Lister listened. The swelling note indicated that the train had left the cut, but it did not look as if the engineer was pulling up.
"She's coming along pretty fast," said Willis. "If he doesn't snub her soon, she'll jump the steel and take the muskeg."
Next moment Lister was on his feet. Hardie was driving too fast; Lister doubted if he could stop before the heavy train plunged through the broken track. The unsteady white flicker behind the trees had sunk and changed to smoky red. If looked as if the oil was not vaporizing properly and the lamp was going out. When the engineer saw the light it would be too late.
"Get the boys off the track. I'll try to fix the lamp," Lister shouted, and started for the bridge.
The errand was not his. Willis had lighted the lamp: moreover, one might have sent a workman, but when a job was urgent Lister went himself. The job was urgent and dangerous. Unless he made good speed, he would meet the train on the bridge and the cylinders of the locomotive projected beyond the edge.
The track was rough and fresh gravel rolled under his feet. Now and then he struck a cross-tie and nearly fell. It had got dark and among the trees the gloom was deep; one could not see the ties. Yet he must run, and his breath got labored and his heart thumped. He did not know where the train was, only that it was near. The woods throbbed with a savage din; the big cars, loaded with rattling gravel, clanged and roared as they plunged down grade.
Lister hardly thought he could stop the train. It looked as if he would be caught on the trestle, but he meant to go on. He did not argue about it; he was rather moved by instinctive stubbornness. At moments of strain one does not argue and logic has no appeal. Character counts for all, and Lister followed his bent. His job was urgent and must be carried out.
When he reached the bridge he saw white threads of water between the timbers of the open frame. The spacing of the ties was not regular, and if he stepped short, or too far, he would go through. Then, if he did not strike a brace, he would fall upon the rocks in the stream. All the same, he saw the blaze of the head-lamp pick out the trees across the ravine and sprang on to the bridge.
Somehow he hit the ties; perhaps by subconscious judgment, and perhaps by good luck. Then he felt loose gravel under his feet and thrilled with a strange fierce satisfaction. His breath was labored and his body wet by sweat, but the moving beam had not reached the lamp. He was going to make it.
When the black front of a gravel car leaped out of the gloom he jumped off the track. The locomotive pushed the cars, the train was long, and the lamp was but a few yards off. It had not gone out, although the flame had sunk to a faint red jet that would not be seen in the dust. His hands shook, but he gave the pump a few strokes and turned the valve wheel. The red jet got white and leaped higher and Lister, pumping hard, looked up the track. Big cars, rocking and banging, rushed past in a cloud of dust. Bits of gravel struck him and rattled against the lamp. The blurred, dark figures of men who sat upon the load cut against the fan-shaped beam, and in the background he saw a shower of leaping sparks.