y did I let
Waggie go in the car?" he asked himself.

Just then a welcome whistle proclaimed that the third freight train was
approaching. It was time; the delay at Kingston must have occupied nearly
an hour--it seemed like a whole day--and the men about the railroad
station were becoming skeptical. They could not understand why the
mysterious commander of the powder-train should persist in wanting to go
on after hearing that Mitchell was so near.

When George returned to the engine the new freight went by on the main
track directly in the wake of the second freight, which had been sent half
a mile down the line, to the southward. The main track was now clear for
Andrews. But the intrepid leader seemed to be facing fresh trouble. He was
standing on the step of the cab, addressing the old man who had charge of
the switches.

"Switch me off to the main track at once," thundered Andrews. "Don't you
see, fool, that the last local freight is in, and I have a clear road!"

There was a provokingly obstinate twist about the switch-tender's mouth.

"Switch yourself off," he snarled. "I shan't take the responsibility for
doing it. You may be what you say you are, but I haven't anything to prove
it. You're a fool, anyway, to run right into the arms of the Yankee
general."

His fellow-townsmen indulged in a murmur of approval. The men in the cab
saw that another minute would decide their fate, adversely or otherwise.

"I order you to switch me off--in the name of the Confederate Government!"
shouted the leader.

More citizens were running over from the station to find out the cause of
the disturbance.

"I don't know you, and I won't take any orders from you!" said the
switch-tender, more doggedly than ever. He walked over to the station,
where he hung up the keys of the switch in the room of the ticket-seller.

In a twinkling Andrews had followed him, and was already in the ticket
room.

"You'll be sorry for this," he cried; "for I'll report your rascally
conduct to General Beauregard!" He seized the keys as he spoke, and shook
them in the old man's face.

The latter looked puzzled. He had begun to think that this business of
sending powder to Beauregard was a trick of some kind, yet the confident
bearing of the leader impressed him at this crisis. Perhaps he had made a
mistake in refusing to obey the orders; but ere he could decide the knotty
problem Andrews took the keys, hurried from the station, and unlocked the