Sergeant Silk the Prairie Scout Part 11

The superintendent looked round at him in surprise, resenting his interference.

"What's the matter with the engine?" he snapped. "Ain't she good enough?

What's wrong with her? I allow you knows a lot about hosses, Sergeant.

Thar's not many men in the Prairie Provinces knows as much. But come to locomotive engines, all that you know wouldn't take up much room on a news-sheet. I reckon I can give you points and get in front of you every time. What's the matter with 99, anyhow? You ain't overhauled her."

Sergeant Silk shifted his carbine to his other arm.

"I happen to have had a look at her this morning when she was lying in the siding," he responded lightly, regarding number 99 as if she were a horse, "and with all deference to your greater experience, Mr. Garside, I'd say that, like Halkett, she is suffering from overwork. She wants rest. She's needing a tonic. She ought to be put out to gra.s.s. Her truck centre castings are weak; her driving wheel tyres have grooves in them half-an-inch deep; the coupling pin of the tender is worn loose; she wants a new throttle latch-spring, and some of her tubes are leaky.

She's wheezing now as if she had congestion of the lungs. Dare say she'd do credit drawing freight wagons; but for pa.s.senger cars--well, it's your business, not mine."

Mr. Garside stood with his feet apart and his hands on his hips, critically watching Sergeant Silk through the narrowed slits of his watery eyes.

"If you know such an almighty lot about locomotives, Sergeant," he said, "and if you calculate as Joe Halkett ain't fit and capable to manage his own business, pr'aps you'll condescend to take the train along yourself.

She's scheduled to start in three minutes from now, and there's no time to change either engine or driver, see?"

Sergeant Silk looked at the superintendent sharply.

"Are you serious?" he questioned. "Do you really mean it?"

"Sure!" nodded the superintendent. "I allow there's some truth in what you say. She ain't just in the best of health, and there's room in the cab if you'll take charge. You can at least keep an eye on that throttle latch-spring, and keep Joe from droppin' asleep so as he don't run past the switches when the limited is comin' along behind."

Silk glanced upward into the cab, where Joe Halkett stood awaiting the signal to start.

Joe was looking exceedingly green and ill. He was a tallish fellow, wiry and muscular, with a hard face, dark hair, and sharp, peery eyes. He was reputed to be one of the best drivers in the Canadian Pacific Railway service; it was said that he could manage a cranky engine better than any other engineer west of Winnipeg. But Silk had already noticed that there was something queer about his manner this evening. There was a curious light in his peery eyes and a curious look on his face that did not inspire confidence.

In spite of the roar made by the steam escaping from the safety valve, Joe had heard the superintendent's suggestion that the soldier policeman should ride in the cab, and he signed beckoningly with a backward toss of his head while Silk hesitated.

"You may as well come along, Sergeant," he pleaded. "I tell you straight, I ain't fit fer duty to-night, and I'd sooner take on any other trip than this one to Crow's Nest. It ain't my reg'lar line, and I'm some scared. I'm all of a tremble. I'd oughter be home in bed. Ask d.i.c.k if I oughtn't."

d.i.c.k, his fireman, paused in his work of shovelling coal into the fire-box.

"This yer train ain't anyways safe, Joe drivin'," he said, as the superintendent turned on his heel and strode back towards the rear of the train. "Dunno what's come over him."

Sergeant Silk needed no urging. He caught at the rail, mounted the footplate, and swung himself into the cab.

CHAPTER VIII

THREE MOOSE CROSSING

"All right, Joe," he said soothingly, putting on his overcoat to shield his tunic from grease and coal. "Just you do the best you can, and don't worry. I guess you'll feel well enough once you're started. There goes your signal!"

With a loud clang of the engine bell the train moved out of the station, slowly at first, but gathering speed as it left the little town with its flour mills and grain elevators behind.

Silk seated himself on the box and continued smoking his cigar. He was not long in discovering that his judgment of the locomotive had been accurate. She was certainly cranky. Her rods moved jerkily, and there was a constant rattling of loose bolts. The wheel tyres were so badly ground down in parts by the use of brakes that you might almost have believed that she had square wheels. With every revolution as the flat spots. .h.i.t the metals, she dropped with a noisy thud, and then when she went over them she would raise herself bodily again, while the tender rammed her so spitefully that the worn coupling bolts were strained almost to breaking-point.

"Say, Joe," said the sergeant, "this is about as comfortable as riding a bucking broncho. How long have your wheels been like this?"

Joe Halkett looked round at him blankly, stupidly, and answered in a mazed way--

"Ever since last winter. They was ground down wrestlin' with the snow-plough in Crow's Nest Pa.s.s."

Silk glanced at the gauge.

"You're not getting much speed out of her," he said, "considering the amount of steam you're using."

"She's just obstinate," said Joe. "Obstinate an' wilful. You can't coax her nohow. I'm sick and tired of tinkerin' with her."

"She's wuss to-night than usual," declared d.i.c.k. "Reckon it's that heavy private car as takes it out of her. We've got all we c'n do ter fetch Three Moose siding 'fore the limited hustles along."

It was not a stopping train and it was only necessary to watch that the signals were shown for clear at the few stations that came at infrequent intervals along the line.

Joe Halkett appeared to be working very well. He had got the train adjusted to its gait, and the cars were thumping over the frogs and switches at a reasonable pace, labouring, panting, and grunting when mounting a steep gradient, but settling down again when there was a stretch of good running ground ahead. It was mostly cultivated prairie land, but now and again the track was through gloomy pine forests or deep mountain defiles.

Dusk had already deepened into darkness when they were rattling along the track across the Piegan Indian Reservation, and Halkett had somehow worked up his engine to such easy going that Sergeant Silk began to believe that he had exaggerated the disabilities of both locomotive and engineer, and that he might just as well have been enjoying the greater comfort of one of the pa.s.senger cars, or been seated luxuriously in the private Pullman spinning yarns with the Colonel and Sir George.

In the darkness Silk did not perceive the change that had come upon Halkett's face. It was only when Joe chanced to lean over into the light from the open fire-box that he saw the look of terror that had come into it. It was a look like that of a man who had got some terrible secret on his soul and was driven half mad by it.

"Joe? What's the matter?" Silk cried, starting to his feet. He glanced round at the fireman.

d.i.c.k had just come back from the water tank.

"Say, Sergeant," he gasped, "the water's runnin' low, an' we've pa.s.sed the plug. We've got ter go back!"

Silk was alarmed. He knew well that one of the important things for an engine-driver to do is to figure out at what plugs he can fill his tank most advantageously, and that it is a high crime to run short of water.

"Are you certain sure we've pa.s.sed it?" he asked sharply. He had leapt to the lever to stop the train, and whistle for brakes.

The fireman nodded.

"Yes," he answered. "We've got ter push back. It's a good three mile."

"But we can't push back," Silk protested. "There's not time, and we shall not have enough steam. There's the limited express to think of.

How far on is the next water plug?"

"'Bout the same distance," d.i.c.k told him. "We're half ways between."

"Then we'll pull ahead," decided the sergeant.

"She'll bust, sure, if we do," declared Joe Halkett, rousing himself to a realisation of the situation. "Thar' ain't enough power ter carry her through, draggin' such a weight, and, say, thar's no switch near hand, where we kin side-track ter let the limited run past."

The train had stopped. Sergeant Silk stood still, hardly daring to take the responsibility. But even in the matter of managing an engine he proved himself to be a person of ready resource. He whistled for the conductor.

"Jump down and cut the engine loose, d.i.c.k," he ordered. And without questioning the motive, d.i.c.k obeyed.

By the time that the engine and tender had been uncoupled from the foremost car, the guard had come through the corridors from the brake van to know what had happened.