Tom of the Raiders Part 14

It was Fuller's idea that his train had been taken by conscripts who were deserting from the Confederate encampment on the other side of the tracks. He believed that they would run the engine until they had put several miles between them and Big Shanty, and then take refuge in the woods. He had been warned in Atlanta, just before he left on this run, to keep a sharp watch for deserting conscripts; it was for that reason he had scrutinized the pa.s.sengers in his train so closely.

With Fuller in the lead, they rounded curve after curve of the track, hoping each time to find the abandoned engine.

"I can't go any farther," panted the engineer.

"Come on!" yelled Fuller.

The men yanked off their coats, tossed them aside, and settled down into a trot. Murphy was still bringing up the rear.

Presently they came to Moon Station. Not far away there was a miniature flat-car of the type which is loaded with tools and supplies and pushed along the track. Ahead of them the road swept down in a gentle grade.

"Throw that on the track," ordered Fuller. The four men, puffing from their long run, took the corners of the little car and dragged it to the tracks. Fuller started them with a shove, then scrambled aboard.

"I sent the agent riding back to Marietta," panted Murphy.

"At Etowah," replied Fuller, "they have an engine-the Yonah. It belongs to the iron works. If it isn't up at the mills we'll take it."

"Has it steam up?" asked Murphy.

"I don't know. If it hasn't, we're done."

The hand-car was coasting easily down the grade; it rounded a sharp bend.

"Jump!" yelled the engineer.

His warning came too late. The car reached the spot where Andrews' men had torn up the rail; its wheels left the track and it spun about, scattering the men over the ground.

"Anybody hurt?" demanded Fuller, scrambling to his feet.

"No," they answered. All of them were bruised and the fireman's cheek was cut. "It's nothing," he said. They righted the car and dragged it to the track.

"Look at that!" called Fuller, pointing to the broken telegraph wires.

"This isn't a conscript's job."

"What do you think?" asked Murphy. "The Yanks?"

"Probably. Get that car back on the tracks, anyway. Grab some of those fence rails. We've about reached the bottom of the grade, and we can pole the car faster than we can walk. I can't run another inch."

They found two light rails, boarded the car and coasted to the bottom of the grade. Then began the tedious work of poling. It was, as Fuller had said, faster than walking. On level track they could go five or six miles an hour; on the upgrades, two of them walked while the other two poled.

At the top of the last grade before they came to Etowah, they looked down and saw the Yonah a mile away, upon the turn-table. The locomotive was being turned for its trip up the branch to the iron works!

"Give a push!" yelled Fuller. "In another minute we're lost."

The four men ran beside the hand car and started down the grade, jumping aboard when they could run no faster. The car slipped to and fro on the tracks, yanked them about the curves.

"Keep a sharp lookout ahead on the tracks," ordered Fuller. But the way was clear. If Andrews had stopped at this point to obstruct the track, the pursuit which followed would have been impossible. The Yonah would have been on its way up the branch before the hand car arrived.

As it was, the engineer of the Yonah was climbing aboard when his attention was attracted by the yells of the men on the approaching car, flying down the track as fast as a hand car ever traveled. He waited, wondering what was wrong.

Fuller ran to the Yonah, while his men pushed the hand car from the track. "We'll have to take this engine," he said. "The Yanks have stolen my train!" The three men joined him, and before the engineer could protest, they were pushing at the bar of the turn-table, swinging the locomotive around.

"I haven't much fuel," said the engineer.

"You have enough to get us to Kingston," answered Fuller. "Get aboard there!"

The Yonah slipped from the turn-table, swung into the main track and started in pursuit. The throttle was open wide.

Fuller and Murphy exchanged glances; the same thought had crossed their minds. If the Yanks had torn up the track ahead of them, the Yonah would be wrecked, and, traveling at such speed, a wreck meant death for them all. The Yonah would hurl itself from the track, and end in a steaming, smoldering ruin. Yet the two men kept their thoughts to themselves and said nothing. Caution at that moment might mean that they would lose the race. It was better to lose in a wreck than to lose by delaying. The Yonah-it was a light engine-fairly danced upon the rails.

Pa.s.sengers along the way who had been disappointed once by a train which did not stop for them, gazed in amazement as the engine flashed past.

Fuller, sitting behind the engineer, leaned out of the window and peered ahead, watching the track anxiously. Murphy, with the two men who had come with them, stood by the brakes, ready to apply them when Fuller gave the signal. They were two miles from Kingston when Fuller lurched across the cab and pulled the whistle cord. It was that long shrieking blast which Andrews' men had heard as the General swung around the bend of the side-track into the main line.

Andrews, as Kingston dropped behind them, stood leaning against the side of the cab, his chin in his hand, and his eyes closed. Tom, stripped to his waist, was struggling back and forth between the tender and the engine with logs of wood which he shoved into the fire-box. The General was belching great clouds of black smoke; red sparks flashed back over the train like a plume waving in the breeze.

"That's enough," yelled Knight. "We've got a full head of steam now. Push her, Brown, push her!"

And still Andrews stood there, with his eyes closed, thinking. Tom clambered to the fireman's seat.

"Stop here!" called Andrews suddenly.

Tom sprang for the brake.

"Rip down those wires," Andrews continued. "Two of you men-you and you-load those ties in the freight car." He pointed to a pile which lay near the track. "Put some of them on the rails." Then when they were under way again, he yelled to Knight, "Stop around that next bend-we'll tear up a rail."

The men streamed out again, when the train had come to a stop; they wrenched at the spikes with their inadequate tools, but the oak ties held them stubbornly. The task was little more than half completed when Andrews came running.

"Pry it up-don't bother about the rest of the spikes. Give a hand, here." They slid a bar under the rail and pulled upward, straining. Slowly it bent; then broke. The men tumbled over each other down the embankment, a mixture of bodies, legs, arms and tools, with the rail clattering after them. Miraculously, no one was hurt. Tom was at the bottom of the heap; he struggled loose and climbed up to the track.

Andrews s.n.a.t.c.hed his hat off and ran, waving it, back to the engine.

"'Board!" he shouted. The General rushed forward, under full power.

Andrews sat beside Tom in the fireman's seat. "The people who are chasing us will be held up by the freight trains at Kingston," he said. "It will probably be ten minutes before they can get clear of the station. It was a gamble, stopping to tear up that rail. I was afraid they'd come up on us. That will block them, though." He looked back along the track. "We'll be in Adairsville soon. We have to meet the through freight there."

"Wood!" yelled Knight. Tom slid down from his seat and struggled with the logs. Andrews moved over to Brown and yelled in his ear. Brown, without taking his eyes off the track ahead of him, nodded. He had the throttle open wide, and the General was swaying perilously on the curves. Long moments pa.s.sed while the engine seemed to travel on the outer wheels; then, as the track straightened, to come crashing down.

Tom was becoming accustomed to the swaying, jerking floor of the cab. He hurried back and forth between the tender and the fire-box, crouching to keep his balance, struggling with the heavy logs. He was covered with soot, and the sweat made tiny rivulets in the black as it streamed down his body. His shirt had been caught by a puff of wind and carried out of the cab. He lifted the lid of the fireman's seat and threw his coat and cape into the box.

Andrews sat beside him again, glancing nervously at his watch. "If we are more than an hour late at Adairsville, the through freight may pull out and block the road. Then there's the southbound pa.s.senger train."

"At Adairsville?" asked Tom.

"No, at Calhoun," answered Andrews. "There is the same danger with that as with the freight. If we don't come within an hour of the time we're due, it has a right to go ahead and meet us at the next station." They were rounding a curve which gave them a clear view of the track behind for several miles. The pursuing engine was not in sight.

The speed of the General slackened. Tom glanced ahead and saw Adairsville.

"Are we going to stop?" he asked.

"Yes. I want to get that freight started south. They might wait, when they see that this is not the pa.s.senger train. Work up a full head of steam while we're here, Knight."

Tom put more fuel upon the fire. The train slid into the station at Adairsville and stopped. The freight train was standing on the side-track, ready to pull out. Andrews jumped to the platform: