Grant rose and leaned forward close to the glasses. He could see nothing but the radiance from the headlamp whirling like a meteor through the filmy haze; but the fierce vibration of everything, and the fashion in which the snow smote the glasses, as in a solid stream, showed the pace at which they were travelling. He looked round and saw that Breckenridge’s eyes were fixed upon him. His comrade’s voice reached him faint and strained through the hammering of the wheels.
“You feel tolerably sure Harper was right about the bridge?”
Grant nodded. “I do.”
“What if he was mistaken, and they meant to try there after all? There are eight of us.”
“We have got to take the risk,” said Grant very quietly, “and it is a big responsibility; but if the boys got their work in and fell foul of Cheyne, we would have half the State ablaze.”
He signed for silence, and Breckenridge stared out through the glasses, for he feared his face would betray him, and fancied he understood the burden that was upon the man who, because it seemed the lesser evil, was risking eight men’s lives.
As he watched, a blink of light crept out of the snow, grew brighter, and swept back to them. Others appeared in a cluster behind it, a big water-tank flashed by, and the roar of wheels and scream of whistle was flung back by a snow-covered building. Then, as Breckenridge glanced to the opposite side, the blaze of another headlamp dazzled his eyes and he had a blurred vision of a waiting locomotive and a long row of snow-smeared cars. In another second cars and station had vanished as suddenly as they had sprung up out of the night, and they were once more alone in the sliding snow. Breckenridge drew a breath of relief.
“There’s the stock train, any way. And now for the bridge!” he said.
“That was the easiest half of it. Muller was there—I saw him—and he could have warned the agent at the last minute,” Grant answered.
Neither of them said anything further, but Breckenridge felt his heart beat faster as the snow whirled by. The miles were slipping behind them, and he was by no means so sure as Larry was that no attempt would be made upon the bridge. His fancy would persist in picturing the awful leap into the outer darkness through the gap in the trestle, and he felt his lips and forehead grow a trifle colder and his flesh shrink in anticipation of the tremendous shock. He looked at Grant; the latter’s face was very quiet, and had lost its grimness and weariness—there was almost a suggestion of exaltation in it.