"I shall go daft if I don"t hold something! Oh, _please_, Mr. Brockway!
I know I shall smash everything into little bits!"
"No, you won"t; I sha"n"t let you. A little more steam, if you please; that"s right. Now take hold of this lever with both hands, brace yourself and pull steadily."
The reversing-lever of a big ten-wheeler is no child"s plaything, and he stood ready to help her if she could not manage it. But Miss Vennor did manage it, though the first notch or two had to be fought for; and Maclure, who had quite forgotten his promise not to look on, applauded enthusiastically.
"Good!" said Brockway, approvingly; "you are doing famously. Now a little more throttle; that"s enough."
The 926 forged ahead obediently, and Gertrude began to enter into the spirit of the thing.
"This is simply t.i.tanic!" she exclaimed. "What shall I do next?"
"Cut her back a little more," Brockway commanded; "two notches. Now a little more steam--more yet; that will do."
The great engine lunged forward like a goaded animal, and Gertrude sat up very straight and clung to the reversing-lever when the cab began to lurch and sway. But she obeyed Brockway"s directions promptly and implicitly.
"Don"t be afraid of her," he said. "You have a clear track and a heavy rail."
"I"m not afraid," she a.s.serted; "I"m miles beyond that, now. If anything should happen, we"d all be dead before we found it out, so I can be perfectly reckless."
Mile after mile of the level plain swept backward under the drumming wheels, and Brockway"s heart made music within him because it had some little fragment of its desire. In order to see the track through the front window of the cab, he had to lean his elbow on the cushion beside her, and it brought them very near--nearer, he thought, than they would ever be again.
Gertrude was much too full of the magnitude of things to care to talk, but she was finally moved to ask another question.
"Are we really running along on the rails just like any well-behaved train? It seems to me we must have left the track quite a while ago."
Brockway laughed. "You would know it, if we had. Do you see those two little yellow lights away out ahead?"
"Yes; what are they?"
"They are the switch-lights at Corral Siding. Take hold of this lever and blow the whistle yourself; then it won"t startle you so much."
Gertrude did that, also, although it was more trying to her nerves than all that had gone before. Then Brockway showed her how to reduce speed.
"Push the throttle in as far as it will go; that"s right. Now the reversing-lever--both hands, and brace yourself--that"s it. Now take hold of this handle and twist it that way--slowly--more yet--" the air whistled shrilly through the vent, and the song of the brake-shoes on the wheels of the train rose above the discordant clangor--"that will do--turn it back," he added, when the speed had slackened sufficiently; and he leaned forward with his hand on the brake-lever and scanned the approaching side-track with practised eyes.
"All clear!" he announced, springing back quickly. "Pull up this lever again, and give her steam."
Gertrude obeyed like an automaton, though she blenched a little when the small station building at the Siding roared past, and in a few seconds the 926 was again bettering the schedule.
"How fast are we going now?" she asked, when the engine was once more pitching and rolling like a laboring ship.
Brockway consulted his watch. "A little over fifty miles an hour, I should say. You will be quite safe in calling it that, anyway, when you tell your friends that you have run a fast express train."
"They"ll never believe it," she said; "but I wouldn"t have missed it for the world. What must I do now?--watch the track?"
Brockway said "Yes," though, with all his interest in other things, he had not omitted that very important part of an engineer"s duty from the moment of leaving Arriba. After a roaring silence of some minutes, during which Brockway gave himself once more to the divided business of scanning the rails and burning sweet incense on the altar of his love, she spoke again.
"What is that we are coming to, away out there?" she asked, trying vainly to steady herself for a clearer view.
"The lights of Red b.u.t.te," he answered, relaxing his vigilance for the moment at the thought that his little side-trip into the land of joy would so shortly come to an end.
"No, I don"t mean those!" she exclaimed, excitedly; "but this side of the lights. Don"t you see?--on the track!"
Brockway allowed himself but a single swift glance. Half-way between the flying train and the station the line crossed a shallow sand creek on a low trestle. On both sides of the swale, crowding upon the track and filling the bed of the creek, was a ma.s.s of moving forms, against which the lines of glistening rails ended abruptly.
At such a crisis, the engineer in a man, if any there be, a.s.serts itself without reference to the volitional nerve-centres. In the turning of a leaf, Brockway had thrown himself upon the throttle, dropped the reversing-lever, set the air-brake, and opened the sand-box; while Maclure, seeing that his subst.i.tute was equal to the emergency, woke the echoes with the whistle. A hundred yards from the struggling ma.s.s of frightened cattle, Brockway saw that the air-brake was not holding.
"Don"t move!" he cried; and Gertrude cowered in her corner as the heavy reversing-lever came over with a crash, and the great engine heaved and buckled in the effort to check its own momentum.
It was all over before she could cry out or otherwise advertise her very natural terror. The moving ma.s.s had melted away before the measured approach of the train; the trestle had rumbled under the wheels; and the 926 was steaming swiftly up to the station under Brockway"s guidance.
"Have you had more than enough?" he asked, when he had brought the train to a stand opposite the platform at Red b.u.t.te.
"Yes--no, not that, either," she added, quickly. "I"m glad to have had a taste of the real danger as well. But I think I"d better go back; it"s getting late, isn"t it?"
"Yes. Mac, we resign. Sorry I had to put your old tea-kettle in the back-gear; but the air wasn"t holding, and we didn"t want any chipped beef for supper. Good-night, and many thanks. Don"t pull out till I give you the signal."
They hurried down the platform arm-in-arm, and Gertrude was the first to speak.
"Didn"t you think we were all going to be killed?"
"No; but I did think I should never forgive myself if anything happened to you."
"It wouldn"t have been your fault. And I"ve had a glorious bit of distraction; I shall remember it as long as I live."
"Yes; you have actually driven a train fifty miles an hour," laughed Brockway, handing her up the steps of car Naught-fifty.
"I have; and now I shall go in and be scolded eighty miles an hour to pay for it. But I sha"n"t mind that. Good-night, and thank you ever so much. We shall see you in the morning?"
"Yes." Brockway said it confidently, and gave a tug at the bell-cord, to let Maclure know they were safely aboard; but when the door of the private car had yawned and swallowed Miss Vennor, he remembered the President"s probable frame of mind, and thought it doubtful.
X
A CONFIDENCE EN ROUTE
When Brockway pulled the bell-cord, he meant to drop off and wait till the Tadmor came along--a manoeuvre which would enable him to rejoin his party without intruding on the President"s privacy. Then that reflection about Mr. Vennor"s probable frame of mind, and the thought that the late excursion into the fair country of joy would doubtless never be repeated, came to delay him, and he let the train get under way before he remembered what it was that he had intended doing. Whereupon, he scoffed at his own infatuation, and went into the Ariadne to chat with the Burtons until another halt should give him a chance to get back to the Tadmor.
The route to the body of the car led past the smoking-room, and the pa.s.senger agent, having missed his after-dinner cigar, was minded to turn aside. But the place was crowded, and he hung hesitant upon the threshold.
"Come in," said Burton, who was one of the smokers.
"No, I believe not; there are too many of you. I"ll go and talk to Mrs.
Burton."