. . .
the engineer in very fact saw
the hurtling fate of the train ahead
BY H. THOMPSON
RICH
NCE, twice, three times the'statiohclock's thin steel minute-hand had
-traced its monotonous circuit. Over
in a corner of the big room several tired
itinerants sat half asleep. From behind the
barred'ticket window a telegraph instrument
talked fitfully. Elsewhere silence, save when
the main door swung narrowly to admit an
occasional overcoated, sleeted figureand a
squall of zero. air. The Transcontinental was
late.""
Boom! Out of the dark came a dull epic
of sound. Boom! It spread through the air
like fog. Boom! Twelve times, till the night
was saturated with-muffled reverberations.
Hardly had the last lifeless echo faded,
when a series of piercing shrieks announced
the long-awaited Transcontinental;. A moment later she rolled into the shed,, steaming
and sheathed in ice.
Engineer Hadden stepped wearily from'
Ae Gab and swung off up the platform,
chafing his chilled hands together. The
stationmaster. ambled out to meet him,
throwing shadowy circles from his swinging
lantern.
, ' ~
"Open track ahead, Hadden. Orders to
hit 'er up!"
. "
Behind them the passengers were piling
aboard. Hadden half turned.
"Dangerous business, hitting her up this
sort of weather," he muttered, "but orders
are orders!"
/. '
He climbed back into the cab. When the
signal came; he opened the throttle.
Swiftly the Transcontinental slid out of
the shed.
"
. Then he looked at his watch. It read
12:05.^
'
"A straight stretch for eighty miles!" he
exclaimed, and let her out.
The locoinotive rocked and leapt ahead-
now forty, now-fifty, now sixty miles an
hour.
'
'
"Mike!" he yelled, arid the wash of air
whipped the words back, into the fireman's
52
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THE P H A N T O M EXPRESS
ear like pistol shots. "Mike, we make Mansford by 1."
. . ^
"An hour?" screamed the latter. "An
Hour?" Eighty miles? Man,'yer dreaming!"
"Maybe I am," said Hadden grimly, giving her another notch,
^N INTO the night they rushed, faster
and faster, till it was all 0'G)nnell
could do to keep that dancing devil of a
steam-gauge needle up to where it belonged.
Stripped to his red flannel shirt, he stood
in the lurid glow of the fire-box stoking
like a madman, while the ground reeled and
swayed beneath him and the sky hissed
dizzily over his head.
Firm on the little cab seat sat the chie,
gazing fixedly ahead. He was tired and cold,
and he thought how comfortable his little
home would be, at the end of the run. He
pictured Mary, his wife, waiting for him at
the doorthen the steaming supper:then
sleep. '''
'
.
He yawned. He nodded.
On and on they roared, up grades, down
inclines, over trestles, leavirig behind them
a long unbroken ribbon of echoes.
Suddenly Hadden jurnped and rubbed his
eyes. Then he stiffened and peered into the
dark aheadand saw. a long, straight line
of racing lights.
"Another express, not a mile away!"
"Mike, for the love of God, look!"
. "Look where?"
O'Gannell looked.
"I see nothin'!" he shouted back.
"You see what?"
"I see nothin'!"
.
"Then look again!"
0'G>nnell looked again.
"I see nothin', I saynothin' at all!"
"Michael O'Connell," muttered the engineer, "you're a liar!"
They pulled into Mansford on the stroke
of 1. Hadden watched the other express disappear into the dark ahead, and climbed
angrily from his cab. He had been assured
so. open track. He would see what they
53
meant by blocking the Transcontinental.
But the stationmaster knew of no train
ahead.
"I teir you, your track is clear," he repeated, "open and clear to the end of the
run!"
"You can tell me and be damned!" swore
Hadden. "L tell you it's not!"
Suddenly he climbed back into his seat.
It was 1:05.
"We'll make it by 2," he said, opening
her up. "God, I'm tired!" Dark againand
suddenly the other express loomed up ahead,
a ghostly vanguard.
O'Gonnell looked once more.
"I see nothin'nothin'!" he exclaimed.
"Forget it!"
"All right. Shut up!" sighed the chief,
and was silent.
OW they entered Cleft Forest Valley
and went thundering down a steep incline, filling the precipitous places with their
clamor.- And all at once, following with
haggard. ey the phantom express, Hadden
saw it dive over a dizzy trestle, saw it shuddersaw it leave the rails and hurtle down;
down, into abysmal darkness and utter
destruction.
.
Then, like a man suddenly roused from a
trance, he awoke to the horror of the situation. In an instant he did a dozen things,,
and 0'G)nnell clung desperately to a stanchion while the swaying locomotive steadied
itself to a grinding, jolting stopjust twenty
feet from the yawning brink of the bridgeless chasm.
"The trestle must have been swept away
by the storm^we're right at tlie edge of the'
gulchit's a miraclethe engineer is all
that saved us," came from the breathless
crowd that poured out of the cars and collected about the scene.
Later, when Hadden and O'Connell were
brought before an investigating committeethey had nothing to say, and took their
reward in silence.
And there the matter rested
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I. ^"V^/wliSwMl^
Suddenly he remembered the words
of call that would^hring the spirit,,.
- of the woods to him again.
^er.
- ^
** % " I -
'"S'l-A*
11.
-*' '7^ C^^- "t^ ^fe|
*^<.'
HE humming tires sang a new song
as the big sedan was turned into the
graveled sideroad leading to the old
homestead. They awakened old echoes in
the benumbed, deadened. mind of young
Jon Maryth, and he roused a bit.
- "Will ,this be the joyous homecoming
about which I've dreamed'so many years?"
his thoughts questioned, "or is life over for
me, with no hope of joy left?"
He knew a slight sense of guilt at coming
back, seeking, so cjuickly after [Link]
death of his parents [Link] terrible train
wreck from which he had so providentially
escaped. But his need was_ so great , . . his
beliefs as strong as ever,
"But it cannot be," he thought almost
savagely, "that Lachesis is such a cosmic
jester, to spin so sorry a .tapestry, for me.
Those, tangled threads must have a rneeting
again!"
The xylophone-rattle of the car crossing
the plank flooring of the well-remembered
little..covered wooden bridge again roused
Jon from his memories, and he sat up quickly to peer-through the car window.
And therethere in the swiftly nearing
Heading by Joseph Eberle
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