Mystery Rides the Rails. Gilbert A. Lathrop
smoking head. The more Joe worked on the little engine, the better he liked her. She was quickly responsive to the throttle, and she rode the rails with a freedom from pounding and jolting which endeared her to his heart. She was equipped with an electric headlight, and the standard automatic air.
There were no stops to be made before he reached the top of the hill, and they made very good time there. They had a meet order with Frank Porter and his train at a siding called Glacier which was some distance beyond the bottom of the hill.
“As soon as the people living along the S. T. N. find out the line’s open again we’ll have lots of stopping and picking up of passengers to do,” explained the brakeman, as they rolled around the last of the winding curves near the lower end of Animas Canyon.
Joe slowed his train with the automatic air.
“I guess it’s quite a busy little line normally, isn’t it?” he asked.
“It does a dandy business, but operating costs are high. It seems there’s always something going wrong. When slides or high water aren’t bothering us, Anson Weird is wrecking them, or tearing up an engine.”
“He won’t be doing that any more,” said Joe.
“Did he quit?” asked the brakeman in disbelief.
“He didn’t quit. Mr. Orest let him go,” said Joe quietly.
“That’s the best news I’ve had in a decade. That fellow handled the automatic air with his feet! I never rode back of such a bone-headed man in my life. Talk about chilling a fellow’s spine! Maybe you think he couldn’t do it! He never did seem to take any interest in his work. But here’s the top of the hill, and you can stop while we look ’em over,” ended the brakeman as he stepped out into the gangway.
When Joe drew his charge to a halt he was thinking that perhaps Anson Weird was getting just what he deserved.
The entire train crew were thorough in looking over the brakes. They had Joe set them up and release them several times before they gave him a signal to proceed.
The head brakeman did not come over to the engine to ride from there to the bottom of the grade, but took a place back on the train, with a stout brake club, in case the cars got out of control.
Joe started off gently, and held them to a minimum speed as they squalled around the sharp curves. One mile. Two miles. Only three miles of the grade remained. Joe was beginning to think that he was making a wonderful run. He had leaned back against the closed door on his side of the cab. His left hand was clutching the handle of his automatic air valve. The air gauge showed eighty pounds train line, and one hundred pounds reservoir pressure.
All at once the whole weight of the train came thundering down against the engine. Their speed was increased from a scant ten miles an hour to well over twenty. The heavy, soggy cars began to shimmy as they lumbered over the rails, gaining speed with each revolution of their wheels. Joe leaped to his feet and pulled the brake valve around in an emergency application. This did little more than hold their speed to twenty miles an hour, and that was entirely too fast on this kind of winding track. He reversed his charge and gave the throttle a little steam, while he opened up the sanders to allow a stream of sand to fall on the rails so it would aid the brakes. Then as a last resort, he pulled a single pleading blast on his whistle cord. That meant for the trainmen to apply hand brakes!
This time there was no thought of jumping in the minds of either Joe or Tubby. Both knew that the coach back on the rear end of the string of cars was loaded with passengers, all of them depending for their lives on the train and the engine crew. As long as the little locomotive stayed on the rails, the two were determined to remain with her.
A hasty glance back over the tops of the swaying cars showed Joe that all three of the train crew were out swinging on the hand brakes, and using pick handles for greater leverage.
Joe knew exactly what had happened. Often the brakes almost wear out before the descent of a mountain is made. The piston travel grows longer, and the wheels and brake shoes become red hot. They were hot now. A glance at the wheels showed great clouds of steam coming from them as they hissed into the snow along the rails.
If the train men could just hold them to a regulated speed with the hand brakes while Joe regained his lost air pressure—he had used every ounce of it when he applied the emergency—he would be able to stop the train with the next application.
For long, dragging minutes the train raced screaming around curves, and swaying out to the tangents. Almost imperceptibly the speed slackened. Now they were slowed enough for Joe to throw his brake valve around in full release so the air would be pumped directly into the auxiliary reservoirs beneath each of the cars.
If the cars were not held by the hand brakes when he pulled the air valve around to full release, it meant the train would end its wild run down the mountain as a tangled mass of wreckage.
So the instant he saw his head brakeman, the conductor, and the rear brakeman meet on the top of a car almost in the center of the train he knew that every hand brake was now set. He released his air and heard the air pump throb into action as it piled up pressure in the train line again.
The train was saved. As soon as he had eighty pounds of air, Joe made a light application and the train slowed down to a reasonable speed. He noted the conductor and the rear brakeman letting off some of the hand brakes near the rear of the train.
With a gusty sigh which sounded above the noise of the engine, Tubby exclaimed, “Boy! That wath clothe!”
Joe smiled as he seated himself again. Ahead, he could see the high bridge. It was as the the brakeman had told him. From the looks of it, almost a million feet of lumber must have been used in its construction. It was over a hundred feet above the surface of the river. The undercarriage was a maze of timbers, and it was held at the bottom by piling and bents. As the train slipped out on the bridge it rumbled beneath the weight.
Joe leaned his head far out of the cab window so he could look down. He wondered if high water ever bothered the structure. The bottom of it could not be over ten feet above the surface of the ice. Two sets of piling were driven out in the bed of the stream. Joe shook his head and hoped that the spring thaw would come slowly when it did come.
He halted on the other side of the bridge so the brakemen could turn down their retainers and let off the remaining hand brakes.
Later, he passed Frank Porter and his train. Frank waved at him with surprise painted on his round, highly colored face, but Joe did not halt.
6
MR. BUCKEL
BY THE end of a week Joe knew every curve on the Silver Town Northern. He knew every low joint in the rails. He knew every click in the mechanism of his little engine. The snow as yet had not started to melt, but was frozen solidly. Fortunately no more had fallen and the Silver Town Northern was operating its trains on schedule.
Every day the Silver Town Northern was delivering forty car loads of concentrated ore to Midvale, the thriving little city on the other end of the line. Every day Joe took twenty empty coal cars from Midvale to be spotted at the ore bins of the Sunnyside Smelter. This forced him to “double” over the four and a half per cent grade above the high bridge. By “doubling” is meant cutting a train in two parts, pulling half of it to the top of the hill, leaving that part there and backing up for the remainder.
It was a decided surprise to him that day when he was given a message on his arrival in Midvale. The message read:
“You will return to Silver Town with only five empties. Imperative you make a rapid, smooth run.” It was signed by Mr. Orest.
“Wonder what this can mean,” he called across to Tubby.
Tubby puckered his eyes, read through