“The track doesn’t hit the heavy timber—goes across the cutover land, so it ain’t likely there’ll be any trees blockin’ ’er. The cutover’ll be hot, but we couldn’t go through th’ tall stuff.”
Plenty of willing hands piled wood into the firebox when the valve job was done. Whether they survived or perished, Jack was glad he had come. Inexpert hands, he was sure, could not have installed the intake valve.
Jack’s only twinge of conscience concerned Nellie. But had she known, she would have had him do as he did. She was game, was Nellie.
Jack watched the needle creep up on the steam gauge. The suspense of waiting for power to move was worse than all the rest had been. Jack helped get the dripping tent canvas on the cars to help protect the men. Bearded, silent, overgrown boys they were. Some had the strained look around their eyes that told what the hours of watching the approach of the blazing death had meant.
At last the steam hissed from the safety cock. Beth advised that they haul three of the flat cars. He figured it would give the men more room to fight the blaze, if the wet canvas proved insufficient to safeguard them. With two men stoking the firebox, Jack tested the throttle. The dinky coughed and its four teetering wheels bit into the rails. They were beginning to move.
Some one shouted from the rear car. A brand had fired the woods directly behind them and the blaze was spreading. They were moving in the nick of time. Some of the men shouted again, and Beth called to Jack to stop. Jack could not hear distinctly, but when he had shut off the steam, Beth told him to wait for a minute.
“Three or four campers from up on the mountain just got into the clearin’,” Beth explained across the top of the tender. “They’re gettin’ ’em covered with canvas on our last car. There—they’re all clear—let ’er go.”
The dinky coughed and the wheels spun again. Jack got no reassurance as to the light engine’s stability from the rocking movement over the poorly built track, even at its first slow speed. The track ran for a mile on a level grade around the mountainside. This had been the loading spur. The dinky dragged the flats at a speed of less than ten miles an hour. To Jack, accustomed to the rushing take-off of his planes, they seemed scarcely to move. The acrid tang of the wood smoke drifted into the open cab and stung Jack’s nostrils and throat.
He should have provided himself with one of the wet sacks or a strip of canvas. But old man Beth had thought of that, too. A lumberjack came climbing over the wood on the tender, dragging a wet canvas. Jack wrapped one end around his shoulders and trailed the remainder for the stocky little Irishman who was poking wood into the firebox.