"What's the programme?" asked Roberts, after filling the fire box with coal.

"We must beat the speed of that runaway locomotive," replied Ralph.

The wild engine was going at a terrific rate of progress. Ralph could only surmise where she had been started on her mad career. The motive, her intended destination, how long she would last out--all this he could only guess at.

A drift of cinders struck his face as he shot No. 93 across a switch and out upon the in track of the north branch. At the same time he bent his ear and listened critically to the chug-chug of the escape valves.

"Some one is aboard of that engine," he told Roberts.

"Then it's a chase instead of a race," said the fireman. "All right. You boss and watch out ahead."

Pursued and pursuer were now on parallel tracks. Ralph wondered if he could be mistaken, and the locomotive ahead a special or returning from duty.

To test this he gave a familiar challenge call. From ignorance or defiance there was no response. Ralph was sure that the locomotive was in charge of some one. Its movements, the cinder drift, the wheeze of the safety valve, told that the machinery was being manipulated.

Ralph cast up in his mind all the facts and probabilities of the hairbreadth exploit in which he was partic.i.p.ating. He acted on the belief that the locomotive he was chasing was wild, or soon to be put in action as one. It would be run to some intended point, abandoned, and sent full speed ahead on its errand of destruction.

Ralph did not know what might be ahead on either track. The schedule, he remembered, showed no moving rolling stock this side of the north main.

He urged his fireman to fire up to the limit and did some rapid calculating as to the chances for the next twenty miles.

The locomotive ahead was fully a mile away before Roberts got old 93 in the right trim, as he expressed it. He clucked audibly as his pet began to snort and quiver. Pieces of the machinery rattled warningly, but that only amused him.

"She's loose-jointed," he admitted to Ralph; "but she'll hold together, I reckon, if you can only keep her to the rails. That fellow ahead is sprinting, but we're catching up fast. What's the ticket?"

"Our only hope is to beat the runaway and switch or b.u.mp her."

"There'll be some damage."

"There will probably be worse damage if we don't stop her."

The paralleled tracks widened a few miles further on to get to the solid side of a boggy reach. It was here that No. 93 came fairly abreast of the runaway. It was here, too, that the furnace door of the runaway was opened to admit coal, and the back flare of the hissing embers outlined the figure of a man in the cab.

"She's spurting," observed Roberts, watching all this, as the runaway started on a prodigious dash.

"I see she is," nodded Ralph, grimly trying to hold No. 93 over, yet aware that she was already set at her highest possible point of tension.

"And we're getting near."

"Yes, there are the station lights ahead."

About four hundred yards to the left the runaway dashed past a deserted station. Ralph never let up on speed. The chase had now led to the cut-off, a stretch of about twenty miles. Where this ran into the main again there was an important station. This point Ralph was sure had been advised of the situation from headquarters if Glidden had done his duty, and the young railroader felt sure that he had.

"h.e.l.lo; now it is a chase!" exclaimed Roberts.

In circling into the cut-off No. 93 had pa.s.sed a series of switches, finally sending her down the same rails taken by the runaway.

"It's now or never, and pretty quick at that," said Ralph to his fireman. "Crowd her, Roberts."

"She's doing pretty nigh her best as it is," replied the fireman. "I don't know as she'll stand much more crowding."

"That's better," said Ralph in a satisfied tone, as, fired up to the limit, the old rattletrap made a few more pounds of steam.

"Going to scare or b.u.mp the fellow ahead?" grinned Roberts, his grimed face dripping with perspiration. "We're after her close now. It's our chance to gain. They don't dare to coal up for fear of losing speed."

A score of desperate ideas as to overtaking, crippling, wrecking or getting aboard of the runaway thronged the mind of the young railroader.

They were gaining now in leaps and bounds.

It was at a risk, however, Ralph realized fully. No. 93 was shaking and wobbling, at times her clattering arose to a grinding squeal of the wheels, as though she resented the terrific strain put upon her powers of speed and endurance.

"Whew! there was a tilt," whistled Roberts, as No. 93 scurried a curve where she threatened to dip clear over sideways into a swampy stretch which had undermined the solid roadbed.

Ralph gave a sudden gasp. He had watched every movement of the machinery. To his expert, careful ear every sound and quiver had conveyed a certain intelligent meaning.

Now, however, No. 93 was emitting strange noises--there was a new sound, and it boded trouble.

It came from the driving rod. Roberts caught the grinding, snapping sound, stared hard from his window, craning his neck, his eyes goggling, and then drew back towards the tender with a shout:

"Go easy, Fairbanks; something's tearing loose--look out!"

The warning came none too soon. Ralph slipped from his seat and dropped backwards into the tender just in time.

A giant steel arm had shot through the front of the cab. It was the right driving rod. It came aloft and then down, tearing a great hole in the floor. It shattered the cab to pieces with half a dozen giant strokes. It smashed against the driving wheels with a force that threatened to wreck them.

Then it tried to pound off the cylinder. The flying arms next took the roof supports, snapping them like pipe stems, and buried the fireman in a heap of debris.

"Jump!" gasped Roberts.

"I stay," breathed Ralph.

And, stripped of everything except her cylinder, No. 93 dashed on--a wreck.

CHAPTER XVI

THE WRECK

The battered locomotive continued its course for nearly half a mile, with engineer and fireman crouching back on the coal of the tender.

There was a diversion of the circling driving rod as the pace slackened.

Then a violent hissing sound told of a leak somewhere in the machinery.

The great steel locomotive slowed down like a crippled giant.

"She's dead," said Roberts, choking a queer sound way down in his throat. "Old 93!"