CHAPTER. II

In the small hours of the morning the next day the Pittsburgh-Detroit Express, running on a seven hour schedule, drew into Mansfield, one hour behind time. Heavy weather on the first part of the run, had slowed the train down and forced Macumber, the engineer, to lose time.

At Mansfield the station master handed him an “advance of time” order, which meant that Macumber was to do his best to make up the lost hour, so that the crack express train could live up to its reputation for arriving on time in Detroit. Under such an order the engineer knew he would have clear track all the way, that all the block signals would flash “green eyes” at him as his train roared past.

Once out of Mansfield, Macumber opened up the throttle. For fifteen years he had made this run, and he knew every mile of the track thoroughly, knew just how much time he dared to make every inch of the way.

He sat with his hand on the throttle and watched the steam gage climb, while the fireman worked furiously keeping up the pressure. At every mile Macumber glanced at the block signals to be sure of his clearance ahead, although his orders practically assured him that his track was clear.

The white lights of one small town after another flashed into view, and quickly faded away in the rear of the on-rushing train. Sixty miles an hour the gage registered, and then slowly climbed to sixty-five, and still more slowly crept up toward seventy.

Passengers, asleep in their berths, woke up under the swift motion, and the more accustomed ones congratulated themselves on the fine time the train was making. Some, not so anxious for speed, lay nervously awake and worried over the furious pace, while the train plunged on through the gradually graying dawn towards Toledo, its first scheduled stop.

At five o’clock the train flashed past the Walbridge block that marks the entrance to the Toledo yards. A heavy fog hung low over the Maumee valley, making sight ahead impossible beyond a very short range.

Halfway up the yards on the down track, waiting for clearance papers from the yardmaster, stood the early freight headed for Pittsburgh. Patrick O’Hara, the brakeman on this train, had walked forward to talk to the engineer until the train was ready to pull out. Both men heard the shriek of the whistle on the express as the train plunged through the yards.

“He’s making sixty, and all the time I’ve been on the road,” declared O’Hara, “I’ve never known him to go through the yards a mile above forty.”

“You’re allowed all the tracks will stand on an advance of time order,” replied his companion, “but I’d hate to be making that speed through all these switches.”

They both stared ahead into the fog to see the express shoot into view. At that instant, and much to his amazement, O’Hara thought he saw a free engine moving slowly along a switch track parallel with the up track along which the express was advancing. He knew the siding ran out onto the main not twenty yards ahead of the place where he was standing.

He calculated the speed of both the engine and the express and realized that the free engine would arrive on the main not very far in advance of the express, and too close to the express to allow time for stopping before a collision occurred.

He spoke to the freight engineer about it, but the man assured him that the up track switch signal showed a green eye, which meant that the derail on the siding would prevent anything from arriving on the main ahead of the express. But in spite of this assurance, O’Hara continued to strain his eyes as he gazed into the heavy fog ahead and watched the ghostly form of the free engine creeping over the rails.

Then he heard an ominous click which he instantly recognized as the lifting of the hand control of the derailing device.

Visibility was so low, due to the dense fog, that he could not distinguish the person who lifted the derailer. Was it possible the infernal fool did not know the express was thundering along the up track at that very instant?

Everybody in the yard had been discussing the speed which constant telegraphic reports indicated Macumber to be making. Yet here was some stupid hostler letting a free engine out onto the main at a moment when a wreck would be inevitable.

There was no doubt about the derailer having been lifted, because the free engine, without a pilot, glided out onto the up-track. The freight engineer turned pale as he realized what was about to happen.

“God help the express,” he muttered to himself.

The express could be heard rushing up the track at a speed only possible under advance of time orders. Otherwise an experienced and trusted engineer would have been proceeding more cautiously through the yards. A wreck appeared absolutely certain.

In an instant O’Hara realized that there was but one possibility of escaping it, and that was very slim. Without taking time to think of the awful risk he was taking, he jumped down from the cab, where he was watching, and ran impulsively toward the engine as it glided onto the open track. He bounded onto the catcher, clambered madly up to the rail, and raced wildly along the boiler to the cab.

Whether the engine had up a full head of steam, he did not know, but in that respect luck was with him, as he saw by a glance at the gage. He clutched at the throttle, with the roar of the advancing express in his ears, but not being an experienced engineer he lost a precious moment by pulling the throttle too far open, so that the drivers began to fly on the rails in spite of the fact that the engine already had some headway.

Realizing his error instantly, he shut off part of the steam and began frantically to pour sand on the track.

Behind O’Hara sat Macumber at the throttle of his engine. Secure in the evidence of clearance which the succession of green signal lights gave him, he was plunging along at top speed.

Suddenly in the fog ahead of him he saw the form of the free engine looming up. At first he could not realize the awful possibility as a reality; for a moment because of the strain on his eyes from looking into the fog, he thought he must be seeing things, but in the next instant he saw that a wreck was almost a certainty.

Instinctively he applied the brakes, but even in the act of doing so he knew that stopping was impossible in such a short distance. He thought of the lives at stake in the cars behind him, and recognized that there was danger of throwing the train off the track if the brakes went on too suddenly at the speed he was traveling. However, he had no time to reason about it, and as there was nothing else to do he threw the air valve wide open. The wheels screeched as the brakes locked and forced them to skid on the rails.

For an instant Macumber released the brakes to relieve the strain, then locked them again. The huge iron monster shuddered and groaned under the torture of the strain, but it had been built strong and true, and in spite of everything it held to the rails, while sparks flew from the heated wheels in showers.

Still, to stop so much momentum in such a short space seemed out of the question. The express continued to close up the short remaining gap between it and the engine ahead. Macumber closed his eyes helplessly for what he thought was to be the moment of the crash, and as he did so muttered to himself:

“Where did this engine come from, anyway?”