and caught at his breath, as he
seized the engineer's arm and pointed down the line.

"Dad," he gasped, "three cars of coal standing over there on the second
spur blew loose a few minutes ago."

"Where are they?"

"Where are they? Blown through the switch and down the line, forty miles
an hour."

The old man grasped the frightened man by the shoulder. "What do you
mean? How long ago? When is 1 due? Talk quick, man! What's the matter
with you?"

"Not five minutes ago. No. 1 is due here in less than thirty minutes;
they'll go into her sure. Dad," cried Reynolds, all in a fright,
"what'll I do? For Heaven's sake do something. I called up Riverton and
tried to catch 1, but she'd passed. I was too late. There'll be a wreck,
and I'm booked for the penitentiary. What can I do?"

All the while the station-agent, panic-stricken, rattled on Sinclair was
looking at his watch--casting it up--charting it all under his thick,
gray, grizzled wool, fast as thought could compass.

No. 1 headed for Acton, and her pace was a hustle every mile of the way;
three cars of coal blowing down on her, how fast he dared not think; and
through it all he was asking himself what day it was. Thursday? Up! Yes,
Georgie, his boy, was on the Flyer No. 1. It was his day up. If they met
on a curve--

"Uncouple her!" roared Dad Sinclair, in a giant tone.

"What are you going to do?"

"Burns," thundered Dad to his fireman, "give her steam, and quick, boy!
Dump in grease, waste, oil, everything! Are you clear there?" he cried,
opening the throttle as he looked back.

The old engine, pulling clear of her coaches, quivered as she gathered
herself under the steam. She leaped ahead with a swish. The drivers
churned in the sand, bit into it with gritting tires, and forged ahead
with a suck and a hiss and a roar. Before Reynolds had fairly gathered
his wits, Sinclair, leaving his train on the main track in front of the
depot, was clattering over the switch after the runaways. The wind was a
terror, and they had too good a start. But the way Soda-Water Sal took
the gait when she once felt her feet under her made the wrinkled
engineer at her throttle set his mouth with the grimness of a gamester.
It meant the runaways--and catch them--or the ditch for Soda-Water Sal;
and the throbbing old machine seemed to know it, for her nose hung to
the steel like the snout of a pointer.

He was a man of a hundred even then--Burns; but nobody knew it, then. We
hadn