Читать книгу Mystery Rides the Rails - Gilbert A. Lathrop - Страница 8

5

THE BANKER’S ULTIMATUM

SHORTLY after two o’clock that day, the lads came into the office of Mr. Orest. Their faces were both wreathed in broad grins, and Mr. Orest did not have to ask them how they had done. He could tell by looking at them that they had been successful.

“We got her open!” announced Joe.

“Now I suppose you want to know what to do next,” said Mr. Orest with a smile.

Joe nodded.

“Well, the next thing to do is to take a train load of concentrates down to Milltown, so they can be worked over. Then you will bring back a train of empties, as well as any remaining supplies which might be left there after Frank Porter leaves with his train. Frank,” Mr. Orest hastened to explain, “is my other engineer. He’s the best engineer I ever had until you came along.”

Joe flushed.

“I’ll get my train crew together so you can pull out those loads of concentrates and get started with them. I must caution you that the grade, after you tip out of Animas Canyon, is very heavy. Don’t let the cars get to rolling too rapidly on you!”

“The Continental Divide Railroad had grades as high as four and a half per cent, and I was able to hold trains down on them,” said Joe, with a confident smile.

A grade of four and a half per cent is four feet and six inches of drop to each hundred feet of main line.

“I keep forgetting that you have worked in mountainous territory before,” smiled Mr. Orest.

“Then we’ll be going after a bite of dinner,” said Joe, turning toward the door.

“Just a minute,” said Mr. Orest, detaining him. “I had a visitor after you were gone this morning.”

Joe faced him interestedly. “Who was it?” he asked.

“Mr. Flint, president of the bank.”

Joe became serious. “What did he want?” he asked.

“He delivered his ultimatum. Either I put his son-in-law back to work—this morning I notified Anson Weird and his fireman that their services would no longer be required—or I could look for no more financial help from him, and the note would be payable when it fell due!”

“And you told him——” intimated Joe, with glistening eyes.

“That Anson Weird was working for me no longer!” said Mr. Orest emphatically.

Tubby slapped his fat thigh resoundingly. “That wath the only thing to do!” he exclaimed.

“Perhaps it was, and perhaps it wasn’t. It meant that I put the entire future of the Silver Town Northern Railroad directly into the hands of you two lads.”

Joe nodded. “I know,” he said softly, “and we won’t fail you, Mr Orest; not as long as there is a chance of us helping you in any way possible!”

“That’s all that anyone could ask. If Anson and his fireman had offered to try to buck out those slides as you lads did, I would have felt kindlier toward them. But as soon as the slides ran, the two men washed their hands of everything, and refused to make any kind of an effort. Frank Porter couldn’t make an effort because he did not have a wedge plow on his engine. But he has kept on the job, coming toward Silver Town as far as he could each day, and returning to Milltown. In that manner what little supplies we have received have been made possible by him and men on snowshoes.” Mr. Orest spoke bitterly.

“Well, we’ll be going to work again,” said Joe, as he opened the door.

“All right,” said Mr. Orest, “and remember the heavy grade after you leave Animas Canyon,” he cautioned them again, as they went outside.

With twenty loaded cars of concentrated ore behind, Joe pulled slowly out of Silver Town about three-thirty that afternoon.

On the extreme end of the train was a combination coach, well loaded with passengers who had been held there from the time the track had been blocked. The head brakeman, a pleasant-faced young fellow, stood in the cab behind Joe so he could tell the engineer about the curves and the grades ahead.

“You can make pretty good time through the canyon,” explained the brakeman, “but when you come out of there, stop ’em before tipping down the hill. We’ll look over the air brakes, and turn up the retainers while you’re stopped. Going down the grade, don’t let ’em make over ten miles an hour anywhere, because if they get a start on you, nothing can halt you.”

Joe knew that the brakeman was right. Each of the cars weighed better than twenty-five tons. Twelve tons for the car, and the balance in soggy, heavy, powdery concentrates piled in each end over the wheels.

“You can tell when we hit the bottom of the hill by the high bridge,” continued the brakeman.

“Seems to me that I noticed that bridge when we were coming in here the other day,” agreed Joe.

“If you came over the S. T. N. you must have noticed it, unless you were asleep.”

By this time they were rolling around the sharp curves in the canyon. The little train curled like a long red snake, with a black, smoking head. The more Joe worked on the little engine, the better he liked her. She was quickly responsive to the throttle, and she rode the rails with a freedom from pounding and jolting which endeared her to his heart. She was equipped with an electric headlight, and the standard automatic air.

There were no stops to be made before he reached the top of the hill, and they made very good time there. They had a meet order with Frank Porter and his train at a siding called Glacier which was some distance beyond the bottom of the hill.

“As soon as the people living along the S. T. N. find out the line’s open again we’ll have lots of stopping and picking up of passengers to do,” explained the brakeman, as they rolled around the last of the winding curves near the lower end of Animas Canyon.

Joe slowed his train with the automatic air.

“I guess it’s quite a busy little line normally, isn’t it?” he asked.

“It does a dandy business, but operating costs are high. It seems there’s always something going wrong. When slides or high water aren’t bothering us, Anson Weird is wrecking them, or tearing up an engine.”

“He won’t be doing that any more,” said Joe.

“Did he quit?” asked the brakeman in disbelief.

“He didn’t quit. Mr. Orest let him go,” said Joe quietly.

“That’s the best news I’ve had in a decade. That fellow handled the automatic air with his feet! I never rode back of such a bone-headed man in my life. Talk about chilling a fellow’s spine! Maybe you think he couldn’t do it! He never did seem to take any interest in his work. But here’s the top of the hill, and you can stop while we look ’em over,” ended the brakeman as he stepped out into the gangway.

When Joe drew his charge to a halt he was thinking that perhaps Anson Weird was getting just what he deserved.

The entire train crew were thorough in looking over the brakes. They had Joe set them up and release them several times before they gave him a signal to proceed.

The head brakeman did not come over to the engine to ride from there to the bottom of the grade, but took a place back on the train, with a stout brake club, in case the cars got out of control.

Joe started off gently, and held them to a minimum speed as they squalled around the sharp curves. One mile. Two miles. Only three miles of the grade remained. Joe was beginning to think that he was making a wonderful run. He had leaned back against the closed door on his side of the cab. His left hand was clutching the handle of his automatic air valve. The air gauge showed eighty pounds train line, and one hundred pounds reservoir pressure.

All at once the whole weight of the train came thundering down against the engine. Their speed was increased from a scant ten miles an hour to well over twenty. The heavy, soggy cars began to shimmy as they lumbered over the rails, gaining speed with each revolution of their wheels. Joe leaped to his feet and pulled the brake valve around in an emergency application. This did little more than hold their speed to twenty miles an hour, and that was entirely too fast on this kind of winding track. He reversed his charge and gave the throttle a little steam, while he opened up the sanders to allow a stream of sand to fall on the rails so it would aid the brakes. Then as a last resort, he pulled a single pleading blast on his whistle cord. That meant for the trainmen to apply hand brakes!

This time there was no thought of jumping in the minds of either Joe or Tubby. Both knew that the coach back on the rear end of the string of cars was loaded with passengers, all of them depending for their lives on the train and the engine crew. As long as the little locomotive stayed on the rails, the two were determined to remain with her.

A hasty glance back over the tops of the swaying cars showed Joe that all three of the train crew were out swinging on the hand brakes, and using pick handles for greater leverage.

Joe knew exactly what had happened. Often the brakes almost wear out before the descent of a mountain is made. The piston travel grows longer, and the wheels and brake shoes become red hot. They were hot now. A glance at the wheels showed great clouds of steam coming from them as they hissed into the snow along the rails.

If the train men could just hold them to a regulated speed with the hand brakes while Joe regained his lost air pressure—he had used every ounce of it when he applied the emergency—he would be able to stop the train with the next application.

For long, dragging minutes the train raced screaming around curves, and swaying out to the tangents. Almost imperceptibly the speed slackened. Now they were slowed enough for Joe to throw his brake valve around in full release so the air would be pumped directly into the auxiliary reservoirs beneath each of the cars.

If the cars were not held by the hand brakes when he pulled the air valve around to full release, it meant the train would end its wild run down the mountain as a tangled mass of wreckage.

So the instant he saw his head brakeman, the conductor, and the rear brakeman meet on the top of a car almost in the center of the train he knew that every hand brake was now set. He released his air and heard the air pump throb into action as it piled up pressure in the train line again.

The train was saved. As soon as he had eighty pounds of air, Joe made a light application and the train slowed down to a reasonable speed. He noted the conductor and the rear brakeman letting off some of the hand brakes near the rear of the train.

With a gusty sigh which sounded above the noise of the engine, Tubby exclaimed, “Boy! That wath clothe!”

Joe smiled as he seated himself again. Ahead, he could see the high bridge. It was as the the brakeman had told him. From the looks of it, almost a million feet of lumber must have been used in its construction. It was over a hundred feet above the surface of the river. The undercarriage was a maze of timbers, and it was held at the bottom by piling and bents. As the train slipped out on the bridge it rumbled beneath the weight.

Joe leaned his head far out of the cab window so he could look down. He wondered if high water ever bothered the structure. The bottom of it could not be over ten feet above the surface of the ice. Two sets of piling were driven out in the bed of the stream. Joe shook his head and hoped that the spring thaw would come slowly when it did come.

He halted on the other side of the bridge so the brakemen could turn down their retainers and let off the remaining hand brakes.

Later, he passed Frank Porter and his train. Frank waved at him with surprise painted on his round, highly colored face, but Joe did not halt.