But out of the dim smoke that trailed behind the pursuing engine broke, just then, a series of red flashes in furious staccato. The drumming reports were drowned in the roar and clank of the racing engines; but the hail of bullets that rattled and glanced from the mogul’s side was unmistakable.
“Machine-guns!” Jake exclaimed. “Chuck her into high, Alberto!” As, under a full head of steam, the engine picked up and ran through the night like a frightened girl, he added: “Sheer accident, they hit us, anyway. They kain’t do it again.”
Proving his words, the next burst of firing went wide. Only one bullet struck the cowcatcher, and, leaping like a horse from the spur, the mogul launched in dizzy flight down grade; had drawn two miles ahead by the time she took the next sharp curve.
“Hold her at that,” Jake ordered.
But again he had failed to reckon with the wires, which, after blocking their advance, now cut off retreat. Shortly thereafter came a flash of light as the engine shot from a cut through the first of the series of stations they had passed on their way up.
In accordance with the inscrutable law which governs the location of Mexican stations, it stood a half-mile from the little adobe town that dragged its unclean, brown skirts across the tracks. If the inhabitants thereof had been content to obey telegraphed orders to build an obstacle and let it go at that, the mogul would probably have gone into the ditch without a second’s warning. But, desiring to see the smash, they had lighted a huge fire alongside the tracks, and under its glare the pile of ties, earth, and stones stood out plain as by day. Wheels grinding, blue sparks shooting from the sanded rails, the mogul stopped within a hundred yards.
After he had closed the throttle and thrown on the brakes the engineer’s eye had gone to the cab door. Then it switched to the ugly, black muzzle of Jake’s gun. Releasing the brakes, he reversed and opened the throttle.
A sputter of musketry had followed the first yell of disappointment that went up from the rabble of peon watchers. Fired from ancient pieces, however, the bullets fell short or rebounded like peas from the mogul’s sides. Picking up her stride, she outran their feeble pursuit in a hundred yards.
It was then that the engineer’s voice rose in protest: “But, señor, we shall run into the other train! Mira! Mira! it is now only a mile away!”
Jake’s eye measured the distance. Then, in dry soliloquy that, even if it had not been couched in English, would still have gone over the other’s head, he spoke. “Do you know what a maquina loca is, Alberto? You don’t? You s’prise me.” Scared out of his small wits, the poor devil had not even answered. “It’s the one great invention your pais has produced. ’Twas first used by Mr. Orozco shortly after he graduated from a mule’s tail to be commander-in-chief of Madero’s army. He designed it for the extirpation of Huertistas that got to tagging after him like these gents is trailing us. ’Twas very simple. He’d load up half a ton of dynamite on an enjine cowcatcher an’ turn her loose with the throttle wide open jest where she’d catch a troop-train in a blind cut. Mighty effective, it was, too. Some o’ them Huertistas was so elevated above their normal they hain’t finished raining down yet. Of course we’re shy on the dynamite. But a forty-ton mogul careering along at sixty miles an hour ain’t to be despised. Anyway, we’ll try it. At this gait we orter catch ’em in the cut beyond the station. Hit her up.”