the
big drivers. The sand poured on the rails, and with Burns up on the
coalers setting brakes, the three great runaways were brought to with a
jerk that would have astounded the most reckless scapegraces in the
world.

While the plucky fireman crept along the top of the freight-cars to keep
from being blown bodily through the air, Sinclair, with every resource
that brain and nerve and power could exert, was struggling to overcome
the terrible headway of pursuer and pursued, driving now frightfully
into the beaming head of No. 1.

With the Johnson bar over and the drivers dancing a gallop backward;
with the sand striking fire, and the rails burning under it; with the
old Sky-Scraper shivering again in a terrific struggle, and Burns
twisting the heads off the brake-rods; with every trick of old
Sinclair's cunning, and his boy duplicating every one of them in the cab
of No. 1--still they came together. It was too fearful a momentum to
overcome, when minutes mean miles and tons are reckoned by thousands.

They came together; but instead of an appalling wreck--destruction and
death--it was only a bump. No. 1 had the speed when they met; and it was
a car of coal dumped a bit sudden and a nose on Georgie's engine like a
full-back's after a centre rush. The pilot doubled back into the ponies,
and the headlight was scoured with nut, pea, and slack; but the stack
was hardly bruised.

The minute they struck, Georgie Sinclair, making fast, and, leaping from
his cab, ran forward in the dark, panting with rage and excitement.
Burns, torch in hand, was himself just jumping down to get forward. His
face wore its usual grin, even when Georgie assailed him with a torrent
of abuse.

"What do you mean, you red-headed lubber?" he shouted, with much the
lungs of his father. "What are you doing switching coal here on the main
line?"

In fact, Georgie called the astonished fireman everything he could think
of, until his father, who was blundering forward on his side of the
engine, hearing the voice, turned, and ran around behind the tender to
take a hand himself.

"Mean?" he roared above the blow of his safety. "Mean?" he bellowed in
the teeth of the wind. "Mean? Why, you impudent, empty-headed,
ungrateful rapscallion, what do you mean coming around here to abuse a
man that's saved you and your train from the scrap?"

And big Dick Burns, standing by with his torch, burst into an Irish
laugh, fairly doubled up before the nonplussed