"Any time within two hours."

"Two hours?" retorted Ralph. "That won't do at all. I'm going for a special order, and I want you to have steam up to the top notch by the time I get back."

"That so," drawled the fireman in his usual indolent fashion, but he arose from his lounging att.i.tude instantly, and his great paw of a hand grasped the coal scoop with zest. "All right."

"Good for you," said Ralph, and he started back to the relay station.

"Mr. Glidden," he spoke rapidly, as he came again into the operating room. "There is no time to lose. All we know is that a wild engine is to be sent down the north branch."

"Yes, that's all we know, and no way to stop it," replied Glidden.

"There may be a way. Ninety-three is fired up for a fly down the dump to Acton."

"Aha!" nodded the old operator, p.r.i.c.king up his ears with interest.

"I don't say it, but it may be that we can get to the branch before the runaway does."

"Suppose so?"

"We'll set the switch and ditch her."

"Good boy!"

"I have no orders, though."

"I'll give them to you--I'll fix it up with headquarters. Fire away."

Ralph was out of the relay station and down the tracks in a hurry.

Roberts was bustling about and had fired up the old switch locomotive as if ordered for a mile-a-minute dash.

"What's the programme?" he inquired simply.

"To reach the north branch just as quick as we can."

"All right. You'll run her?"

"Yes."

"You know how."

Ralph was delighted with his helper. Roberts made no delay, asked no questions. Ralph was all nerved up with the exploit in view.

Their destination was a good forty miles to the northwest. The dump tracks comprised practically an abandoned line, and, as Ralph knew, was free of either freight or pa.s.senger traffic at that hour. It was occasionally used as a cut-off in cases of emergency. The roadbed was somewhat neglected and uneven, but he had run over it twice within a few months, and as they started out Roberts announced that their special orders had shown clear tracks.

The route was a varied one, and there were some odd old-fashioned curves and a few hair-raising ten per cent. grades.

No. 93 buckled down to work right royally. There were two switches to unset, and then right again before they left the main line. At these points Roberts ran ahead and did emergency duty.

As they slid off onto the dump tracks, Ralph consulted the clock in the cab, estimated distance and set his running pace.

"She acts like a pet lamb," he observed approvingly to Roberts after a five-mile spurt.

"Yes, she'll chase to terminus all right if the coal holds out," replied the fireman. "There's a bunch of sharp curves and steep grades ahead."

"Here's one of them, see," said Ralph, and he pushed back the throttle and let the locomotive move on its own momentum.

The st.u.r.dy little engine wheezed through cuts, grunted up grades and coughed down them.

"She's only an old tub," submitted Roberts, though fondly; "but how do you like her, anyway?"

"Famous!" declared Ralph, warming to his work.

The run for a good twenty miles was a series of jarring slides, the wheels pounding the rails and straining towards a half tip over a part of the time.

There was not a signal light along the old, abandoned reach of tracks, and only one or two scattered settlements to pa.s.s. At length they came in sight of the signals of the north branch. No. 93 paralleled it on a curving slant for nearly a mile.

They were barely two hundred rods from the point where they would slide out onto the rails of the branch, and Ralph had started to let down on speed, when his helper uttered a vivid shout.

"Fairbanks--something coming!"

Ralph cast his eyes to the other side of the cab. Something, indeed, was coming--coming like a flash, going like a flash. It whizzed even with them, and ahead, like some phantom of the rail. Its course was so swift that the cab lights were a flare, then a disappearing speck.

"We are too late," said Ralph. "That is the runaway."

"So?" questioned Roberts, who only half understood the situation.

"We ran here in the hopes of ditching that engine."

"Did?"

"We're too late."

"Are?"

"Roberts," added the young railroader determinedly, "we've got to catch that runaway."

"Then it's a race, is it?" asked Roberts, grasping the fire rake.

"Yes."

"I'm with you to the finish," announced the doughty fireman of No. 93.

CHAPTER XV

CHASING A RUNAWAY