Part 12 (2/2)

he muttered. ”We're gettin' near the place, but we can't go on. She can't go safe over the crossing to-night.”

Sergeant Silk blew the whistle, asking for a signal. He did not know that he was still many miles from the siding. He turned to speak to the fireman, who was at work among the coals. When he looked back again, Joe Halkett had slipped forward and had raised his hand to shut off steam.

”Stop!” shouted Silk, seizing his arm. ”Do you think you can play with this train? She's going on, and at the same speed, until I get a signal, though there were a score of haunted crossings in the way. Stand back!”

He thrust the man aside. But Joe renewed his grip. His hard face was working with terror and his eyes were starting out of his head.

”I murdered him!” he panted. And by the light of the fireman's lamp Silk could see great beads of agony on his forehead. He went on jerkily, his voice rising sharp and wild as he told his fearful story of a brutal vengeance.

But Sergeant Silk flung him aside, not heeding him, thinking only that the fate of the racing train and the lives of scores of human beings depended upon what happened in the next few minutes.

”I dragged him to the crossing,” Joe went on. ”I laid him across the line. There was a train due in three minutes. This train--this engine.

They thought it was accident. You--_you_--thought so, too. But it wasn't. I did it--I!”

His voice rose to a shriek. Then he crept to Silk's side.

”Sergeant, there's death ahead and death behind,” he cried, and with a leap forward he seized the lever.

”Let go!” Silk shouted, flinging him backward among the coals. ”Lay hold of him, d.i.c.k,” he ordered. ”The express must be coming on behind. But that oil has delayed her, sure.”

Once again he whistled for a signal, and this time one came, telling him that the switch was open. He slowed down cautiously. He had pa.s.sed the crossing, and now with a sudden turn from the straight track, the engine panted into the siding, safe from all possible harm.

”Oh, stopping again, are we?” said the millionaire in the private car.

”We've run short of water again, I suppose. I wonder that your railway companies don't introduce those water troughs on the permanent way, such as we have in England.”

”We do, on some lines,” returned the Colonel. ”But I don't fancy it's water this time. Listen! Yes, I thought so. We've gone into a side track to let the limited express go past. Dear me, she must have been exceedingly close on our heels! But our engine-driver--a man named Halkett, is a magnificent fellow. Quite the best driver on the line, I believe.”

When the express had rushed by, he lowered the window and looked out.

Some one was walking along the line towards the rear of the train.

”I say, there!” the Colonel called out. ”Are we going to stop here very long?”

”No, Colonel; no!” came the answer. ”We're changing engines, that's all.

I'm going along to have a word with my mare. I reckon she's missing me.”

”Oh, it's you, Silk, is it?” laughed the Colonel. ”I didn't know you with your overcoat on. Won't you come in along with us here? Sir George is anxious to have a yarn with you, and I'm sure you'll be more comfortable here than in that third-cla.s.s.”

”Thank you, Colonel,” returned Silk, ”but I've changed my plans. I've got to go back to Macleod with a man who is rather ill. Good-night!”

He said nothing of who the man was, and no one on the train knew then or even afterwards anything of the danger that they had escaped. But that was Sergeant Silk's way.

CHAPTER IX

RED DERRICK

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