number of his nearest backers, would be wiped off the books; and Collingwood's death, which, in all human probability, was equally certain, would set Mrs. Sheila free.
He must be thinking of it, I argued; he couldn't be a human man and not be thinking of it. But he never stopped his hasty figuring for a single instant until he broke off to bark out at Kirgan, who was standing by:
"Quick, Mart! I want a light engine, and somebody to run it! Jump for it, man!"
Kirgan, big and slow-motioned at most times, was off like a shot. Then the boss hurried back down the hall to his own offices, and again I tagged him. The old major was standing at a window with his hands behind him, and Mrs. Sheila was sitting just as we had left her, with the big terror still in her eyes and her face as white as a sheet.
"We can't stop him without throwing a switch in front of him, and that would mean death to him and his two enginemen," said the boss, talking straight at the major, and as if he were trying to ignore Mrs. Sheila. "I'm going to take a long chance and run down the line to meet them. There's a bare possibility that I can contrive to get between the train and the engine, and if I can——"
Mrs. Sheila was on her feet and she had her hands clasped as if she were going to make a prayer to the boss. And it was pretty nearly that.
"Take me!" she begged; "oh, please take me. It's my right to go!"
Kirgan had found an engine somewhere in the yard and was backing it up to the station platform. We could hear it. I saw that the chief was going to turn Mrs. Sheila down—which was, of course, exactly the right thing to do. But just then the major shoved in.