“We’re certain to get in trouble if we try that, Jimmy. Come on. We’ve done half the distance, I guess, already.”
“Oh, come on!” Jimmy was already struggling with the hand-car. “We can lift it easy enough, Dud. It isn’t heavy. Here, we’ll toss this junk off.” And Jimmy ruthlessly slid a box of spikes and some tools to the ground. “Give us a lift, Dud!”
Dud hesitated an instant longer and then went to Jimmy’s assistance. The car was lumbersome, but they had no great difficulty in trundling it along the ties and then swinging it to the rails. Fortunately, a bend in the tracks hid them from the little station.
“Climb aboard!” said Jimmy joyfully. “Bend your back, Dud! Let her flicker!”
She didn’t “flicker” much at first, though, and it proved to be surely a case of “bend your back”! They did a good deal of grunting and perspiring before the hand-car found its gait. After that it wasn’t hard to keep it going, except that the continual raising and lowering of the bars soon began to tire arms and shoulders and backs. But Jimmy, although the perspiration was soon trickling down his nose, was full of encouragement.
“There’s another mile-post coming, Dud! Say, I’ll bet we’re making fifteen miles an hour, eh?”
“More like ten,” panted Dud. “Wish we’d come to a grade so we could quit a minute!”
“Bound to be one soon, I guess. Keep it up! We’re doing finely!”
And there was one soon. It began a few rods beyond, but, instead of being a down-grade it was the other sort, and for the next ten minutes they had their work cut out for them! Dud was all for abandoning the hand-car and taking to their legs again, but Jimmy pointed out that when they had once reached the top of the hill they’d be able to coast down the other side of it. But Jimmy was wrong about that, for when the grade did come to an end only a level track awaited them. Still, after propelling that thing up a quarter-mile rise, even level track was a vast relief, and they let the car run a minute while they dropped the handles and mopped their streaming faces.
“What time is it now?” asked Jimmy, easing a wilted collar about his neck. They had long since removed their jackets and hats and bundled them at their feet.