A Romance in Transit

Maclure released the air-brake, and clambering down from his box, dragged the passenger agent from his seat and so out to the gangway.

"Say, Fred, is she goin' back?" he whispered.

"No, not just yet."

"Bully for her; she's got sand, she has. Reckon you could run a spell and talk to her at the same time?"

Brockway's nerves tingled at the bare suggestion. "Try me and see," he said.

"It's a go," said Maclure. "Get her over there on my side, and I'll smoke me a pipe out o' Johnnie's window. Swear to bob I won't look around once!"

IX

FIFTY MILES AN HOUR

"Let me promote you, Miss Vennor," Brockway said, helping Gertrude to the foot-board; "Mr. Maclure says you may have his seat for awhile."

Gertrude acquiesced unquestioningly. For some cause as yet unclassified, acquiescence seemed to be quite the proper thing when she was with Brockway, though docility with others was not her most remarkable characteristic. When she was safely bestowed, Maclure rang the bell and gave Brockway his instructions.

"Next stop's Red Butte – twenty-seven miles – thirty-eight minutes o' card-time – no allowance for slowin' down at Corral Siding. And if you can twist 'em any quicker, do it. Turn her loose."

The engineer betook himself to the fireman's box, and Brockway's resolution was taken on the spur of the moment.

"Do just as I tell you, Miss Vennor, and I'll give you a brand-new experience," he said, quickly. "Take hold of this lever and pull – both hands – pull hard!"

Gertrude did it simply because she was told to, and it was not until the engine lunged forward that she understood what it was she was doing. "Oh, Mr. Brockway – I can't!" she cried; "it won't mind me!"

"Yes, it will; I'll show you how. Push it back a little; you mustn't tear your fire. There; let her make a few turns at that."

Gertrude clung to the throttle as if she were afraid it was alive and would escape, but her eyes sparkled and the flush of excitement mounted swiftly to cheek and brow.

"Now give her a little more – just a notch or two – that's enough. You needn't hold it; it won't run away," Brockway said, laughing at her.

"I shall go daft if I don't hold something! Oh, please, Mr. Brockway! I know I shall smash everything into little bits!"

"No, you won't; I sha'n't let you. A little more steam, if you please; that's right. Now take hold of this lever with both hands, brace yourself and pull steadily."

The reversing-lever of a big ten-wheeler is no child's plaything, and he stood ready to help her if she could not manage it. But Miss Vennor did manage it, though the first notch or two had to be fought for; and Maclure, who had quite forgotten his promise not to look on, applauded enthusiastically.

"Good!" said Brockway, approvingly; "you are doing famously. Now a little more throttle; that's enough."

The 926 forged ahead obediently, and Gertrude began to enter into the spirit of the thing.

"This is simply Titanic!" she exclaimed. "What shall I do next?"

"Cut her back a little more," Brockway commanded; "two notches. Now a little more steam – more yet; that will do."

The great engine lunged forward like a goaded animal, and Gertrude sat up very straight and clung to the reversing-lever when the cab began to lurch and sway. But she obeyed Brockway's directions promptly and implicitly.

"Don't be afraid of her," he said. "You have a clear track and a heavy rail."

"I'm not afraid," she asserted; "I'm miles beyond that, now. If anything should happen, we'd all be dead before we found it out, so I can be perfectly reckless."

Mile after mile of the level plain swept backward under the drumming wheels, and Brockway's heart made music within him because it had some little fragment of its desire. In order to see the track through the front window of the cab, he had to lean his elbow on the cushion beside her, and it brought them very near – nearer, he thought, than they would ever be again.

Gertrude was much too full of the magnitude of things to care to talk, but she was finally moved to ask another question.

"Are we really running along on the rails just like any well-behaved train? It seems to me we must have left the track quite a while ago."

Brockway laughed. "You would know it, if we had. Do you see those two little yellow lights away out ahead?"

"Yes; what are they?"

"They are the switch-lights at Corral Siding. Take hold of this lever and blow the whistle yourself; then it won't startle you so much."

Gertrude did that, also, although it was more trying to her nerves than all that had gone before. Then Brockway showed her how to reduce speed.

"Push the throttle in as far as it will go; that's right. Now the reversing-lever – both hands, and brace yourself – that's it. Now take hold of this handle and twist it that way – slowly – more yet – " the air whistled shrilly through the vent, and the song of the brake-shoes on the wheels of the train rose above the discordant clangor – "that will do – turn it back," he added, when the speed had slackened sufficiently; and he leaned forward with his hand on the brake-lever and scanned the approaching side-track with practised eyes.

"All clear!" he announced, springing back quickly. "Pull up this lever again, and give her steam."

Gertrude obeyed like an automaton, though she blenched a little when the small station building at the Siding roared past, and in a few seconds the 926 was again bettering the schedule.

"How fast are we going now?" she asked, when the engine was once more pitching and rolling like a laboring ship.

Brockway consulted his watch. "A little over fifty miles an hour, I should say. You will be quite safe in calling it that, anyway, when you tell your friends that you have run a fast express train."

"They'll never believe it," she said; "but I wouldn't have missed it for the world. What must I do now? – watch the track?"

Brockway said "Yes," though, with all his interest in other things, he had not omitted that very important part of an engineer's duty from the moment of leaving Arriba. After a roaring silence of some minutes, during which Brockway gave himself once more to the divided business of scanning the rails and burning sweet incense on the altar of his love, she spoke again.

"What is that we are coming to, away out there?" she asked, trying vainly to steady herself for a clearer view.

"The lights of Red Butte," he answered, relaxing his vigilance for the moment at the thought that his little side-trip into the land of joy would so shortly come to an end.

"No, I don't mean those!" she exclaimed, excitedly; "but this side of the lights. Don't you see? – on the track!"

Brockway allowed himself but a single swift glance. Half-way between the flying train and the station the line crossed a shallow sand creek on a low trestle. On both sides of the swale, crowding upon the track and filling the bed of the creek, was a mass of moving forms, against which the lines of glistening rails ended abruptly.

At such a crisis, the engineer in a man, if any there be, asserts itself without reference to the volitional nerve-centres. In the turning of a leaf, Brockway had thrown himself upon the throttle, dropped the reversing-lever, set the air-brake, and opened the sand-box; while Maclure, seeing that his substitute was equal to the emergency, woke the echoes with the whistle. A hundred yards from the struggling mass of frightened cattle, Brockway saw that the air-brake was not holding.

"Don't move!" he cried; and Gertrude cowered in her corner as the heavy reversing-lever came over with a crash, and the great engine heaved and buckled in the effort to check its own momentum.

It was all over before she could cry out or otherwise advertise her very natural terror. The moving mass had melted away before the measured approach of the train; the trestle had rumbled under the wheels; and the 926 was steaming swiftly up to the station under Brockway's guidance.

"Have you had more than enough?" he asked, when he had brought the train to a stand opposite the platform at Red Butte.

"Yes – no, not that, either," she added, quickly. "I'm glad to have had a taste of the real danger as well. But I think I'd better go back; it's getting late, isn't it?"