Chick noticed now that the train was rapidly slowing down. He heard shouts from the smoker when the brakeman opened the door.
“Great guns!” he muttered, starting up and following him. “Has the trick been turned? Has the job been done, in spite of us?”
Chick hurried through the car and entered the smoker. A dozen excited men were gathered near the forward door and upon the platform and steps. In another moment Chick was among them, and he saw at a glance what had occurred.
The train had been divided. The rear cars of it had come to a stop on the steep up grade.
The forward section, consisting of the locomotive, the baggage car, and the express car, was vanishing around a curve in the tracks more than half a mile away.
A solitary man then was on the rear platform of the express car, though invisible in the darkness—the man with a Vandyke beard.
Scarce two minutes had elapsed since he passed through the smoker. He had not sat down, nor lighted his cigar, but walked deliberately out upon the front platform.
Then, with the speed and dexterity of one familiar with such work, he disconnected the signal cord and the air-brake couplings, set the front brake of the smoker, and then unlocked and threw the lever that uncoupled the two cars. Then he leaped to the back platform of the express car just as it forged ahead, leaving the rear section of the broken train falling swiftly behind.
Leaning out from the platform steps to make absolutely sure of his location, the man then waited until the forward section struck the curve mentioned. He then seized the bell cord and signaled the engineer to stop.
The response was immediate. Almost on the instant the grinding of the brakes was mingled with the roar and rumble of the wheels and the rush of the night wind around him.