AN UNPLEASANT SURPRISE
On sped the fugitive train once more,
and in a few minutes it had stopped, with much bumping
and rattle of brakes at the station called Adairsville.
Hardly had the wheels of the faithful old “General”
ceased revolving before a whistle was heard from the
northward.
Andrews peered through the cab up
the track. “It’s the regular freight,”
he said, and calling to the station hands who were
gaping at “Fuller’s train,” as they
supposed it must be, he told them the customary story
about the powder designed for General Beauregard.
They believed the leader, who spoke with his old air
of authority, and they quickly shunted his “special”
on to the side track. No sooner had this been
accomplished than the freight made its appearance.
As the engine of the latter passed
slowly by “The General” Andrews shouted
to the men in the cab: “Where’s the
passenger train that is on the schedule?”
“It ought to be right behind us,” came
the answer.
“That’s good,” whispered
Andrews. “Once let us pass that passenger,
and we’ll have a clear road to the very end
of the line.”
In the meantime the freight was moved
past the station and switched on to the siding, directly
behind the “special,” there to wait the
arrival of the passenger train.
George began to grow restless, as
the minutes passed and no train appeared. At
last, with the permission of Andrews, he jumped from
the cab, and walked over to the platform, Waggie following
close at his heels. He looked anxiously up the
track, but he could see nothing, hear nothing.
Two young men, one of them a civilian
and the other evidently a soldier who was home on
furlough (to judge by his gray uniform and right arm
in a sling), were promenading up and down, and smoking
clay pipes.
“I don’t understand it,”
the soldier was saying. “They talk about
sending powder through to General Beauregard, but
it’s an utter impossibility to do it.”
“You’re right,”
said his friend. “The thing looks fishy.
If these fellows are really what they ”
“Hush,” whispered the
soldier. He pointed to George as he spoke.
“Well, you’re beginning railroading pretty
young,” he added aloud, scrutinizing the boy
as if he would like to read his inmost thoughts.
“It’s never too young
to begin,” answered the boy, carelessly.
“What is this powder train of
yours, anyway?” asked the soldier, in a wheedling
voice which was meant to be plausible and friendly.
George had heard enough of the conversation
between the two young Southerners to know that they
were more than curious about the supposed powder train.
And now, he thought, they would try to entrap him into
some damaging admission. He must be on his guard.
He put on as stupid a look as he could assume (which
was no easy task in the case of a boy with such intelligent
features), as he replied stolidly: “Dunno.
I’ve nothing to do with it. I’m only
fireman on the engine.”
“But you know where you’re
going?” demanded the soldier, with a gesture
of impatience.
“Dunno.”
“Who is the tall chap with the beard who has
charge of the train?”
“Dunno.”
“How much powder have you got on board?”
“Dunno.”
“I don’t suppose you even
know your own name, you little idiot!” cried
the soldier. “The boy hasn’t got
good sense,” he said, turning to his friend.
“You were never more mistaken
in your life,” answered his friend. “He’s
only playing a game. I know something about faces and
this boy here has lots of sense.”
George called Waggie, put the animal
in his pocket, and walked to the door of the little
station without taking any notice of this compliment
to his sagacity. Under the circumstances he should
have preferred the deepest insult. He felt that
a long detention at Adairsville would be dangerous,
perhaps fatal.
Opening the door, the boy entered
the station. It comprised a cheerless waiting-room,
with a stove, bench and water-cooler for furniture,
and a little ticket office at one end. The ticket
office was occupied by the station-agent, who was
near the keyboard of the telegraph wire; otherwise
the interior of the building was empty.
“Heard anything from the passenger
yet?” asked George, as he walked unconcernedly
into the ticket office.
“Just wait a second,”
said the man, his right hand playing on the board;
“I’m telegraphing up the line to Calhoun
to find out where she is. The wires aren’t
working to the south, somehow, but they’re all
right to the north.”
Click, click, went the instrument.
George returned leisurely to the doorway of the waiting-room.
He was just in time to hear the young soldier say
to his friend: “If these fellows try to
get away from here, just let ’em go. I’ll
send a telegram up the road giving warning that they
are coming, and should be stopped as a suspicious
party. If they don’t find themselves in
hot water by the time they get to Dalton I’m
a bigger fool than I think I am.”
George stood stock still. Here
was danger indeed! He knew that to send a telegram
up the road would be but the work of a minute; it could
go over the wires to the north before the “special”
had pulled away from Adairsville.
At this moment the station-agent came
out of his office. “The passenger is behind
time,” he said, and he ran quickly across the
tracks to speak to Andrews, who was looking anxiously
out from the cab of “The General.”
“It’s now or never,”
thought George. He turned back into the deserted
waiting-room, entered the ticket-office, and pulled
from the belt under his inner coat a large revolver the
weapon which he carried in case self-defense became
necessary. Taking the barrel of the revolver,
he tried to pry up the telegraphic keyboard from the
table to which it was attached. But he found
this impossible to accomplish; he could secure no
leverage on the instrument. He was not to be thwarted,
however; so changing his tactics, he took the barrel
in his hand and began to rain heavy blows upon the
keys, with the butt end. In less time than it
takes to describe the episode, the instrument had
been rendered totally useless.
“There,” he said to himself,
with the air of a conqueror, “it will take time
to repair that damage, or to send a telegram.”
He was about to leave the office when he discovered
a portable battery under the table. It was an
instrument that could be attached to a wire, in case
of emergency. George hastily picked it up, and
hurried into the waiting-room. It would never
do to leave this battery behind in the office; but
how could he take it away without being caught in
the act? His eyes wandered here and there, until
they rested upon the stove. There was no fire
in it. An inspiration came to him. He opened
the iron door, which was large, and threw the battery
into the stove. Then he closed the door, and sauntered
carelessly out to the platform. The soldier and
his friend were now standing at some distance from
the station, on a sidewalk in front of a grocery store.
They were engaged in earnest conversation. Over
on the side-track, where “The General”
stood, the station-agent was talking to Andrews.
George joined his leader, and sprang into the cab.
“From what I hear,” said
Andrews, “the passenger train is so much behind
time that if I make fast time I can get to Calhoun
before it arrives there, and wait on a siding for
it to pass us.”
“Then why don’t you move
on,” urged George, who happened to know how
desirable it was to get away, but dared not drop any
hint to his leader in the presence of the station-agent.
“You’re taking a risk,”
said the station-agent. “You may strike
the train before you reach Calhoun.” He
was evidently not suspicious, but he feared an accident.
“If I meet the train before
we reach Calhoun,” cried Andrews, striking his
fist against the window-ledge of the cab, “why
then she must back till she gets a side-track, and
then we will pass her.”
He turned and looked at his engineer and the assistant.
“Are you ready to go, boys?”
he asked. They quickly nodded assent; they longed
to be off again.
“Then go ahead!” ordered
Andrews. “A government special must not
be detained by any other train on the road!”
“The General” was away
once more. George began to explain to Andrews
what he had heard at the station, and how he had disabled
the telegraph.
“You’re a brick!”
cried the leader, patting the boy approvingly on the
shoulder; “and you have saved us from another
scrape. But ’tis better to provide against
any repairing of the telegraph and the sooner
we cut a wire and obstruct the track, the better for
us.”
Thus it happened that before the train
had gone more than three miles “The General”
was stopped, more wires were cut, and several cross-ties
were thrown on the track in the rear. Then the
train dashed on, this time at a terrific speed.
Andrews hoped to reach Calhoun, seven miles away, before
the passenger should arrive there. It was all
that George could do to keep his balance, particularly
when he was called upon to feed the engine fire with
wood from the tender. Once Waggie, who showed
a sudden disposition to see what was going on around
him, and tried to crawl out from his master’s
pocket, came very near being hurled out of the engine.
Curves and up grades seemed all alike to “The
General”; the noble steed never slackened its
pace for an instant. The engineer was keeping
his eyes on a point way up the line, so that he might
slow up if he saw any sign of the passenger; the assistant
sounded the whistle so incessantly that George thought
his head would split from the noise. Once, at
a road crossing, they whirled by a farm wagon containing
four men. The boy had a vision of four mouths
opened very wide. In a second wagon and occupants
were left far behind.
In a space of time which seemed incredibly
short Calhoun was reached. Down went the brakes
and “The General” slid into the station
to find directly in front, on the same track, the
long-expected passenger train.
“There she is!” cried Andrews; “and
not before it’s time!”
It was only by the most strenuous
efforts that the engineer could keep “The General”
from colliding with the locomotive of the opposing
train. When he brought his obedient iron-horse
to a standstill there was only the distance of a foot
between the cowcatchers of the two engines. The
engineer of the passenger train leaned from his cab
and began to indulge in impolite language. “What
d’ye mean,” he shouted, “by trying
to run me down?” And he added some expressions
which would not have passed muster in cultivated society.
“Clear the road! Clear
the road!” roared Andrews. “This powder
train must go through to General Beauregard at once!
We can’t stay here a minute!”
These words acted like a charm.
The passenger train was backed to a siding, and “The
General” and its burden were soon running out
of Calhoun.
“No more trains!” said
Andrews. His voice was husky; the perspiration
was streaming from his face. “Now for a
little bridge burning. There’s a bridge
a short distance up the road, across the Oostenaula
River, where we can begin the real business of the
day. But before we get to it let us stop ‘The
General’ and see what condition he is in.”
“He has behaved like a gentleman,
so far,” said the engineer. “He must
be in sympathy with us Northerners.”
“Slow up!” ordered Andrews.
“The old fellow is beginning to wheeze a little
bit; I can tell that he needs oiling.”
Obedient to the command, the engineer
brought “The General” to a halt. As
the men came running from the baggage car, Andrews
ordered them to take up another rail.
“It’s good exercise, boys,”
he laughed, “even if it may not be actually
necessary.”
Then he helped his engineers to inspect
“The General.” The engine was still
in excellent condition, although the wood and water
were running a little low. It received a quick
oiling, while George climbed up a telegraph pole and
severed a wire in the manner heretofore described.
Eight of the party were pulling at a rail, one end
of which was loose and the other still fastened to
the cross-ties by spikes.
Suddenly, away to the southward, came
the whistle of an engine. Had a thunderbolt descended
upon the men, the effect could not have been more
startling. The workers at the rail tore it away
from the track, in their wild excitement, and, losing
their balance, fell headlong down the side of the
embankment on which they had been standing. They
were up again the next instant, unhurt, but eager
to know the meaning of the whistle.
Was there an engine in pursuit?
Andrews looked down the track.
“See!” he cried.
There was something to gaze
at. Less than a mile away a large locomotive,
which was reversed so that the tender came first, was
running rapidly up the line, each instant approaching
nearer and nearer to the fugitives. In the tender
stood men who seemed to be armed with muskets.
“They are after us,” said
Andrews. “There’s no doubt about it.”
He was very calm now; he spoke as if he were discussing
the most commonplace matter in the world.
His companions crowded around him.
“Let us stand and fight them!” cried Watson.
“Yes,” urged Jenks, who
had forgotten all about his sore back; “we can
make a stand here!”
Andrews shook his head. “Better
go on, boys,” he answered. “We have
taken out this rail, and that will delay them.
In the meantime we can go on to the Oostenaula bridge
and burn it.”
There was no time for discussion.
The men yielded their usual assent to the orders of
their chief. They quickly scrambled back into
the train, to their respective posts, and Andrews
gave the signal for departure.
“Push the engine for all it’s
worth!” he commanded; “we must make the
bridge before the enemy are on us.” The
engineer set “The General” going at a
rattling pace.
“How on earth could we be pursued,
after the way we cut the wires along the line,”
muttered the leader. “Can the enemy have
telegraphed from Big Shanty to Kingston by some circuitous
route? I don’t understand.”
“Are you making full speed?”
he asked the engineer, a second later.
“The old horse is doing his
best,” answered the man, “but the wood
is getting precious low.”
“George, pour some engine oil into the furnace.”
The boy seized the oil can, and obeyed
the order. The speed of “The General”
increased; the engine seemed to spring forward like
a horse to which the spur has been applied.
“That’s better,”
said Andrews. “Now if we can only burn that
bridge before the enemy are up to us, there is still
a chance for success and life!” His
voice sank almost to a whisper as he uttered the last
word. With a strange, indescribable sensation,
George suddenly realized how near they all were to
disaster, even to death. He thought of his father,
and then he thought of Waggie, and wondered what was
to become of the little dog. The boy was cool;
he had no sense of fear; it seemed as if he were figuring
in some curious dream.
Suddenly Andrews left the engine,
lurched into the tender, and began to climb out of
it, and thence to the platform of the first baggage
car. George looked back at him in dread; surely
the leader would be hurled from the flying train and
killed. But he reached the car in safety and opened
the door. He shouted out an order which George
could not hear, so great was the rattle of the train;
then he made his way, with the ease of a sure-footed
chamois, back to “The General.” He
had ordered the men in the car to split up part of
its sides for kindling-wood. By the use of the
cross-ties, which they had picked up along the road,
they battered down some of the planking of the walls,
and quickly reduced it to smaller pieces. It
was a thrilling sight. The men worked as they
had never worked before. It was at the imminent
risk of falling out, however, and as the train swung
along over the track it seemed a miracle that none
of them went flying through the open sides of the
now devastated car.
On rushed “The General.”
As it turned a curve George, who was now in the tender,
glanced back to his right and saw the pursuing
engine less than a mile behind.
“They are after us again!”
he shouted. “They have gotten past the broken
rail somehow,” he said. “They must
have track repairing instruments on board.”
Andrews set his lips firmly together
like a man who determines to fight to the last.
George made his way back to the cab.
“Will we have time to burn the bridge?”
he asked.
“We must wait and see,”
answered the leader, as he once more left the engine
and finally reached the despoiled baggage car.
He said something to Jenks; then he returned to the
cab.
“What are you going to do?”
anxiously asked the boy. He could hear the shrill
whistle of the pursuing locomotive. “Com-ing!
Com-ing!” it seemed to say to his overwrought
imagination.
Andrews made no answer to George;
instead he shouted a command to the engineer:
“Reverse your engine, and move backwards at full
speed!”
The engineer, without asking any questions,
did as he was told. Jenks ran through to the
second car and contrived, after some delay caused by
the roughness of the motion, to uncouple it from the
third. This last car was now entirely loose from
the train, and would have been left behind had it
not been that the engine had already begun to go back.
Faster and faster moved “The General”
to the rear.
“Go forward again,” finally
ordered Andrews. The engine slowly came to a
standstill, and then plunged forward once more.
Now George could see the meaning of this manoeuvre.
The third car, being uncoupled, went running back
towards the enemy’s tender. Andrews hoped
to effect a collision.
But the engineer of the pursuing locomotive
was evidently ready for such an emergency. He
reversed his engine, and was soon running backwards.
When the baggage car struck the tender no harm was
done; the shock must have been very slight. In
another minute the enemy’s engine was puffing
onward again in the wake of the fugitives, while the
car was being pushed along in front of the tender.
“That didn’t work very
well,” said Andrews, placidly. “Let’s
try them again.”
Once more “The General”
was reversed. This time the second car was uncoupled
and sent flying back. “The General”
was now hauling only the tender and the one baggage
car in which the majority of the members of the party
were confined. The second attempt, however, met
with no better result than the first: the enemy
pursued the same tactics as before; reversing the
locomotive, and avoiding a serious collision.
It now started anew on the pursuit, pushing the two
unattached cars ahead of it, apparently little hampered
as to speed by the incumbrance. And now, unfortunately
enough, the bridge was in plain view, only a few hundred
yards ahead. As the enemy turned a new curve George
caught a view of the tender. A dozen men, armed
with rifles, were standing up in it; he could see
the gleam of the rifle barrels.
“More oil,” ordered Andrews.
The boy seized the can, and poured some more of the
greasy liquid into the fiery furnace. He knew
that the wood was almost exhausted, and that it would
soon be impossible to hold the present rate of progress.
Oh, if there only would be time to burn the bridge,
and thus check the pursuers! But he saw that
he was hoping for the impracticable.
“Shall we stop on the bridge?”
asked the engineer, in a hoarse voice.
“It’s too late,” answered Andrews.
“Keep her flying.”
Over the bridge went the engine, with
the pursuers only a short distance behind.
“Let us have some of that kindling-wood
for the furnace,” shouted Andrews to the men
in the baggage car. The men began to pitch wood
from the door of the car into the tender, and George
transferred some of it to the furnace.
“That’s better,”
cried the engineer. “We need wood more than
we need a kingdom!”
“Throw out some of those cross-ties,”
thundered the leader. The men dropped a tie here
and there on the track, so that a temporary obstruction
might be presented to the pursuing locomotive.
“That’s some help,”
said Andrews, as he craned his neck out of the cab
window and looked back along the line. “Those
ties will make them stop a while, any way.”
In fact the enemy had already stopped upon encountering
the first log; two men from the tender were moving
it from the track.
“We’ve a good fighting
chance yet,” cried Andrews, whose enthusiasm
had suddenly returned. “If we can burn
another bridge, and block these fellows, the day is
ours!”
“The water in the boiler is
almost gone!” announced the engineer.
George’s heart sank. What
meant all the wood in the world without a good supply
of water? But Andrews was equal to the emergency.
“Can you hold out for another mile or so?”
he asked.
“Just about that, and no more,” came the
answer.
“All right. We are about
to run by Tilton station. A little beyond that,
if I remember rightly, is a water tank.”
Andrews, in his capacity as a spy within the Southern
lines, knew Georgia well, and had frequently traveled
over this particular railroad. It was his acquaintance
with the line, indeed, that had enabled him to get
through thus far without failure.
Past Tilton ran “The General,”
as it nearly swept two frightened rustics from the
platform. Then the engine began to slow up, until
it finally rested at the water tank.
“I was right,” said Andrews.
He leaped from the cab, and gazed down the line.
“The enemy is not in sight now,” he cried.
“Those ties are giving them trouble. Put
some more on the track, boys. George, try some
more wire-cutting. Brown, get your boiler filled.”
In an incredibly short space of time
the telegraph wire had been cut, the engine was provided
with water, and some more ties had been placed upon
the track in the rear. What a curious scene the
party presented; how tired, and dirty, yet how courageous
they all looked.
“Shall we take up a rail?”
demanded Macgreggor. Scarcely had the words left
his lips before the whistle of the enemy was again
heard.
“No time,” shouted the leader. “Let’s
be off!”
Off went the train the
grimy, panting engine, the tender, and the one baggage
car, which was now literally torn to pieces in the
frantic endeavor to provide kindling-wood.
“We want more wood,” George
shouted back to the men after they had proceeded a
couple of miles. Some wood was thrown into the
tender from the baggage car, with the gloomy news:
“This is all we have left!”
“No more wood after this,” explained George.
“All right,” answered
Andrews, very cheerfully. “Tell them to
throw out a few more ties on the track as
long as they’re too big to burn in our furnace.”
The order was shouted back to the
car. It was instantly obeyed. There was
now another obstruction for the enemy; but George wondered
how Andrews, full of resources though he might be,
would find more wood for the engine. But Andrews
was equal even to this.
“Stop!” cried the leader,
after they had passed up the line about a mile from
where the ties had been last thrown out. “The
General” was soon motionless, breathing and
quivering like some blooded horse which had been suddenly
reined in during a race.
“Here’s more work for
you, boys,” cried Andrews. He was already
on the ground, pointing to the wooden fences which
encompassed the fields on both sides of the track.
The men needed no further prompting. In less than
three minutes a large number of rails were reposing
in the tender. George regarded them with an expression
of professional pride, as befitted the fireman of
the train.
“No trouble about wood or water
now,” he said, as “The General” tore
onward again.
“No,” replied the leader.
“We will beat those Southerners yet!” He
positively refused to think of failure at this late
stage of the game. Yet it was a game that did
not seem to promise certain success.
Thus the race continued, with “The
General” sometimes rocking and reeling like
a drunken man. On they rushed, past small stations,
swinging around curves with the men in the car sitting
on the floor and clinging to one another for fear
they would be knocked out by the roughness of the motion.
As George thought of this terrible journey in after
years he wondered why it was that engine, car and
passengers were not hurled headlong from the track.
“We are coming to Dalton,”
suddenly announced Andrews. Dalton was a good-sized
town twenty-two miles above Calhoun, and formed a junction
with the line running to Cleveland, Tennessee.
“We must be careful here,”
said Andrews, “for we don’t know who may
be waiting to receive us. If a telegram was sent
via the coast up to Richmond, and then down to Dalton,
our real character may be known. Brown, be ready
to reverse your engine if I give the signal then
we’ll back out of the town, abandon the train,
and take to the open fields.”
George wondered if, by doing this,
they would not fall into the hands of their pursuers.
But there was no chance for argument.
The speed of “The General”
was now slackened, so that the engine approached the
station at a rate of not more than fifteen miles an
hour. Andrews saw nothing unusual on the platform;
no soldiers; no preparations for arrest.
“Go ahead,” he said, “and
stop at the platform. The coast’s clear
so far.”
It was necessary that a stop should
be made at Dalton for the reason that there were switches
at this point, owing to the junction of the Cleveland
line, and it would be impossible to run by the station
without risking a bad accident. It was necessary,
furthermore, that this stop should be as brief as
possible, for the dilapidated looks of the broken baggage
car and the general appearance of the party were such
as to invite suspicion upon too close a scrutiny.
Then, worse still, the enemy might arrive at any moment.
Andrews was again equal to the occasion. As the
forlorn train drew up at the station he assumed the
air and bearing of a major-general, told some plausible
story about being on his way with dispatches for Beauregard,
and ordered that the switches should be immediately
changed so that he could continue on to Chattanooga.
Once again did his confident manner hoodwink the railroad
officials. The switch was changed, and “The
General” was quickly steaming out of Dalton.
The citizens on the platform looked after the party
as if they could not quite understand what the whole
thing meant.
“Shall we cut a wire?” asked George.
“What is the good?” returned
Andrews. “The enemy’s engine will
reach Dalton in a minute or two perhaps
they are there now and they can telegraph
on to Chattanooga by way of the wires on the Cleveland
line. It’s a roundabout way, but it will
answer their purpose just as well.”
“Then we dare not keep on to
Chattanooga?” asked George, in a tone of keen
regret. He had fondly pictured a triumphant run
through Chattanooga, and an ultimate meeting with
the forces of Mitchell somewhere to the westward,
accompanied by the applause of the troops and many
kind words from the General.
“Not now,” answered the
leader. “We may yet burn a bridge or two,
and then take to the woods. It would be folly
to enter Chattanooga only to be caught.”
At last Andrews saw that he must change
his plans. He had hoped, by burning a bridge,
to head off the pursuing engine before now; his failure
to do this, and the complication caused by the telegraph
line to Cleveland, told him that he must come to a
halt before reaching Chattanooga. To run into
that city would be to jump deliberately into the lion’s
mouth.
“Let us see if there’s
time to break a rail,” suddenly said the leader.
The train was stopped, within sight of a small camp
of Confederate troops, and the men started to loosen
one of the rails. But hardly had they begun their
work when there came the hated whistling from the pursuing
engine. The adventurers abandoned their attempt,
leaped to their places in cab and car, and “The
General” again sped onward. There were no
cross-ties remaining; this form of obstruction could
no longer be used. It was now raining hard; all
the fates seemed to be combining against the plucky
little band of Northerners.
Andrews began at last to see that
the situation was growing desperate.
“There’s still one chance,”
he muttered. He knew that he would soon pass a
bridge, and he went on to elaborate in his mind an
ingenious plan by which the structure might be burned
without making delay necessary, or risking a meeting
with the pursuers. He scrambled his way carefully
back to the baggage car.
“Boys,” he said, “I
want you to set fire to this car, and then all of you
crawl into the tender.”
There was a bustle in the car at once,
although no one asked a question. The men made
a valiant effort to ignite what was left of the splintered
walls and roof of the car. But it was hard work.
The rain, combined with the wind produced by the rapid
motion of the train, made it impossible to set anything
on fire even by a very plentiful use of matches.
“We’ll have to get something
better than matches,” growled Watson. He
had just been saved from pitching out upon the roadside
by the quick efforts of one of his companions, who
had seized him around the waist in the nick of time.
Andrews went to the forward platform of the car.
“Can’t you get us a piece
of burning wood over here,” he called to George.
The lad took a fence rail from the
tender, placed it in the furnace, until one end was
blazing, and then contrived to hand it to the leader
from the rear of the tender. Andrews seized it,
and applied the firebrand to several places in the
car. But it was no easy task to make a conflagration;
it seemed as if the rail would merely smoulder.
“Stop the engine,” he
ordered. “The General” was brought
to a halt, and then, when the artificial wind had
ceased, the rail flared up. Soon the torn walls
and roof of the car burst into flames.
“Into the tender, boys,”
cried Andrews. The men needed no second bidding.
The fire was already burning fiercely enough, despite
the rain, to make their surroundings anything but
comfortable. They scrambled into the tender.
The engineer put his hand to the lever, pulled the
throttle, and the party were again on the wing although
at a slow and constantly lessening rate of speed.
At last they scarcely moved.
“The General” was now
passing over the bridge a covered structure
of wood. Andrews uncoupled the blazing car, and
climbed back into the tender. The engine again
sped on, leaving the burning car in the middle of the
bridge. The scheme of the leader was apparent;
he hoped that the flames would be communicated to
the roof of the bridge, and so to the entire wood-work,
including the railroad ties and lower beams.
“At last!” thought Andrews.
He would have the satisfaction of destroying one bridge
at least and he would put an impassable
barrier between the enemy and himself. His joy
was, however, only too short lived. The Confederates
boldly ran towards the bridge.
“They won’t dare to tackle
that car,” said George, as “The General”
kept moving onward. Yet the pursuing engine,
instead of putting on brakes, glided through the bridge,
pushing the burning car in front of it. When it
reached the other side of the stream the car was switched
off on a siding, and the enemy prepared to sweep onwards.
The bridge was saved; Andrews’ plan had failed.
The Northerners gave groans of disappointment as they
fled along in front.
Finally it was resolved to make a
last stop, and to attempt to pull up a rail.
The enemy was now some distance behind, having been
delayed by the time necessarily consumed in switching
off the car, so that there seemed a reasonable chance
of executing this piece of strategy. When the
men had again alighted on firm ground several of them
felt actually seasick from the jolting of the engine
and tender. It was now that one of the party
made a novel proposition to Andrews. The plan
seemed to have a good deal to recommend it, considering
how desperate was the present situation.
“Let us run the engine on,”
he said, “until we are out of sight of the enemy,
and are near some of the bushes which dot the track.
Then we can tear up a rail, or obstruct the track
in some way, and quickly hide ourselves in the bushes.
The engineer will stay in ‘The General,’
and, as soon as the enemy comes in sight, can continue
up the road, just as if we were all on board.
When the Confederates reach the broken rail, and prepare
to fix it, we can all rush out at them and fire our
revolvers. They will be taken by surprise we
will have the advantage.”
“That sounds logical enough,”
observed Andrews; “it’s worth trying,
if ”
Again the enemy’s whistle sounded
ominously near. There was no chance to argue
about anything now. The men leaped to their places,
and “The General” was quickly gotten under
way.
Watson looked at Jenks, next to whom
he was huddled in the tender.
“How long is this sort of thing
to be kept up?” he asked. “I’d
far rather get out and fight the fellows than run
along this way!”
Jenks brushed the rain from his grimy
face but made no answer.
“This all comes from that fatal
delay at Kingston,” announced Macgreggor.
“We would be just an hour ahead if it hadn’t
been for those wretched freight trains.”
The enemy’s engine gave an exultant
whistle. “Vic-to-ry! Vic-to-ry!”
it seemed to shriek.