University of Virginia Library

18. CHAPTER XVIII
TRAGEDY CAPS THE TEST

"Pass the signal!" directed Tom.

A railroad man with a flag made several swift moves. Down the track an engineman, in his cab, answered with a short blast of, the whistle. Then he threw over the lever, and a train of ten flat cars started along in the engine's wake.

It was the first test—the "small test," Tom called it—of the track that now extended across the surface of the Man-killer.

On each flat car were piled ten tons of steel rails, to be used further along in the construction work. With engine, cars and all, the load amounted to one hundred and fifty tons, the pressure of which would be exerted over a comparatively short strip of the new track that now glistened over the Man-killer.

Mounted on his pony, Harry Hazelton had galloped a considerable distance down the track. Now, halted, he had turned his pony's head about, watching eagerly the on-coming train.

For two weeks the laborers had been working on the roadbed now running over the Man-killer. Ties had been laid and rails fastened down.

Apparently the Man-killer had done its worst and had been balked, a seemingly secure roadbed now resting on the once treacherous quicksand.

Construction trains, short and lightly laden, had been moving out over the newly filled in soil for many days, but the train now starting at the edge of the terrible Man-killer was heavier than any equipment that had before been run over the ground.

The president of the A., G. & N. M. R. R. was there, flanked by half a dozen of the leading directors of the road. There were other officials there, including General Manager Ellsworth.

"I see Hazelton out yonder," murmured the president of the road. "But where's that young man Reade, now at the moment when the success of his work is being tested?"

"Goodness knows," rejoined Mr. Ellsworth. "As likely as not he's back in the office, taking a nap after having given the engineman his signal."

"Asleep!" repeated the president. "Can he be so indolent or so indifferent as that?"

"You may always depend upon Tom Reade to do something that wouldn't be expected of him," laughed Mr. Ellsworth. "It isn't that he slights big duties, or even pretends to do. If he has vanished, and has gone to sleep, then it is because he feels so sure of his work that

he takes no further interest in the test that is being made."

"But if an accident should happen?" asked the president of the A. G. & N. M. R. R.

"Then I can promise you that you'd see Reade, on his pony, shooting ahead as fast as he could go to the scene of the trouble."

These more important railroad officials had come out to camp in automobiles. Now they followed on foot as the train rolled on to the land reclaimed from the Man-killer.

Superintendent Hawkins and his foremen also went along on foot to observe whether the track sank ever so little at any point.

It was none of Harry Hazelton's particular business to watch whether the tracks sank slightly. That duty could be better performed by the foremen who had had charge of the track laying. Yet Hazelton, as he watched, found himself growing impatient.

"Here!" Harry called to a near-by laborer. "Take my horse, please."

In another instant the young assistant engineer was on foot, following the slowly moving train as it rolled along over the ground where, months before, not even a man could have strolled with safety.

"Do you see any sagging of the track, Mr. Rivers?" Harry called.

"No, sir. Not as much as a sixteenth of an inch at any point," responded the foreman. "The job has been a big success."

"We can tell that better after the track has held loads of from five to eight hundred tons," Harry rejoined. "I believe, however, that we have the tricks of the savage old Man-killer nailed."

Exultation throbbed in Harry's heart. Outwardly, he did not trust himself to reveal his great delight. He still followed, watching anxiously, until the train had passed safely over the Man-killer.

Then a great cheer went up from more than a thousand throats, for many people had come out from Paloma to watch the test.

The train had gone a quarter of a mile past the western edge of the huge and once treacherous quicksand. Now the engine was on a temporary turn- table, waiting to be turned and switched back to bring the train back over the Man-killer at a swift gait.

"Where's Mr. Reade?" called the president of the road, gazing backward. "Someone go for him. I wish him to be here to see the test made with the train under fast speed."

"I'll get Reade, sir," answered Harry, motioning to have his pony brought to him.

Hazelton vanished in a cloud of desert dust.

When he next appeared there was another pony, and Reade astride it.

"You sent for me, sir," said Tom, riding close to the president, then dismounting.

"Yes," Mr. Reade. "I believed that you should be here to see the test train return."

"Very good, sir," was Tom's quiet reply. He signaled for a workman to come and take charge of his pony.

In a few minutes the short but heavy train started, gaining headway rapidly. By the time it struck the edge of the possibly conquered quicksand it was moving at the rate of forty miles an hour.

Across the Man-killer the train continued for a mile in the direction of Paloma.

"Now, let us all inspect the track," suggested the president of the railroad company. "Call up the autos."

"Will you let me make a suggestion, sir!" queried Tom.

"Go ahead, Mr. Reade."

"Then, sir, let Mr. Hazelton and myself ride out along the track first, that we may see if the whole course is safe."

"That heavy train just went over at fast speed and nothing disastrous happened," protested the president.

"Probably the entire course is still safe, sir?" Tom assented.

"Yet, on the other hand, it is possible that the fast moving train may have started the quicksand at some point. The next object that passes over, even if no heavier than an automobile, may meet with disaster. Mr. Hazelton and I can soon satisfy ourselves as to whether the roadbed has sagged at any point along the way. We shall ride nothing heavier than mustangs."

"There is something in what you say, Mr. Reade. Go ahead. We will wait until we have your report."

Tom and Harry accordingly mounted, riding off at a trot. Yet at some sections of the line they rode so slowly, studying the ground attentively, that it was fully half an hour before they had crossed the further edge of the Man-killer.

"The engineers are signaling us, Mr. President," reported General Manager Ellsworth. "They are motioning us to go forward."

Accordingly the party of railway officials entered their automobiles and started slowly off over the Man-killer.

"Ride back and meet them, Harry," Tom suggested. "Show them that one point that we noticed."

Hazelton accordingly dug his heels into the flank of his pony, starting off at a gallop.

Two or three minutes passed. Then Mr. Ellsworth leaped from his seat in the foremost automobile, standing erect in the car and pointing excitedly.

"Look there!" he shouted lustily. "What's happening?"

Away off, at the further side of the Man-killer, a horseman had suddenly ridden into sight from behind a sand pile. His swiftly moving pony had gotten within three hundred yards of the chief engineer before Tom looked up to behold the newcomer.

From where the railroad officials watched they could hear nothing, though they saw a succession of indistinct spittings from something in the right hand of the horseman.

"It's a revolver the fellow's shooting at Mr. Reade!" gasped Superintendent Hawkins, leaping into the car beside the general manager. "Turn your speed on, man—make a lightning lash across the Man-killer!"

Away shot the automobile, not wholly to the liking of two eastern men who sat in the directors' car.

Tom Reade had realized his danger. Having nothing with which to fight, Reade had sprung his horse eastward and was racing for life.

The unknown had emptied his weapon, but that did not deter him, for, continuing his wild

pursuit, the stranger could be seen to draw another automatic revolver.

The bullets striking all about Tom's pony ploughed up the sand.

Within a minute the men in the speeding automobile were close enough to hear the sputtering crackle of the pistol shots.

"There goes Hazelton right into the face of death!" gasped Mr. Ellsworth, who remained in a standing position. "Foolish of the boy, but magnificent!"

Harry had turned some time before, but now those in the automobile saw that Hazelton was riding squarely to Tom's side, despite the constant fusillade of bullets.

Both pistols were now emptied, but the pursuer, letting his reins fall on the neck of his madly galloping pony, was inserting fresh cartridges in the magazine chambers of his pistols.