“Buck, can you run a locomotive?”
“With one hand, old man.”
“Fine business! Well, I guess we'll put in that crossing to-morrow night. The switch-engine will be in the roundhouse at Pennington's mill to-morrow night so we can't steal that; but we can steal the mogul. I'll just send word up to my woods-boss not to have his train loaded when the mogul comes up late to-morrow afternoon to haul it down to our log-landing. He will explain to the engineer and fireman that our big bull donkey went out and we couldn't get our logs down to the landing in time to get them loaded that day. Of course, the engine-crew won't bother to run down to Sequoia for the night—that is, they won't run the mogul down. They'll just leave her at our log-landing all night and put up for the night at our camp. However, if they should be forced, because of their private affairs, to return to Sequoia, they'll borrow my trackwalker's velocipede. I have one that is driven with a small gasolene engine—I use it in running back and forth to the logging-camp in case I fail to connect with a log-train.”
“But how do you know they will put up at your camp all night, Bryce?”
“My men will make them comfortable, and it means they can lie abed until seven o'clock instead of having to roll out at five o'clock, which would be the case if they spent the night at this end of the line. If they do not stay at our logging-camp, the mogul will stay there, provided my woods-foreman lends them my velocipede. The fireman would prefer that to firing that big mogul all the way back to Sequoia.”
“Yes,” Buck agreed, “I think he would.”
“There is a slight grade at our log-landing. I know that, because the air leaked out of the brakes on a log-train I was on a short time ago, and the train ran away with me. Now, the engine-crew will set the airbrakes on the mogul and leave her with steam up to throb all night; they'll not blow her down, for that would mean work firing her in the morning. Our task, Buck, will be to throw off the airbrakes and let her glide silently out of our log-landing. About a mile down the road we'll stop, get up steam, run down to the junction with the main line, back in on the Laurel Creek spur, couple on to those flat-cars and breeze merrily down to Sequoia with them. They'll be loaded waiting for us; our men will be congregated in our dry-yard just off Water Street near B, waiting for us to arrive with the rails—and bingo—we go to it. After we drop the flats, we'll run the engine back to the woods, leave it where we found it, return a-flying on the velocipede, if it's there, or in my automobile, if it isn't there. You can get back in ample time to superintend the cutting of the crossing!”
“Spoken like a man!” quoth Buck Ogilvy. “You're the one man in this world for whom I'd steal a locomotive. 'At-a boy!”
Had either of the conspirators known of Pennington's plans to entertain Mayor Poundstone at dinner on Thursday night, it is probable they would not have cheered until those flat-cars were out of the woods.