while. However, they never do, and Georgie
whistled for Scarboro' junction, and 180 miles and two waters, in 198
minutes out of McCloud; and, looking happy, cussed Mr. McWilliams a
little, and gave her another hatful of steam.

It is getting down a hill, like the hills of the Mattaback Valley, at
such a pace that pounds the track out of shape. The Five-Nine lurched at
the curves like a mad woman, shook free with very fury, and if the
baggage-car had not been fairly loaded down with the grief of
McWilliams, it must have jumped the rails a dozen times in as many
minutes.

Indeed, the fireman--it was Jerry MacElroy--twisting and shifting
between the tender and the furnace, looked for the first time grave, and
stole a questioning glance from the steam-gauge towards Georgie.

But yet he didn't expect to see the boy, his face set ahead and down the
track, straighten so suddenly up, sink in the lever, and close at the
instant on the air. Jerry felt her stumble under his feet--caught up
like a girl in a skipping-rope--and grabbing a brace looked, like a wise
stoker, for his answer out of his window. There far ahead it rose in hot
curling clouds of smoke down among the alfalfa meadows and over the
sweep of willows along the Mattaback River. The Mattaback bridge was on
fire, with the McWilliams Special on one side and Denver on the other.

Jerry MacElroy yelled--the engineer didn't even look around; only
whistled an alarm back to Pat Francis, eased her down the grade a bit,
like a man reflecting, and watched the smoke and flames that rose to bar
the McWilliams Special out of Denver.

The Five-Nine skimmed across the meadows without a break, and pulled up
a hundred feet from the burning bridge. It was an old Howe truss, and
snapped like popcorn as the flames bit into the rotten shed.

Pat Francis and his brakeman ran forward. Across the river they could
see half a dozen section-men chasing wildly about throwing impotent
buckets of water on the burning truss.

"We're up against it, Georgie," cried Francis.

"Not if we can get across before the bridge tumbles into the river,"
returned Sinclair.

"You don't mean you'd try it?"

"Would I? Wouldn't I? You know the orders. That bridge is good for an
hour yet. Pat, if you're game, I'll run it."

"Holy smoke," mused Pat Francis, who would have run the river without
any bridge at all if so ordered. "They told us to deliver the goods,
didn't they?"

"We might as well be start