CHAPTER XX
ON A WILDCAT RUN
"This is great!" cried Billy.
Phil Forrest, however, was keeping his eyes steadily onthe shining rails ahead. All at once the storm broke.The lightning seemed to rend the heavens before them.Then the rain came down in a deluge.
So heavy was the rainfall that the young pilot could see onlya few car lengths ahead of him. Instinctively he tightened thebrakes slightly. The car was swaying giddily, not having atrain with it to steady it.
"We ought to be near that grade the section man told us about,"said Conley.
"Yes; I was just thinking of that. I guess I had better let herout, so we shall be sure to make it."
Phil threw off the brake wheel and Car Three shot ahead like agreat projectile, rocking from side to side, moving at such highspeed that the joints in the rails gave off a steady purringsound under the wheels.
The wildcat car struck the grade with a lurch and a bang,climbing it at a tremendous pace.
The two men on the front platform were compelled to hold on withtheir full strength, in order to keep from being hurled into theditch beside the track.
"I hope Teddy is all right," shouted Phil.
Billy leaned out over the side looking back. Teddy, who was alsoleaning out, peering ahead regardless of the driving rain, waveda hand at him.
"Yes; you can't hurt _that_ boy--"
Just then the car plunged over the crest of the hill and wentthundering away down the steep grade.
By this time the men in the car had, one by one, beenshaken awake by the car's terrific pace, and one by onethey tumbled from their berths, quickly raising thecurtains for a look outside.
What they saw was a driving storm and the landscape slipping pastthem at a higher speed than they ever had known before. Three ofthe men bolted to the front platform.
"What's the matter? Are we running away?" shouted a voice inPhil's car.
"Go back, fellows, and shut the door. Don't bother me.I'm making the next town."
The men retired to the car, sat down and looked at each other inblank amazement.
"Well, did you ever?" gasped Rosie.
"Never," answered the Missing Link, shaking his head helplessly."He'll be the death of us yet."
"At least we'll be going some if we stay on this car."
"We _are_ going some. We've been going some ever since the newBoss took hold of this car. I hope we don't hit anything.It'll be a year of Sundays for us, if we do."
"A good many years of 'em," muttered Rosie.
"I hear a train whistle!" shouted Billy, leaning toward Phil.
"I heard it," answered the boy calmly, beginning to tug at thebrake wheel.
"Want any help?" asked Conley anxiously.
"No; you can't help me any." Phil had ceased twisting the wheel.
"What's the matter?"
"The wheels are slipping. The brakes will not hold them. If weare going to meet anything we might as well meet it properly,"answered Phil calmly, whereupon he kicked the ratchet loose andspun the brake wheel about.
The car seemed to take a sudden leap forward.
Just then there came a rift in the clouds.
"Look!" cried Billy.
Phil leaned over the rail, peering into the mist.
The track, just a little way ahead of them, took a suddenbend around a high point of land. And on beyond the hillthey saw the smoke of an engine belching up into the airlike so many explosions.
"I guess that settles it," said the boy. His face was, perhaps,a little more pale than usual, but in no other way did he showany emotion.
"Shall we tell the men to jump, then go over ourselves?"
"No; we should all be killed. We will stay and see it through.The men are better off inside the car."
A yell from Teddy, sounding faint and far away, caused Billy tolean out and look back.
"Turn on your sand! Turn on your sand! She's slipping!"howled Teddy.
"We haven't any sand. D'you think this is a trolley car?"
Just then Teddy caught sight of the smoke ahead of them.He pointed. His voice seemed to fail him all at once.
"It looks as if we would get all the publicity we want in abouta minute, Billy," said Phil, smiling easily. "We shall not belikely to know anything about it, though," he added.
Car Three swept around the bend.
"There they are!" cried Conley.
"Coming head on!" commented Phil. He seemed not in the leastdisturbed, despite the fact that he believed himself to be facingcertain death.
Billy let out a yell of joy.
"They are on another track. They are not on these irons at all!"he shouted.
Phil had observed this at about the same instant. He sawsomething else, too. The road on which the train was approachingcrossed his track at right angles. The other was a double trackrailroad, and the train was a fast express train, tearing alongat high speed.
"We're safe!" breathed Billy, heaving a great sigh of relief.
"No, we are not. We are going to smash right into them,_broadside,_ unless we can check our car enough to clear them."
"You think so?"
"I know so."
Billy groaned. His joy had been short-lived.
"Give Teddy the signal to put on the brakes. We will makeanother attempt to check her."
Phil threw himself into the task of turning the wheel, which hedid in quick, short, spasmodic jerks, rather than by a steadyapplication of the brakes.
The car slackened somewhat--hardly enough to be noticed.
"Tell Teddy to keep it up. You had better send one of the menback to help him."
Billy bellowed his command to the men inside.
"They see us. They are whistling to us."
"Yes."
Shriek after shriek rang out from the whistle of the approachingexpress train, the engineer of which jerked his throttle wideopen in hopes of clearing the oncoming wildcat car.
Phil was still tugging desperately, but without any apparentnervousness, at the brake wheel. He finally ceased his efforts.
"I can't do any more," he said; then calmly leaned his arms onthe wheel awaiting results.
Billy did not utter a word. He, too, possessed strong nerves.
The man and the boy stood there calmly watching the train aheadof them. Nearer and nearer to it did they draw. They could seethe engineer and fireman leaning from their cab, looking back.Phil waved a hand to them, to which the engine crew respondedin kind.
"Now for the smash, Billy, old boy!" muttered Phil with the smilethat no peril seemed able to banish from his face.
"Yes; it's going to be a close shave."
The last car of the express train was now abreast of them.They seemed to be right upon it. So close were they that Philthought he could stretch out a hand and touch it.
Suddenly it was whisked from before them as if by magic.
The engineer had given his engine its final burst of speed.
"Hang on tight!" shouted Phil. "We're going to sideswipethem now!"
"Off brakes!"
Billy gave the bell rope a tug.
Then came a crash, a grinding, jolting sound. It seemed as ifthe red car were being torn from end to end. Car Three careened,rocked and swayed, threatening every second to plunge from therails over the embankment at that point.
As suddenly as it had come, the strain seemed to have beenremoved from it. Once more Number Three was thundering alongover the rails.
"Yee--ow!" howled Teddy from the rear platform.
The men inside the car were not saying anything. They wereslowly picking themselves up from the floor, where they had beenhurled by the sudden shock. The interior of the car looked as ifit had been struck by a tornado. The contents were piled in aconfused heap at one end of the car, paste pots overturned,bedding stripped clean from the berths, lamps smashed, and greatpiles of paper scattered all over the place.
"Hooray!" yelled Billy in the excess of
his joy. "We're saved."
"Yes," answered Phil with a grin. "It was a close call, though.I hope no one in the car is hurt. You had better go in andfind out. I am afraid our car has been damaged."
Billy leaned over the side, looking back.
"Yes, we got a beauty of a sideswipe," he said.
The coupling and rear platform of the rear car on the expresstrain had cut a deep gash in the side of Car Three, along half ofits length.
"Any windows left?"
"I don't see anything that looks like glass left in them,"laughed Conley.
"You watch the wheel a minute. I will go inside," said Phil.
He hurried into the car.
Phil could not repress a laugh at the scene that met his gaze.
"Hello, boys; what's going on in here?" called Phil.
"Say, Boss," spoke up Rosie the Pig. "If it's all the same toyou, I think I'll get out and walk the rest of the way."
"Are we on time?" howled Teddy, poking his head in at therear door.
"Better straighten the car out, for we should reach our townin a few minutes now--"
"I should say we would, at this gait," interrupted a voice.
"Then all hands will have to hustle out to work. I want tobe out of the next stand sometime tonight. We go out onanother road, so we shall not have to wait, unless somethingunforeseen occurs. Came pretty near having a smash-up,didn't we?" suggested Phil.
"Near?" The Missing Link's emotion was too great to permit himto finish the sentence.
The car bowled merrily along. In a short time the two men on thefront platform were able to make out the outlines of the townahead of them. The skies were clearing now, and shortlyafterwards the sun burst through the clouds.
"All is sunshine," laughed Phil. "For a time it looked as ifthere would be a total eclipse," he added, grimly.
Billy gazed at him wonderingly.
"If I had your nerve I'd be a millionaire," said Billy in alow tone.
"You probably would break your neck the first thing you did,"answered Phil with a short laugh.
They were now moving along on a level stretch of track. Phil setthe brakes a little, and the car slowed down. In this way theyglided easily into the station, where the Circus Boy brought thecar to a stop directly in front of the telegraph office.
The station agent came out to see what it was that had come inso unexpectedly.
His amazement was great.
"Well, we are here," called Phil, stepping down fromthe platform. "I guess we are on time."
"Any orders?" shouted Teddy Tucker, dropping from therear platform.
"Where--where did you fellows come from?"
"Salina."
"Where's your engine?"
"I'm the engine," spoke up Teddy. "Wasn't I behind, pushing CarThree all the way over?"
All hands set up a shout of laughter.
The Circus Boys on the Plains; Or, The Young Advance Agents Ahead of the Show Page 21