But Engineer Callahan had no notion of failing. When he had drawn the hammer on his superior officer, advising discretion and a seat on Jimmy Shovel's box, the 1010 was racking out over the switches in the Western Division yards. Three minutes later the electric beam of Tischer's following headlight sought and found the first section on the long tangent leading up to the high plains, and the race was in full swing.

At Morning Dew, the first night telegraph station out of the capital, the two sections were no more than a scant quarter of a mile apart; and the operator tried to flag the second section down, as reported. This did not happen again until several stations had been passed, and Callahan set his jaw and gave the 1010 more throttle. But at Lossing, a town of some size, the board was down and a man ran out at the crossing, swinging a red light.

Callahan looked well to the switches, with the steam shut off and his hand dropping instinctively to the air; and the superintendent shrank into his corner and gripped the window ledge when the special roared past the warning signals and on through the town beyond. He had maintained a dazed silence since the episode of the flourished hammer, but now he was moved to yell across the cab.

"I suppose you know what you're in for, if you live to get out of this! It's twenty years, in this State, to pass a danger signal!" This is not all that the superintendent said: there were forewords and interjections, emphatic but unprintable.

Callahan's reply was another flourish of the hammer, and a sudden outpulling of the throttle-bar; and the superintendent subsided again.

But enforced silence and the grindstone of conscious helplessness will sharpen the dullest wit. The swerving lurch of the 1010 around the next curve set Halkett clutching for hand-holds, and the injector lever fell within his grasp. What he did not know about the working parts of a modern locomotive was very considerable; but he did know that an injector, half opened, will waste water as fast as an inch pipe will discharge it. And without water the Irishman would have to stop.

Callahan heard the chuckling of the wasting boiler feed before he had gone a mile beyond the curve. It was a discovery to excuse bad language, but his protest was lamb-like.

"No more av that, if ye plaze, Misther Halkett, or me an' Jimmy Shovel'll have to—Ah! would yez, now?"

Before his promotion to the superintendency Halkett had been a ward boss in the metropolis of the State. Thinking he saw his chance, he took it, and the blow knocked Callahan silly for the moment. Afterward there was a small free-for-all buffeting match in the narrow cab in which the fireman took a hand, and during which the racing 1010 was suffered to find her way alone. When it was over, Callahan spat out a broken tooth and gave his orders concisely.

"Up wid him over the coal, an' we'll put him back in the car where he belongs. Now, thin!"

Halkett had to go, and he went, not altogether unwillingly. And when it came to jumping across from the rear of the tender to the forward vestibule of the Naught-seven, or being chucked across, he jumped.

Now it so chanced that the governor and his first lieutenant in the great railway steal had weighty matters to discuss, and they had not missed the superintendent or the lawyer, supposing them to be still out on the rear platform enjoying the scenery. Wherefore Halkett's sudden appearance, mauled, begrimed and breathless from his late tussle with the two enginemen, was the first intimation of wrong-going that had penetrated to the inner sanctum of the private car.

"What's that you say, Mr. Halkett?—on the Western Division? Whereabouts?" demanded the governor.

"Between Lossing and Skipjack siding—if we haven't passed the siding in the last two or three minutes. I've been too busy to notice," was the reply.

"And you say you were on the engine? Why the devil didn't you call your man down?"

"I knocked him down," gritted the superintendent, savagely, "and I'd have beat his face in for him if there hadn't been two of them. It's a plot of some kind, and Callahan knows what he is about. He had me held up with a hammer till just a few minutes ago, and he's running past stop-signals and over red lights like a madman!"

Bucks and Guilford exchanged convictions by the road of the eye, and the governor said:

"This is pretty serious, Major. Have you anything to suggest?" And without waiting for a reply he turned upon Halkett: "Where is Mr. Hawk?"

"I don't know. I supposed he was in here with you. Or maybe he's out on the rear platform."

The three of them went to the rear, passing the private secretary comfortably asleep in his wicker chair. When they stepped out upon the recessed observation platform they found it empty.

"He must have suspected something and dropped off in the yard or at the shops," said Halkett. And at the saying of it he shrank back involuntarily and added: "Ah! Look at that, will you?"

The car had just thundered past another station, and Callahan had underrun one more stop-signal at full speed. At the same instant Tischer's headlight swung into view, half blinding them with its glare.

"What is that following us?" asked Bucks.

"It's the fast mail," said Halkett.

Guilford turned livid and caught at the hand-rail.

"S-s-say—are you sure of that?" he gasped.

"Of course: it was an hour and thirty-five minutes late, and we are on its time."

"Then we can't stop unless somebody throws us on a siding!" quavered the receiver, who had a small spirit in a large body. "I told M'Tosh to give the mail orders to make up her lost time or I'd fire the engineer—told him to cut out all the stops this side of Agua Caliente!"

"That's what you get for your infernal meddling!" snapped Halkett. In catastrophic moments many barriers go down; deference to superior officers among the earliest.

But the master spirit of the junto was still cool and collected.

"This is no time to quarrel," he said. "The thing to be done is to stop this train without getting ourselves ripped open by that fellow behind the headlight yonder. The stop-signals prove that Hawk and the others are doing their best, but we must do ours. What do you say, Halkett?"

"There is only one thing," replied the superintendent; "we've got to make the Irishman run ahead fast enough and far enough to give us room to stop or take a siding."

The governor planned it in a few curt sentences. Was there a weapon to be had? Danforth, the private secretary, roused from his nap in the wicker chair, was able to produce a serviceable revolver. Two minutes later, the sleep still tingling in his nerves to augment another tingling less pleasurable, the secretary had spanned the terrible gap separating the car from the engine and was making his way over the coal, fluttering his handkerchief in token of his peaceful intentions.

He was charged with a message to Callahan, mandatory in its first form, and bribe-promising in its second; and he was covered from the forward vestibule of the private car by the revolver in the hands of a resolute and determined state executive.

"One of them's comin' ahead over the coal," warned James Shovel; and Callahan found his hammer.

"Run ahead an' take a siding, is ut?" he shouted, glaring down on the messenger. "I have me ordhers fr'm betther men than thim that sint you. Go back an' tell thim so."

"You'll be paid if you do, and you'll be shot if you don't," yelled the secretary, persuasively.

"Tell the boss he can't shoot two av us to wanst; an' the wan that's left'll slap on the air," was Callahan's answer; and he slacked off a little to bring the following train within easy striking distance.

Danforth went painfully and carefully back with this defiance, and while he was bridging the nerve-trying gap, another station with the stop-board down and red lights frantically swinging was passed with a roar and a whistle shriek.

"Fwhat are they doing now?" called Callahan to his fireman.

"They've gone inside again," was the reply.

"Go back an' thry the tank," was the command; and Jimmy Shovel climbed over the coal and let himself down feet foremost into the manhole. When he slid back to the footplate his legs were wet to the mid shin.

"It's only up to there," he reported, measuring with his hand.

Callahan looked at his watch. There was yet a full hour's run ahead of him, and there was no more than a scant foot of water in the tank with which to make it.

Thereafter he forgot the Naught-seven, and whatever menace it held for him, and was concerned chiefly with the thing mechanical. Would the water last him through? He had once made one hundred and seventy miles on a special run with the 1010 without refilling his tank; but that was with the light engine alone. Now he had the private car behind him, and it seemed at times to pull with all the drag of a heavy train.

But one expedient remained, and that carried with it the risk of his life. An engine, not overburdened, uses less water proportionately to miles run as the speed is increased. He could outpace the safe-guarding mail, save water—and take the chance of being shot in the back from the forward vestibule of the Naught-seven when he had gained lead enough to make a main-line stop safe for the men behind him.

Callahan thought once of the child mothered by the Sisters of Loretto in the convent at the capital, shut his eyes to that and to all things extraneous, and sent the 1010 about her business. At the first reversed curve he hung out of his window for a backward look. Tischer's headlight had disappeared and his protection was gone.

On the rear platform of the private car four men watched the threatening second section fade into the night.

"Our man has thought better of it," said the governor, marking the increased speed and the disappearance of the menacing headlight.

Guilford's sigh of relief was almost a groan.

"My God!" he said; "it makes me cold to think what might happen if he should pull us over into the other State!"

But Halkett was still smarting from the indignities put upon him, and his comment was a vindictive threat.

"I'll send that damned Irishman over the road for this, if it is the last thing I ever do!" he declared; and he confirmed it with an oath.

But Callahan was getting his punishment as he went along. He had scarcely settled the 1010 into her gait for the final run against the failing water supply when another station came in sight. It was a small cattle town, and in addition to the swinging red lights and a huge bonfire to illuminate the yards, the obstructionists had torn down the loading corral and were piling the lumber on the track.

Once again Callahan's nerve flickered, and he shut off the steam. But before it was too late he reflected that the barrier was meant only to scare him into stopping. One minute later the air was full of flying splinters, and that danger was passed. But one of the broken planks came through the cab window, missing the engineer by no more than a hand's-breadth. And the shower of splinters, sucked in by the whirl of the train, broke glass in the private car and sprinkled the quartet on the platform with split kindling and wreckage.

"What was that?" gasped the receiver.

Halkett pointed to the bonfire, receding like a fading star in the rearward distance.

"Our friends are beginning to throw stones, since clods won't stop him." he said.

Bucks shook his head.

"If that is the case, we'll have to be doing something on our own account. The next obstruction may derail us."

Halkett stepped into the car and pulled the cord of the automatic air.

"No good," he muttered. "The Irishman bled our tank before he started. Help me set the hand brakes, a couple of you."

Danforth and the governor took hold of the brake wheel with him, and for a minute or two the terrible speed slackened a little. Then some part of the disused hand-gear gave way under the three-man strain and that hope was gone.

"There's one thing left," said the superintendent, indomitable to the last. "We'll uncouple and let him drop us behind."

The space in the forward vestibule was narrow and cramped, and with the strain of the dragging car to make the pin stick, it took two of them lying flat, waiting for the back-surging moment and wiggling it for slack, to pull it. The coupling dropped out of the hook and the engine shot ahead to the length of the safety-chains; thus far, but no farther.

Halkett stood up.

"It's up to you, Danforth," he said, raising his voice to be heard above the pounding roar of the wheels. "You're the youngest and lightest: get down on the 1010's brake-beam and unhook those chains."

The secretary looked once into the trap with the dodging jaws and the backward-flying bottom and declined the honor.

"I can't get down there," he cried. "And I shouldn't know what to do if I could."

Once more the superintendent exhibited his nerve. He had nothing at stake save a desire to defeat Callahan; but he had the persistent courage of the bull-terrier. With Bucks and the secretary to steady him he lowered himself in the gap till he could stand upon the brake-beam of the 1010's tender and grope with one free hand for the hook of the nearest safety-chain. Death nipped at him every time the engine gave or took up the slack of the loose coupling, but he dodged and hung on until he had satisfied himself.

"It's no good," he announced, when they had dragged him by main strength back to a footing in the narrow vestibule. "The hooks are bent into the links. We're due to go wherever that damned Irishman is taking us."

Shovel was firing, and the trailing smoke and cinders quickly made the forward vestibule untenable. When they were driven in, Bucks and the receiver went through to the rear platform, where they were presently joined by Halkett and Danforth.

"I've been trying the air again," said the superintendent, "but it's no go. What's next?"

The governor gave the word.

"Wait," he said; and the four of them clung to the hand-rails, swaying and bending to the bounding lurches of the flying car.

Mile after mile reels from beneath the relentless wheels, and still the speed increases. Station Donerail is passed, and now the pace is so furious that the watchers on the railed platform can not make out the signals in the volleying wake of dust. Station Schofield is passed, and again the signals, if any there be, are swiftly drowned in the gray dust-smother. From Schofield to Agua Caliente is but a scant ten miles; and as the flying train rushes on toward the State boundary, two faces in the quartet of watchers show tense and drawn under the yellow light of the Pintsch platform lamp.

The governor swings himself unsteadily to the right-hand railing and the long look ahead brings the twinkling arc-star of the tower light on Breezeland Inn into view. He turns to Guilford, who has fallen limp into one of the platform chairs.

"In five minutes more we shall pass Agua Caliente," he says. "Will you kill the Irishman, or shall I?" Guilford's lips move, but there is no audible reply; and Bucks takes Danforth's weapon and passes quickly and alone to the forward vestibule.

The station of Agua Caliente swings into the field of 1010's electric headlight. Callahan's tank has been bone dry for twenty minutes, and he is watching the glass water-gage where the water shows now only when the engine lurches heavily to the left. He knows that the crown-sheet of the fire-box is bare, and that any moment it may give down and the end will come. Yet his gauntleted hand never falls from the throttle-bar to the air-cock, and his eyes never leave the bubble appearing and disappearing at longer intervals in the heel of the water-glass.

Shovel has stopped firing, and is hanging out of his window for the straining look ahead. Suddenly he drops to the footplate to grip Callahan's arm.

"See!" he says. "They have set the switch to throw us in on the siding!" In one motion the flutter of the exhaust ceases, and the huge ten-wheeler buckles to the sudden setting of the brakes. The man standing in the forward vestibule of the Naught-seven lowers his weapon. Apparently it is not going to be necessary to kill the engineer, after all.

But Callahan's nerve has failed him only for the moment. There is one chance in ten thousand that the circumambulating side track is empty; one and one only, and no way to make sure of it. Beyond the station, as Callahan well knows, the siding comes again into the main line, and the switch is a straight-rail "safety." Once again the thought of his motherless child flickers into the engineer's brain; then he releases the air and throws his weight backward upon the throttle-bar. Two gasps and a heart-beat decide it; and before the man in the vestibule can level his weapon and fire, the one-car train has shot around the station, heaving and lurching over the uneven rails of the siding, and grinding shrilly over the points of the safety switch to race on the down grade to Megilp.

At the mining-camp the station is in darkness save for the goggle eyes of an automobile drawn up beside the platform, and deep silence reigns but for the muffled, irregular thud of the auto-car's motor. But the beam of the 1010's headlight shows the small station building massed by men, a score of them poising for a spring to the platforms of the private car when the slackening speed shall permit. A bullet tears into the woodwork at Callahan's elbow, and another breaks the glass of the window beside him, but he makes the stop as steadily as if death were not snapping at him from behind and roaring in his ears from the belly of the burned engine.

"Be doomping yer fire lively, now, Jimmy, b'y," he says, dropping from his box to help. And while they wrestle with the dumping-bar, these two, the poising figures have swarmed upon the Naught-seven, and a voice is lifted above the Babel of others in sharp protest.

"Put away that rope, boys! There's law here, and by God, we're going to maintain it!"

At this a man pushes his way out of the thick of the crowd and climbs to a seat beside the chauffeur in the waiting automobile.

"They've got him," he says shortly. "To the hotel for all you're worth, Hudgins; our part is to get this on the wires before one o'clock. Full speed; and never mind the ruts."