“We are almost on the bridge now,” he said.
The engineer nodded, and the next moment Breckenridge, who had been watching the light of the headlamp flash along the snow beside the track, saw it sweep on, as it were, through emptiness. Then, he heard a roar of timber beneath him, and fancied he could look down into a black gulf through the filmy snow. He knew it was a single track they were speeding over, and that the platform of the calaboose behind them overhung the frozen river far below.
He set his lips and held his breath for what seemed a very long time, and then, with a sigh of relief, sank back into his seat as he felt by the lessening vibration, that there was frozen soil under them. But in spite of himself the hands he would have lighted a cigar with shook, and the engineer who looked round glanced at him curiously.
“Feeling kind of sick?” he said. “Well, it’s against the regulations, but there’s something that might fix you as well as tea in that can.”
Breckenridge smiled feebly. “The fact is, I have never travelled on a locomotive before, and when I took on the contract I didn’t quite know all I was letting myself in for,” he said.
“How far are we off the long down grade with the curve in it?” asked Grant.
“We might get there in ’bout ten minutes,” said the engineer.
“Slacken up before you reach the grade and put your headlamp out,” said Grant. “I want you to stop just this side of the curve, and wait for me five minutes.”
The engineer looked at him steadily. “Now, there’s a good deal I don’t understand about all this. What do you want me to stop there for?”
“I don’t see why you should worry. It does not concern you. Any way, I have hired this special, and I give you my word that nothing I am going to do will cause the least damage to any of the company’s property. I want you to stop, lend me a lantern, and sit tight in the cab until I tell you to go on. We will make it two dollars a minute.”