“Bridge on fire,” he said. “Lightnin’ must have struck it.”
He lifted the top off a seat and took out several fuses which he tucked under his arm, picked up a red lantern and hurried out to flag down the track. Hashknife put on his sombrero and climbed off the caboose. It was a long way to the front end of the train, and the wind threatened to blow him off the side of the fill at any time.
The Tumbling River bridge was about a hundred and fifty feet across, built high above the stream. It was mostly of timber construction and one span of it was burning merrily.
Hashknife found the conductor and engineer looking over; both decided that it would be folly to try to run it. It had evidently been burning for quite a while.
“That shore hangs us high and dry, don’t it?” asked Hashknife.
The conductor nodded grimly.
“We’re here for a while,” he said. “Can’t take a chance on that thing, and we’ve got a passenger coming in behind us. They’ll be running slow, and won’t be hard to flag. The best thing for you boys to do is to go to bed. That span is sure to burn out in this wind.”
The wind was so strong that they had to yell in order to converse.
“Might as well be comfortable!” yelled the engineer.
The conductor nodded and followed Hashknife back to the caboose, where he broke the news to the rest of the boys.