“Here she comes,” said Mallory.
Harvey made no reply, and the frog was adjusted to the east rail of the main track. Then they went back and clambered aboard the engine. Mallory ordered a squad of men forward, and stationed some on the pilot and running board, others on the tender and front platform. The light grew slowly larger, sending out pointed rays and throwing a shine on the rails. There was the sound of a bell and of the exhaust, and the train pulled slowly toward the bleak little station. Suddenly, when within speaking distance, the approaching engine struck the patent frog and left the rails with a jar and a scrape, ploughing her nose into the slag.
“Go ahead,” said Harvey.
Jawn pulled the throttle lever, and the long train moved slowly southward. No. 14 was not full now. The process of dropping men at every station had left only about half the employees, who clustered in the forward cars and looked curiously at the passing train. At a shouted order from Mallory, one of his men dropped off with a squad at his back and took possession of the wreck, while Harvey, flushed with victory, moved on to undo the work of the afternoon.
CHAPTER XV. — DEUS EX MACHINA
As Senator Sporty Jones stood on the Sawyerville platform and watched No. 14 vanishing round a curve, his rage against the Superintendent cooled somewhat and hardened into a determination to make somebody pay. The more he thought of it the clearer it grew that the “somebody” should be a bigger man than McDowell, though Sporty meant to get even with him, too, some day. He knew, as did every one who had read the newspapers, the broad outlines of the fight between Weeks and Porter for the road. As he thought it over, the problem seemed to grow more complicated. The Senator hated the two men about equally and had a long score against each of them; for though both were lobbyists on a large scale, neither of them had thought him worth conciliating. He was afraid lest in trying to hurt one he might help the other.
He was capable of quick, clear thinking, and as he ran over in his mind what he knew of the fight, he saw that what encouraged these men so openly to resort to violence was a judicial deadlock. There was just one force which could profitably be appealed to now, the State Executive.
He walked slowly down the rickety wooden steps and across the road; then, after looking about irresolutely, he turned toward the weather-beaten little hotel.