The last week found us pretty well cleaned up; but the high price brought grain out of cellars and wells, the buyers said—at least, it brought all the hoarded wheat, and much of the seed wheat, and the 28th day of the month found fifty cars of wheat still in the Zanesville yards. I was at Harvard working on a time-card when the word came, and behind it a special from the general manager, stating there was a thousand dollars premium in it for the company, besides tariff, if we got that wheat into Chicago by Saturday morning.
The train end of it didn't bother me any; it was the motive power that kept us studying. However, we figured that by running McNeal with the Sky-Scraper back wild we could put all the wheat behind her in one train. As it happened, Neighbor was at Harvard, too.
"Can they ever get over Beverly with fifty, Neighbor?" I asked, doubtfully.
"We'll never know till they try it," growled Neighbor. "There's a thousand for the company if they do, that's all. How'll you run them? Give them plenty of sea-room; they'll have to gallop to make it."
Cool and reckless planning, taking the daring chances, straining the flesh and blood, driving the steel loaded to the snapping-point; that was what it meant. But the company wanted results; wanted the prestige, and the premium, too. To gain them we were expected to stretch our little resources to the uttermost.
I studied a minute, then turned to the dispatcher.
"Tell Norman to send them out as second 4; that gives the right of way over every wheel against them. If they can't make it on that kind of schedule, it isn't in the track."
It was extraordinary business, rather, sending a train of wheat through on a passenger schedule, practically, as the second section of our east-bound flyer; but we took hair-lifting chances on the plains.
It was noon when the orders were flashed. At three o'clock No. 4 was due to leave Zanesville. For three hours I kept the wires busy warning all operators and trainmen, even switch-engines and yard-masters, of the wheat special—second 4.
The Flyer, the first section and regular passenger-train, was checked out of Zanesville on time. Second 4, which meant Georgie McNeal, Dad, the Sky-Scraper, and fifty loads of wheat, reported out at 3.10. While we worked on our time-card, Neighbor, in the dispatcher's office across the hall, figured out that the wheat-train would enrich the company just eleven thousand dollars, tolls and premium. "If it doesn't break in two on Beverly Hill," growled Neighbor, with a qualm.