Then we were racing through stiller air again, with the driving cloud behind; for each of the curious rushes of wind that precedes a prairie storm keeps to a definite path of its own. Several times, with a roar of wheels flung back to us, we swept through a sleeping town, where thin frame houses went rocking past until the tall elevators shut them 247 in, and again there was only a dim stretch of prairie that rolled up faster and faster under the front trailing-wheels.
At last, when the lights of Brandon glimmered ahead, Heysham fell over the fireman as the locomotive jumped to the checking of the brake, and a colored flicker blinked beside the track. The glare of another head-lamp beat upon us as we rolled through the station, while amid the clash of shocking wheat-cars that swept past I caught the warning:
“Look out for the snow-block east of Willow Lake! Freight-train on the single track; wires not working well!”
“I guess we’ll take our chances,” said Robertson; and Number Forty panted louder, hurling red sparks aloft as he rushed her at an up-grade. Still, his brows contracted when, some time later, he beckoned me, and I saw a wide lake draw near with silky drifts racing across its black ice. They also flowed across the track ahead, while beyond it the loom of what might be a flag station was faintly visible against a driving bank of cloud.
“Snow’s coming off the ice,” he said. “Hold fast! She may jump a little when I ram her through.”
The pace grew even faster. We were racing down an incline, and now, ice, station, and prairie alike were blotted out by a blinding whiteness; while presently I was flung backward off my feet, and would have fallen but that I clutched a guard-rail. The whole cab rattled, the great locomotive lurched, and a white smother hurtled under the lamp glare, until once more the motion grew even, and we could feel the well-braced frame of iron and steel leap forward beneath us. Engineer Robertson swayed easily to the oscillation as, with one side of his intent face toward me, he clutched the throttle lever, until he called hoarsely as his fingers moved along it. Then, even while the steam roared in blown-down wreaths from the lifting valve, the lever was straight at wide-open again, and I caught my 248 breath as I made out another yellow halo with something that moved behind it in the snow ahead.
“It’s the freight pulling out of the siding. I can’t hold Number Forty up before she’s over the switches. I guess we’ve got to race for it,” he said.
The fireman did something, and, with a shower of half-burned cinders from her funnel and a mad blast of the whistle, Number Forty pounded on. Heysham’s face was paler than before, and the disc of yellow radiance grew nearer and brighter. A faint flash appeared below it, a deeper whistle reached us brokenly, and I remembered two hoarse voices.
“They’re opening the switches! That’s come on,” one of them said. “Trying to check the freighter! There’ll be an almighty smash if they don’t!”
The other was apparently Heysham’s: “And two rascally confidence men will be skipping for the border with the proceeds of what should have been Ross & Grant’s cattle.”