The man turned with the vehicle in his hands, thrust it back into the baggage car and dropped where he stood, his face down, by the side of the track.
By this time the passengers began to come off to see what had happened to the train.
I don’t know precisely what I did, but to White there was no confusion. He ordered every one back into the train and began to fire along the sides to hurry them into the covering of the cars. In the meantime, Mooney had brought the engineer and fireman back to the mail car and had taken the mail clerks out of the car.
There had been no resistance to this man.
He shot out one or two of the windows to add emphasis to his directions, but it was an emphasis that had not been needed. No thought of resistance had occurred to anybody. Mooney sent the trainmen to the rear. He impressed upon them that any man appearing outside of the train would be killed.
In the whirl of these events I seemed to be little more than a spectator.
To the train crew I was the third menacing figure, masked and armed, but I am not certain what benefit I would have been to the two men in a sudden emergency. It was my direction to stay with White and I now ran with him to the engine. Mooney took charge of the end of the train where White had cut it off. He stood on the platform of the mail car.
We climbed up into the engine, White and I, and at once I saw that this man knew precisely what to do. He threw the air brake into release, dropped his reversing lever forward, opened the throttle and started out like a skilled engineer.
He put me to shoveling coal into the engine.
“Make a green fire,” he said. “We shall stop shortly, and if we need to start again we shall have a heavy fire ready.”