Chapter III
Reading edition
An impatient crowd was waiting at the Big Y station for the northern mail, which was half an hour overdue.
Finally, when the engine thundered into the depot, puffing and panting like an over-driven steed, there was a rush to board the train, as if the time was limited to the shortest possible space.
"It's going to be a rough night," muttered the old engineer, as he peered out of the cab window into the gathering gloom of storm and darkness. "I never felt so uneasy in my life, and I have a presentiment something is going to happen—as if it wasn't enough to be half an hour behind time and your engine in the sulks. But how are you feeling, Gilly?" addressing his fireman. "Any better?"
"No, Jockey; and I am afraid I won't be able to go through. I don't understand it, for I felt well enough when I started."
"I tell you everything is wrong to-night. If Jim were here—Hilloa! there's Jack Ingleside's boy, as true as I live! We're in luck. Hi, Rock! aren't you lost?"
At the sound of the engineer's voice, our hero, who was following leisurely the crowd to one of the cars, looked in that direction to see the soot-begrimed countenance of his old friend.
"Lost, Jockey? Never where you are," replied the youth.
"Going up? Jump in here, then. It won't be like riding in a parlor-car, but it will suit you just as well, I'm thinking."
Rock showed his willingness by springing quickly into the cab.
Railroad companies have a rule forbidding persons to ride with the engineer without permission from the president or superintendent, though at the time we write this matter was not as rigidly looked after as now.
Rock, however, who had passed nearly all his young life on the foot-board, would have been deemed an exception to any rule. At least, so thought Jockey Playfair, the veteran "knight of the lever" on the Pen Yan mail and accommodation.
But Jockey's usual good-humor had been relegated to the background on that evening, as Rock soon saw.
The signal to start was given, and with a full head of steam on, the old engine, trembling and groaning from her pent-up power, began to creep ahead, as if feeling her way along the switches and through the yard, going faster and faster at every revolution of her wheels, until the station-lights faded in the distance, and she plowed boldly into the night.
The tall form of the engineer, clothed in greasy overalls and jumper, stood at his post like a grim sentinel on duty, his right hand on the reversing lever, his left on the throttle, while his steely gray eyes peered into the gloom, as if expecting to see spring from the regions of darkness the hosts of danger and death.
A drizzling rain was falling, so altogether it was a disagreeable night.
"I have a favor to ask of you, Rock," said Gilly, the fireman, as the engine fairly gained her feet and increased her progress at every beat of her piston heart. "I want you to take my place until we get to Trestle Foot. I am used up."
"Of course I will," replied Rock, taking the fireman's place. "Is she very hungry to-night?"
"Hungry and cross, Rock," said the other. "But I'll risk you to feed her."
No engineer who has stood at the lever for any length of time refuses to believe that his trusty servant is without her faults, however he may care for her. She is subject to her ill-moods as well as himself.
The engine, so good-natured on his last run, so prompt to obey his will, on this trip is stubborn and hard to manage.
He can see no reason for her change of spirit. Her wonderful mechanism is in perfect working order, her groom has arrayed her for a dazzling passage, her fireman has fed her with the best of fuel, the flames dart ardently along her brazen veins, she bounds off like a charger, eager for conquest. Her first spurt over, she falters, sulks.
No coaxing can change her mood. In vain her master bestows greatest care upon her; with each effort she grows more sullen.
Jockey Playfair's engine was in the sulks on the trip of which we write. The Silver Swan had never seemed in better temper than at the start. Delays in making connections, the bad condition of the track at places on account of the recent heavy rains, with other difficulties, had caused them to lose time. The engineer, however, had confidently expected to make up for this before reaching Wood's Hollow, sixty miles above the Big Y junction.
In the midst of his anxiety his fireman was taken suddenly ill. Then his engine began to fail him. This last gave him more uneasiness than all the rest.
"Behind time, with a sulky engine and a sick fireman!" he muttered, to himself. "I see it coming—something dreadful! Never mind, old Jockey! You are on your through trip to-night, but stand to your post like a man."
During the next ten miles nothing was said by the three, and then, as they stopped long enough at a way-station to take on a solitary passenger, Jockey merely remarked:
"One minute gained. If we can't do better than that on our next run I'll never touch the lever again."
As Jockey knew, he was now on the most favorable section of the road. No signals were to be expected for a long distance, and there was no reason why he should not regain a good part of the lost time. If he didn't he resolved it should be no fault of his.
As soon as he was fairly under way again, he "linked her up." That means he drew the reversing-rod back until the catch held it near the centre, so the steam, instead of being allowed to follow the length of the piston-rod, beat alternately the heads of the cylinders, giving the highest momentum acquired.
Rock understood his duty perfectly and was determined the Silver Swan should not hunger for fuel under his care.
"Mind how well the boy fires," said Gilly, forgetting for a moment his pain.
"So he should; for wasn't he Tommy Green's pupil? And Tommy was the best fireman ever on the Pen Yan, not even excepting you, Gilly."
"I know it; but she is pulling for all she is worth now, Jockey. You'll get there on time, after all."
The Silver Swan was behaving beautifully now. Apparently she had gotten over her sulks. Nothing occurred to disturb the even tenor of their progress until the lights of Haford's Run came into sight.
At this place they must stop to refill the engine's boiler, and while Rock looked after this matter, Jockey carefully examined each part of the wonderful machine, talking to it and patting it as he would a child.
When he had run his practiced eye over the bars, joints, connecting-rods, cylinders and steam-chests, then around the pilot to the other side to find everything in fine working order, he came back to the cab-step and consulted his watch.
"Ten minutes gained," he murmured, exultantly. "If you hold out like this, old Swan, we'll make Wood's Hollow on time."
"Good! So you will, Jockey!" exclaimed the conductor, coming forward with his lantern. "You have an excellent run ahead of you; do the best you can. If we can gain ten minutes before getting to Trestle Foot, we'll venture to Woodsville. Are you ready?"
"All ready," answered Rock, who had shut off the flow of water and flung back the dangling leather arm to spring from the tender to the footboard.
"Ho!" called out the conductor, "who's firing to-night?" as Rock, jerking open the furnace door, stood in the glow of the fiery light. "Where's Gilly?"
"Here; but he's sick," answered Jockey. "Rock took his place at the Big Y."
"What! Jack's boy? Well, he is good for it. If Gilly is sick he had better come back into a passenger."
But the old fireman wouldn't think of deserting his post so far as that.
The next instant the conductor's lantern waved back and forth, dense volumes of smoke rolled from the smoke-stack, and snorting as if with rage at being driven on again, the engine forged on along its iron pathway.
"Where have you been to-day, Rock?" asked the engineer, as they were once more spinning along at a flying rate.
"Down to Fairfax to see if I could get a job. You know I got turned off the section."
"No—you don't mean it! I'll bet Gammon was at the bottom of it."
"I am sure of it. He has boasted I shouldn't stay there long."
"Zounds! I'd like to shake the rascal out of his jacket. He's been wanting Gilly's place; but he can't get it. What do you want?"
"To brake."
"Get it?"
"Nothing certain. I have little hope, for Donald Minturn will never let me get there if be can help it."
"The old snake! I never did like him. So he isn't over fond of you?"
"No; he is opposed to me on account of an old enmity he bears Mrs. Ingleside."
"Rock, you deserve a place on this road. Why, bless you, you are fit to take my place. Not many trips did old Jack make without taking you with him. I used to fire for him, you know. He had a mat for you at his feet, and when too tired to keep awake longer you slept curled up on the footboard. Ah, it was something such a night as this when poor Jack made his last trip! It wasn't quite so dark it may be, but he was behind time, as we are, and he was trying to make up.
"He was swinging down the long grade beyond Woodsville at a humming rate. There was no station at the Hollow then, and he was counting on a clean sweep to Owls' Nest. Leaving the air-line grade he swooped around the curve, when right in his face and eyes he saw a string of loose cars, which had broken from the special on the highlands.
"He must have been going at the rate of fifty miles an hour, and the runaways were coming toward him at scarcely less speed. I caught a gleam of his white face as he reversed, and then he was beside me at the brake.
"'Stand by!' he cried. 'We'll die at our post.'
"The shock came the next moment. I felt myself lifted into the air, and the next I knew I was lying at the foot of the embankment, a dozen yards from the place where we had met.
"Jack died at his post, and his sufferings could not have lasted long, for he was crushed beyond recognition. Fortunately no other lives were lost, though the passengers were terribly shaken up, and two of the freight cars were piled up on the engine.
"Jack's fidelity, I am sure, averted a worse catastrophe. He met the fate of a hero, and it was always a mystery to me the company never did more for his family.
"Hey! As I live, the Swan is falling into another ugly mood!"
They were rushing along at a tremendous rate, and an inexperienced eye would have seen nothing amiss.
In fact, the engineer himself could not. The driving-rods were shooting back and forth in perfect play, while the large drivers were revolving with clock-like regularity. Every now and then Jockey would give the lever a slight pressure, which would be instantly felt by the iron steed.
Despite all this the Silver Swan was not doing as well as she ought. She was barely keeping her course at the usual speed.
Jockey glanced to the boiler. The index finger pointed to the gauge at 122 degrees. Three more degrees was all she could stand. Rock was doing his duty. The track was straight and level. Still the Swan showed no disposition to gain the twenty minutes coveted time.
The old engineer shook his grizzled head and the furrows deepened on his careworn visage.
"The fates are against us to-night," he muttered. "We can never make Wood's Hollow in time to escape the down express. That is always on time."
Just then the little gong over his head sounded, in response to the conductor's pull upon the cord.
Jockey quickly answered this with a blast from the whistle, which the other would understand to mean that the engine was already crowded to her utmost.
The old engineer was losing his temper by this time, and with his hand still on the lever he leaned forward to peer into the gloom, parting before the dull rays of the headlight, as if to let them pass.
A drizzling rain was yet falling, but he did not notice this, for at his first glance a cry of horror left his lips, and he staggered back, exclaiming:
"It is coming! Someone has blundered!"
Rock started forward with surprise, and he uttered a cry of terror as he saw the gleam of a headlight and the shadowy outlines of an engine and train, less than a rod in front of them.