only a few hundred
yards ahead. As the enemy turned a new curve George caught a view of the
tender. A dozen men, armed with rifles, were standing up in it; he could
see the gleam of the rifle barrels.

"More oil," ordered Andrews. The boy seized the can, and poured some more
of the greasy liquid into the fiery furnace. He knew that the wood was
almost exhausted, and that it would soon be impossible to hold the present
rate of progress. Oh, if there only would be time to burn the bridge, and
thus check the pursuers! But he saw that he was hoping for the
impracticable.

"Shall we stop on the bridge?" asked the engineer, in a hoarse voice.

"It's too late," answered Andrews. "Keep her flying."

Over the bridge went the engine, with the pursuers only a short distance
behind.

"Let us have some of that kindling-wood for the furnace," shouted Andrews
to the men in the baggage car. The men began to pitch wood from the door
of the car into the tender, and George transferred some of it to the
furnace.

"That's better," cried the engineer. "We need wood more than we need a
kingdom!"

"Throw out some of those cross-ties," thundered the leader. The men
dropped a tie here and there on the track, so that a temporary obstruction
might be presented to the pursuing locomotive.

"That's some help," said Andrews, as he craned his neck out of the cab
window and looked back along the line. "Those ties will make them stop a
while, any way." In fact the enemy had already stopped upon encountering
the first log; two men from the tender were moving it from the track.

"We've a good fighting chance yet," cried Andrews, whose enthusiasm had
suddenly returned. "If we can burn another bridge, and block these
fellows, the day is ours!"

"The water in the boiler is almost gone!" announced the engineer.

George's heart sank. What meant all the wood in the world without a good
supply of water? But Andrews was equal to the emergency. "Can you hold out
for another mile or so?" he asked.

"Just about that, and no more," came the answer.

"All right. We are about to run by Tilton station. A little beyond that,
if I remember rightly, is a water tank." Andrews, in his capacity as a spy
within the Southern lines, knew Georgia well, and had frequently traveled
over this particular railroad. It was his acquaintance with the line,
indeed, that had enabled him to get through thus far without failure.

Past Tilton ran "The General," as it nearly