Page:McClure's Magazine volume 10.djvu/212

"THE CONDUCTOR CAME RUNNING OVER THE TRAIN, WAVING HIS HAT, AND YELLING FOR ME TO STOP."

Mechanically I again blew the signal; then realizing that I had not above half a dozen more breaths to draw in this world, a kind of demoniac frenzy seemed to seize me—a desire to do all the damage possible with my dying breath, to annihilate everything from the face of the earth, as it were. Clutching the reverse lever with both hands, I with difficulty unhooked her, and dropped her down a couple of notches, and, fast as she was going before, I felt her leap ahead under the impetus of the longer point of cut-off, and a fierce joy surged over me to think what a world-beater my wreck would be.

Looking ahead again, I saw that the flagman had dropped his flag and was running at a breakneck speed for the switch. For a wonder they hadn't sent out the biggest dunce on the train to flag. He had sense enough, on seeing me coming and hearing my signal, to comprehend the situation, and wit enough to know the only right thing to do. To spur him on, I again blew what then sounded to me like the despairing death shriek of the iron devil I rode, and to give him every second of time possible I shut off my throttle, with the immediate result that the cars bumped up against the tender with a shuck that nearly threw me over backwards; but I hung on, and watched that man eagerly as he flew with all the speed that was in him for that switch. What if he should stub his toe, as men so often do under like circumstances? It would mean death for me before I could close my eyes; and, even then, I remember thinking how fortunate it was for me, that owing to the proverbial laziness of flagmen, he hadn't gone out as far as the rules required, but had stayed near the switch.

I saw him reach it, and stoop down, clutch the handle, and at the first effort fail to lift it out of the notch in which it lies when the switch is open; and then I swept by like a cyclone. He had got the switch closed just in the nick of time, and the rush of wind from the passing train hurled him down a fifty-foot embankment, bruising him and tearing his clothes, but fortunately doing him no serious injury.

I saw in the siding the engine that I came so near hitting, and the engine and train crew out in the field, staring with blanched faces; one laggard just tumbling over the fence as I whirled by. I heard a crash, and, looking back, saw that the corner of the head car had rolled over far enough to break off the water-crane that stood alongside the track, resulting in a bad washout before they could get the water shut off. I breathed much easier now, and it was with a light heart that I pulled up the lever again and gradually opened her out. I was running through a yard where the rules required me to reduce speed to six miles an hour, but a train going sixty-six could not have kept up with me.

There was a passenger station at the foot of the mountain, and looking at my watch, I saw that a train was just about