Part 8 (1/2)
”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 cus.h.i.+on 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 s.h.i.+p.
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.