Only the clear brain of an engineer saved him. Brakes screamed, wheels ground, the engine came to a sudden stop, not ten feet from the spot where he had fallen.
But what was this? There came a wisp of smoke, then a sudden flare of light. The air was filled with the smell of burning phosphorous and brimstone.
“Matches!” he cried, as he turned to flee. “One of those cars was loaded with matches. The sudden jolt has set them off.”
This time the race was joined by a third person, the engineer. A lusty runner he was, too. Full well he knew the danger of being trapped in a narrow subterranean passage filled with fumes.
He outran Curlie. The boy was three yards behind when once more he stumbled and fell.
The fumes were upon him. He could feel them in his eyes, his lungs. They were blinding, stifling, stupifying. Yet he must not give in.
Once more he was on his feet. He had not gone a dozen paces when there appeared a still greater terror. Before him, slowly, inch by inch, but none the less surely, a pair of massive iron gates were closing.
He understood in an instant. These gates, placed at certain points in the tunnel, were intended for just such an emergency as this. When they were closed and a second pair behind were likewise shut, the fire, a menace to all workers in tunnels, would be confined to a narrow space. The oxygen would soon be burned from the air and the fire extinguished.
“I must make it!” he cried as his knees threatened to betray him. “I must! I must!”
Yet even as he struggled it seemed to him that his case was hopeless. Scarcely two feet of open space remained, and the gates were still slowly closing.