“How did you happen to fall out of the cab?” asked Colonel Searle, who had joined the group around the fireman.
“I was trying to get one more shovel of coal into the old pot,” said Benson. “I misjudged the distance and speed and was caught half way between cab and tender when we hit the fire. Figured I knew my way back to my side of the cab and made a jump for it. Instead of going where I intended I dove out the gangway. Good thing for me it only took us about five seconds to run that fire or I’d have plunged right into the center of it. I landed rolling, hit a rock and broke my leg and have been here ever since. Now we’re waiting for a special that is coming down from Vinton with a doctor.”
“Notice anything peculiar about the fire while you were lying here?” asked the officer.
“Only one thing,” admitted the fireman. “It smelled kind of oily and the smoke was mighty dark but my leg was hurting so much I didn’t pay a lot of attention to the fire except to worry for fear it might spread and I wouldn’t be able to get out of the way.”
“Did you hear any strange sounds?” asked Tim.
“Only once,” replied the fireman. “Sounded sort of like a high-powered car but when I didn’t hear it again I thought I must have been going batty.”
“Didn’t see anyone?” asked the colonel.
“Not until some of these section hunkies came chugging down the line,” said the fireman.
Satisfied that they could gain no additional information from questioning the fireman, Tim and Colonel Searle turned away and joined Ralph to start a systematic search of the blackened timber.
The two reporters and the head of the state police moved back and forth across the timber, searching for something that might indicate how the fire had started. They covered the section of timber on the right side of the railroad without result and then crossed over the rails and resumed their search on the left side.