CHAPTER XV
CHASING A RUNAWAY
"What's the programme?" asked Roberts, after filling the fire box withcoal.
"We must beat the speed of that runaway locomotive," replied Ralph.
The wild engine was going at a terrific rate of progress. Ralph couldonly surmise where she had been started on her mad career. The motive,her intended destination, how long she would last out--all this he couldonly guess at.
A drift of cinders struck his face as he shot No. 93 across a switch andout upon the in track of the north branch. At the same time he bent hisear and listened critically to the chug-chug of the escape valves.
"Some one is aboard of that engine," he told Roberts.
"Then it's a chase instead of a race," said the fireman. "All right. Youboss and watch out ahead."
Pursued and pursuer were now on parallel tracks. Ralph wondered if hecould be mistaken, and the locomotive ahead a special or returning fromduty.
To test this he gave a familiar challenge call. From ignorance ordefiance there was no response. Ralph was sure that the locomotive wasin charge of some one. Its movements, the cinder drift, the wheeze ofthe safety valve, told that the machinery was being manipulated.
Ralph cast up in his mind all the facts and probabilities of thehairbreadth exploit in which he was participating. He acted on thebelief that the locomotive he was chasing was wild, or soon to be put inaction as one. It would be run to some intended point, abandoned, andsent full speed ahead on its errand of destruction.
Ralph did not know what might be ahead on either track. The schedule, heremembered, showed no moving rolling stock this side of the north main.He urged his fireman to fire up to the limit and did some rapidcalculating as to the chances for the next twenty miles.
The locomotive ahead was fully a mile away before Roberts got old 93 inthe right trim, as he expressed it. He clucked audibly as his pet beganto snort and quiver. Pieces of the machinery rattled warningly, but thatonly amused him.
"She's loose-jointed," he admitted to Ralph; "but she'll hold together,I reckon, if you can only keep her to the rails. That fellow ahead issprinting, but we're catching up fast. What's the ticket?"
"Our only hope is to beat the runaway and switch or bump her."
"There'll be some damage."
"There will probably be worse damage if we don't stop her."
The paralleled tracks widened a few miles further on to get to the solidside of a boggy reach. It was here that No. 93 came fairly abreast ofthe runaway. It was here, too, that the furnace door of the runaway wasopened to admit coal, and the back flare of the hissing embers outlinedthe figure of a man in the cab.
"She's spurting," observed Roberts, watching all this, as the runawaystarted on a prodigious dash.
"I see she is," nodded Ralph, grimly trying to hold No. 93 over, yetaware that she was already set at her highest possible point of tension.
"And we're getting near."
"Yes, there are the station lights ahead."
About four hundred yards to the left the runaway dashed past a desertedstation. Ralph never let up on speed. The chase had now led to thecut-off, a stretch of about twenty miles. Where this ran into the mainagain there was an important station. This point Ralph was sure had beenadvised of the situation from headquarters if Glidden had done his duty,and the young railroader felt sure that he had.
"Hello; now it is a chase!" exclaimed Roberts.
In circling into the cut-off No. 93 had passed a series of switches,finally sending her down the same rails taken by the runaway.
"It's now or never, and pretty quick at that," said Ralph to hisfireman. "Crowd her, Roberts."
"She's doing pretty nigh her best as it is," replied the fireman. "Idon't know as she'll stand much more crowding."
"That's better," said Ralph in a satisfied tone, as, fired up to thelimit, the old rattletrap made a few more pounds of steam.
"Going to scare or bump the fellow ahead?" grinned Roberts, his grimedface dripping with perspiration. "We're after her close now. It's ourchance to gain. They don't dare to coal up for fear of losing speed."
A score of desperate ideas as to overtaking, crippling, wrecking orgetting aboard of the runaway thronged the mind of the young railroader.They were gaining now in leaps and bounds.
It was at a risk, however, Ralph realized fully. No. 93 was shaking andwobbling, at times her clattering arose to a grinding squeal of thewheels, as though she resented the terrific strain put upon her powersof speed and endurance.
"Whew! there was a tilt," whistled Roberts, as No. 93 scurried a curvewhere she threatened to dip clear over sideways into a swampy stretchwhich had undermined the solid roadbed.
Ralph gave a sudden gasp. He had watched every movement of themachinery. To his expert, careful ear every sound and quiver hadconveyed a certain intelligent meaning.
Now, however, No. 93 was emitting strange noises--there was a new sound,and it boded trouble.
It came from the driving rod. Roberts caught the grinding, snappingsound, stared hard from his window, craning his neck, his eyes goggling,and then drew back towards the tender with a shout:
"Go easy, Fairbanks; something's tearing loose--look out!"
The warning came none too soon. Ralph slipped from his seat and droppedbackwards into the tender just in time.
A giant steel arm had shot through the front of the cab. It was theright driving rod. It came aloft and then down, tearing a great hole inthe floor. It shattered the cab to pieces with half a dozen giantstrokes. It smashed against the driving wheels with a force thatthreatened to wreck them.
Then it tried to pound off the cylinder. The flying arms next took theroof supports, snapping them like pipe stems, and buried the fireman ina heap of debris.
"Jump!" gasped Roberts.
"I stay," breathed Ralph.
And, stripped of everything except her cylinder, No. 93 dashed on--awreck.
Ralph, the Train Dispatcher; Or, The Mystery of the Pay Car Page 15