VI
The Twig
It is said that the flow of a mighty river may owe its most radicalchange in direction to the chance thrusting of a twig into the currentat some critical instant in the rise or fall of the flood. To thereincarnated Smith, charting his course upon the conviction that hisbest chance of immunity lay in isolation and a careful avoidance of thepeopled towns, came the diverting twig in this wise.
On the second morning following the unofficial talk with BartleyWilliams in the iron-sheeted headquarters office at the dam, a delayedconsignment of cement, steel, and commissary supplies was due at theside-track a mile below the camp. Perkins, the timekeeper, took thetelephone call from Brewster giving notice of the shipment, and startedthe camp teams to meet the train, sending a few men along to help withthe unloading. Later, he called Smith in from the quarry and gave himthe invoices covering the shipment.
"I guess you'd better go down to the siding and check this stuff in, sothat we'll know what we're getting," was his suggestion to the generalutility man; and Smith put the invoices into his pocket and took theroad, a half-hour or more behind the teams.
When the crookings of the tote-road let him get his first sight of theside-track, he saw that the train was already in and the mixed shipmentof camp supplies had been transferred to the wagons. A few minutessufficed for the checking, and since there was nothing more to be done,he sent the unloading gang back to camp with the teams, meaning to walkback, himself, after he should have seen the car of steel and the twocars of cement kicked in at the upper end of the side-track.
While he was waiting for the train to pull up and make the shift he wascommenting idly upon the clumsy lay-out of the temporary unloading yard,and wondering if Williams were responsible for it. The siding was on theoutside of a curve and within a hundred yards of the river bank. Therewas scanty space for the unloading of material, and a good bit of whatthere was was taken up by the curving spur which led off from the sidingto cross the river on a trestle, and by the wagon road itself, whichcame down a long hill on the south side of the railroad and made anabrupt turn to cross the main track and the siding fairly in the midstof things.
As the long train pulled up to clear the road crossing, Smith steppedback and stood between the two tracks. A moment later the cut was made,and the forward section of the train went on to set the three loadedcars out at the upper switch, leaving the rear half standing on the mainline. From his position between the tracks there was a clear view pastthe caboose at the end of the halted section and beyond, to the roadcrossing and the steep grade down which the dusty wagon road made arough gash in the shoulder of the mountain spur which had crowded itfrom the river-bank side of the railroad right of way. At the bottom ofthe steep grade, where the road swerved to cross the two tracks, therewas a little sag; and between the sag and the crossing a sharp bit ofup-grade made to gain the level of the railroad embankment.
One of the men of the unloading gang, a leather-faced grade shovellerwho had helped to build the Nevada Short Line, had lagged behind thedeparting wagons to fill and light his pipe.
"Wouldn't that jar you up right good and hard f'r a way to run arailroad," he said to Smith, indicating the wholly deserted standingsection of the freight with the burnt match-end. "Them fellies 've allgone off up ahead, a-leavin' this yere hind end without a sign of aman'r a flag to take keer of it. S'pose another train 'd come boolgin''round that curve. Wouldn't it rise merry hell with things 'long aboutthis-away?"
Smith was listening only with the outward ear to what the pipelighterwas saying. Somewhere in the westward distances a thunderous murmur wasdroning upon the windless air of the June morning, betokening, as itseemed, the very catastrophe the ex-grade-laborer was prefiguring. Smithstripped his coat for a flag and started to run toward the crossing, butbefore he had caught his stride a dust cloud swept up over the shoulderof the wagon-road hill and the portentous thunderings were accountedfor. A big gray automobile, with the cut-out open, was topping theside-hill grade, and Smith recognized it at once. It was Colonel DexterBaldwin's roadster, and it held a single occupant--namely, the youngwoman who was driving it.
Smith stopped running and transferred his anxiety from the train andrailroad affairs to the young woman. Being himself a skilful driver ofcars--and a man--he had a purely masculine distrust of the woman, anywoman, behind a steering-wheel. To be sure, there was no danger, as yet.Turning to look up the track, he saw that the three loaded cars had beenset out, that the forward section of the train had been pulled up overthe switch, and that it was now backing to make the coupling with thestanding half. He hoped that the trainmen had seen the automobile, andthat they would not attempt to make the coupling until after the graycar had crossed behind the caboose. But in the same breath he guessed,and guessed rightly, that they were too far around the curve to be ableto see the wagon-road approach.
Still there was time enough, and room enough. The caboose on the rearend of the standing section was fully a hundred feet clear of the roadcrossing; and if the entire train should start backward at the couplingcollision, the speed at which the oncoming roadster was running shouldtake it across and out of danger. Nevertheless, there was no margin forthe unexpected. Smith saw the young woman check the speed for the abruptturn at the bottom of the hill, saw the car take the turn in a skiddingslide, heard the renewed roar of the motor as the throttle was openedfor a run at the embankment grade. Then the unexpected dropped its bomb.There was a jangling crash and the cars on the main track were set inmotion toward the crossing. The trainmen had tried to make theircoupling, the drawheads had failed to engage, and the rear half of thetrain was surging down upon the point of hazard.
Smith's shout, or the sight of the oncoming train, one of the two, orboth, put the finishing touch on the young woman's nerve. There wasstill time in which to clear the train, but at the critical instant theyoung woman apparently changed her mind and tried to stop the big carshort of the crossing. The effort was unsuccessful. When the stop wasmade, the front wheels of the roadster were precisely in the middle ofthe main track, and the motor was killed.
By this time Smith had thrown his coat away and was racing the backingtrain, with the ex-grade-laborer a poor second a dozen yards to the rear.Having ridden in the roadster, Smith knew that it had no self-starter."_Jump!_" he yelled. "Get out of the car!" and then his heart came intohis mouth when he saw that she was struggling to free herself andcouldn't; that she was entangled in some way behind the low-hungtiller-wheel.
Smith was running fairly abreast of the caboose when he made thisdiscovery, and the hundred feet of clearance had shrunk to fifty. Inimagination he could already see the gray car overturned and crushedunder the wheels of the train. In a flying spurt he gained a few yardson the advancing menace and hurled himself against the front of thestopped roadster. He did not attempt to crank the motor. There was timeonly for a mighty heave and shove to send the car backing down the slopeof the crossing approach; for this and for the quick spring aside tosave himself; and the thing was done.
The Real Man Page 6