erked it wide open in spite of me, and
turned with lightning in his eye. "No!" he cried, and his voice rang
hard. The 109 took the tremendous shove at her back, and leaped like a
frightened horse. Away we went across the yard, through the cinders, and
over the ties; my teeth have never been the same since. I don't belong
on an engine, anyway, and since then I have kept off. At the moment, I
was convinced that the strain had been too much, that Bartholomew was
stark crazy. He sat clinging like a lobster to his levers and bouncing
clear to the roof.

But his strategy was dawning on me; in fact, he was pounding it into me.
Even the shock and scare of leaving the track and tearing up the yard
had not driven from Bartholomew's noddle the most important feature of
our situation, which was, above everything, to _keep out of the way of
the silk train_.

I felt every moment more mortified at my attempt to shut him off. I had
done the trick of the woman who grabs the reins. It was even better to
tear up the yard than to stop for Foley to smash into and scatter the
silk over the coal chutes. Bartholomew's decision was one of the traits
which make the runner: instant perception coupled to instant resolve.
The ordinary dub thinks what he should have done to avoid disaster after
it is all over; Bartholomew thought before.

On we bumped, across frogs, through switches, over splits, and into
target rods, when--and this is the miracle of it all--the 109 got her
forefeet on a split switch, made a contact, and after a slew or two,
like a bogged horse, she swung up sweet on the rails again, tender and
all. Bartholomew shut off with an under cut that brought us up
stuttering, and nailed her feet with the air right where she stood. We
had left the track and plowed a hundred feet across the yards and jumped
on to another track. It is the only time I ever heard of its happening
anywhere, but I was on the engine with Bartholomew Mullen when it was
done.

Foley choked his train the instant he saw our hind lights bobbing. We
climbed down, and ran back. He had stopped just where we should have
stood if I had shut off.

Bartholomew ran to the switch to examine it. The contact light (green)
still burned like a false beacon; and lucky it did, for it showed that
the switch had been tampered with and exonerated Bartholomew Mullen
completely. The attempt of the strikers to spill the silk in the yards
had only made the reputation of a new engineer.