Part 14 (1/2)

”Who's marked up to fire for you, Bartholomew?”

Bartholomew Mullen looked at me fraternally.

”Neighbor couldn't give me anybody but a wiper,” said Bartholomew, in a sort of a wouldn't-that-kill-you tone.

The unconscious arrogance of the boy quite knocked me, so soon had honors changed his point of view. Last night a despised wiper; at daybreak, an engineer; and his nose in the air at the idea of taking on a wiper for fireman. And all so innocent.

”Would you object, Bartholomew,” I suggested, gently, ”to a train-master for fireman?”

”I don't--think so, sir.”

”Thank you; because I am going down to Zanesville this morning myself and I thought I'd ride with you. Is it all right?”

”Oh yes, sir--if Neighbor doesn't care.”

I smiled. He didn't know who Neighbor took orders from; but he thought, evidently, not from me.

”Then run her down to the oranges, Bartholomew, and couple on, and we'll order ourselves out. See?”

The 44 really looked like a baby-carriage when we got her in front of the refrigerators. However, after the necessary preliminaries, we gave a very sporty toot and pulled out; in a few minutes we were sailing down the valley.

For fifty miles we bobbed along with our cargo of iced silk as easy as old shoes; for I need hardly explain that we had packed the silk into the refrigerators to confuse the strikers. The great risk was that they would try to ditch us.

I was watching the track as a mouse would a cat, looking every minute for trouble. We cleared the gumbo cut west of the Beaver at a pretty good clip, in order to make the grade on the other side. The bridge there is hidden in summer by a grove of hackberrys. I had just pulled open to cool her a bit when I noticed how high the backwater was on each side of the track. Suddenly I felt the fill going soft under the drivers--felt the 44 wobble and slew. Bartholomew shut off hard and threw the air as I sprang to the window. The peaceful little creek ahead looked as angry as the Platte in April water, and the bottoms were a lake.

Somewhere up the valley there had been a cloudburst, for overhead the sun was bright. The Beaver was roaring over its banks and the bridge was out. Bartholomew screamed for brakes; it looked as we were against it--and hard.

A soft track to stop on, a torrent of storm water ahead, and ten hundred thousand dollars' worth of silk behind--not to mention equipment.

I yelled at Bartholomew and motioned for him to jump; my conscience is clear on that point. The 44 was stumbling along, trying, like a drunken man, to hang to the rotten track.

”Bartholomew!” I yelled; but he was head out and looking back at his train, while he jerked frantically at the air lever. I understood: the air wouldn't work; it never will on those old tubs when you need it. The sweat pushed out on me. I was thinking of how much the silk would bring us after a bath in the Beaver. Bartholomew stuck to his levers like a man in a signal-tower, but every second brought us closer to open water.

Watching him, intent only on saving his first train--heedless of saving his life--I was really a bit ashamed to jump. While I hesitated, he somehow got the brakes to set; the old 44 bucked like a bronco.

It wasn't too soon. She checked her train n.o.bly at the last, but I saw nothing could keep her from the drink. I caught Bartholomew a terrific slap and again I yelled; then, turning to the gangway, I dropped into the soft mud on my side. The 44 hung low, and it was easy lighting.

Bartholomew sprang from his seat a second later, but his blouse caught in the teeth of the quadrant. He stooped quick as thought, and peeled the thing over his head. But then he was caught with his hands in the wristbands, and the ponies of 44 tipped over the broken abutment.

Pull as he would, he couldn't get free. The pilot dipped into the torrent slowly; but, losing her balance, the 44 kicked her heels into the air like lightning, and shot with a frightened wheeze plump into the creek, dragging her engineer after her.

The head car stopped on the brink. Running across the track, I looked for Bartholomew. He wasn't there; I knew he must have gone down with his engine.

Throwing off my gloves, I dove just as I stood, close to the tender, which hung half submerged. I am a good bit of a fish under water, but no self-respecting fish would be caught in that yellow mud. I realized, too, the instant I struck the water that I should have dived on the up-stream side. The current took me away whirling; when I came up for air I was fifty feet below the pier. I felt it was all up with Bartholomew as I scrambled out; but to my amazement, as I shook my eyes open, the train crew were running forward, and there stood Bartholomew on the track above me looking at the refrigerators. When I got to him he explained to me how he was dragged in and had to tear the sleeves out of his blouse under water to get free.

The surprise is, how little fuss men make about such things when they are busy. It took only five minutes for the conductor to hunt up a coil of wire and a sounder for me, and by the time he got forward with it Bartholomew was half-way up a telegraph-pole to help me cut in on a live wire. Fast as I could I rigged a pony, and began calling the McCloud dispatcher. It was a rocky send, but after no end of pounding I got him, and gave orders for the wrecking-gang and for one more of Neighbor's rapidly decreasing supply of locomotives.

Bartholomew, sitting on a strip of fence which still rose above water, looked forlorn. To lose the first engine he ever handled, in the Beaver, was tough, and he was evidently speculating on his chances of ever getting another. If there weren't tears in his eyes, there was storm water certainly. But after the relief-engine had pulled what was left of us back six miles to a siding, I made it my first business to explain to Neighbor, nearly beside himself, that Bartholomew was not only not at fault, but that he had actually saved the train by his nerve.

”I'll tell you, Neighbor,” I suggested, when we got straightened around, ”give us the 109 to go ahead as pilot, and run the stuff around the river division with Foley and the 216.”