Part 11 (2/2)

Joe Halkett looked round at him blankly, stupidly, and answered in a mazed way--

”Ever since last winter. They was ground down wrestlin' with the snow-plough in Crow's Nest Pa.s.s.”

Silk glanced at the gauge.

”You're not getting much speed out of her,” he said, ”considering the amount of steam you're using.”

”She's just obstinate,” said Joe. ”Obstinate an' wilful. You can't coax her nohow. I'm sick and tired of tinkerin' with her.”

”She's wuss to-night than usual,” declared d.i.c.k. ”Reckon it's that heavy private car as takes it out of her. We've got all we c'n do ter fetch Three Moose siding 'fore the limited hustles along.”

It was not a stopping train and it was only necessary to watch that the signals were shown for clear at the few stations that came at infrequent intervals along the line.

Joe Halkett appeared to be working very well. He had got the train adjusted to its gait, and the cars were thumping over the frogs and switches at a reasonable pace, labouring, panting, and grunting when mounting a steep gradient, but settling down again when there was a stretch of good running ground ahead. It was mostly cultivated prairie land, but now and again the track was through gloomy pine forests or deep mountain defiles.

Dusk had already deepened into darkness when they were rattling along the track across the Piegan Indian Reservation, and Halkett had somehow worked up his engine to such easy going that Sergeant Silk began to believe that he had exaggerated the disabilities of both locomotive and engineer, and that he might just as well have been enjoying the greater comfort of one of the pa.s.senger cars, or been seated luxuriously in the private Pullman spinning yarns with the Colonel and Sir George.

In the darkness Silk did not perceive the change that had come upon Halkett's face. It was only when Joe chanced to lean over into the light from the open fire-box that he saw the look of terror that had come into it. It was a look like that of a man who had got some terrible secret on his soul and was driven half mad by it.

”Joe? What's the matter?” Silk cried, starting to his feet. He glanced round at the fireman.

d.i.c.k had just come back from the water tank.

”Say, Sergeant,” he gasped, ”the water's runnin' low, an' we've pa.s.sed the plug. We've got ter go back!”

Silk was alarmed. He knew well that one of the important things for an engine-driver to do is to figure out at what plugs he can fill his tank most advantageously, and that it is a high crime to run short of water.

”Are you certain sure we've pa.s.sed it?” he asked sharply. He had leapt to the lever to stop the train, and whistle for brakes.

The fireman nodded.

”Yes,” he answered. ”We've got ter push back. It's a good three mile.”

”But we can't push back,” Silk protested. ”There's not time, and we shall not have enough steam. There's the limited express to think of.

How far on is the next water plug?”

”'Bout the same distance,” d.i.c.k told him. ”We're half ways between.”

”Then we'll pull ahead,” decided the sergeant.

”She'll bust, sure, if we do,” declared Joe Halkett, rousing himself to a realisation of the situation. ”Thar' ain't enough power ter carry her through, draggin' such a weight, and, say, thar's no switch near hand, where we kin side-track ter let the limited run past.”

The train had stopped. Sergeant Silk stood still, hardly daring to take the responsibility. But even in the matter of managing an engine he proved himself to be a person of ready resource. He whistled for the conductor.

”Jump down and cut the engine loose, d.i.c.k,” he ordered. And without questioning the motive, d.i.c.k obeyed.

By the time that the engine and tender had been uncoupled from the foremost car, the guard had come through the corridors from the brake van to know what had happened.

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