The Caucasian

he turned them back he gave a nervous
start and then, seizing the whistle
cord, signaled "Down brakes!" while
with the other hand he closed the
throttle.

"Jump, Roy, and put on our brakes
back there!"

A great burning tree lay across the
rails ahead. Even while Roy threw
his weight on the brakes he was thinking, "What shall we do now?" and before he had finished turning the iron
wheel he had thought.

The drag and jar behind showed that
Brainerd, obeying Hal's signal,
was
setting the car brakes, and soon, the
reduced speed allowing it,
Hal
reversed.

The locomotive, sliding and grating
along, came slowly to a stand some
yards from the blazing obstruction.
Before the train stopped Roy
had
opened his knife and cut away
the
leather curtain which closes the back
of every engine cab. Rolling up the
curtain, he plunged it into the water
tank, drew it out dripping wet, threw
it over his shoulders and, with an ax
in his hand, jumped down and ran forward toward the burning tree.

Now he felt the heat as he had not
felt it before, when under cover and
fanned by the current of air made by
the speed at which they had moved.
The hot atmosphere struck through the
soaked leather, and on his bare hands
it was like glowing iron.

Roy chopped blindly on, and as he
did so he wondered confusedly whether he could hold out long enough to
finish his task and, if he could, how the
ponderous trunk might be moved off
the track. All the time he had in his
mind the terrible contents of those tin-
der box cars now standing motionless
beneath a shower of sparks.

"It's all up with us, I guess,"
he
thought, still swinging the ax.

A voice came faintly to him from the
rear. It was Hal's.

"Come back, Roy!"

With one final blow he felt the tree
trunk break. Then he somehow managed to stagger to the side of the engine, and his brother lifted him on
board.

"I can do the rest," said Hal.

He turned on the steam, backed
some distance and then ran full tilt at
the divided tree.

The pilot caught it, tossed it aside,
and it fell end over end into the ditch.
Once more the train flew on with wide
open throttle.

The smoke came down again; the
fire receded into the woods; the scorching heat diminished. As the train,
leaping out of the forest into the cleared land around Silvertop, drew up at
the little station, Roy, who had lain exhausted on the footboard ever since
his brother had pulled him up, looked
up. He saw Tom Brainerd coming in
black, blistered and without a particle
of hair, eyebrows or mustache remaining.

"Well, boys," said he cheerfully, "the
fast powder freight's on time."

It was ahead of time, too, and in a
badly damaged condition. The engine's
gay paint and varnish were peeling off
in great flakes, and the bright brass-
work was tarnished and blackened.
The seared, charred cars were wonders to look at, especially when one
thought what they held.

Tom Brainerd must have worked
desperately all the time the train was
in the burning forest in order to save
them.

"Well, I did jump around rather lively," Tom admitted, "but it was no
more than right for me to pay for my
scare somehow."

Hal was the same as ever. The only
praise he gave Roy was contained in
one remark, but this remark conveyed
the greatest compliment he could bestow.

"You'll make a railroad man some
day, sonny," was what he said.