Terryville answered, and in strained silence they awaited his report.

"Yes, they are coming. I thought it was thunder.

"Here they are now," he added an instant after.

"They're past!"

"They'll reach us! What shall we do?" gasped Saunders.

Alex turned from the table, and as the Indian Canyon operator hastily called Jakes Creek, the last station intervening, began striding up and down the room, thinking rapidly.

If they only had more battery--could make the current in the wire stronger! Immediately on the thought came remembrance of the emergency battery he had made the previous year at Watson Siding. He spun about toward the office water-cooler. But only to utter an exclamation of disappointment. This cooler was of tin--of course useless for such a purpose.

Hurriedly he began casting about for a subst.i.tute. "Billy, think of something we can make a big battery jar of!" he cried. "To strengthen the wire!"

"A battery? But what would we do for bluestone? I used the last yesterday!"

Alex returned to the table, and threw himself hopelessly into the chair.

At the moment the Jakes Creek operator answered his call, and received the message of warning.

"Say," said Saunders, "perhaps some of the other fellows on the wire have bluestone and the other stuff, and could make a battery!"

Alex uttered a shout. "That's it!" he cried, and springing to the telegraph key, as soon as the wire closed, called Indian Canyon. "Have you any extra battery material there?" he sent quickly.

"No. Why--"

Abruptly Alex cut him off and called Imken. He also responded in the negative. But from Terryville came a prompt "Yes. Why--"

"Have you one of those big stoneware water-coolers there?"

"Yes, but wh--"

"Do you know how to make a battery?"

"No."

"Well, listen--"

The instruments had suddenly failed to respond. A minute pa.s.sed, and another. Five went by, and Alex sank back in the chair in despair.

Undoubtedly the storm had broken the wire somewhere.

"Everything against us!" he declared bitterly. "And the runaways will be down here now in fifteen or twenty minutes. What can we do?"

"I can't think of anything but throwing the west switch," said Saunders.

"And loaded, and going at the speed they are, they'll make a mess of everything on the siding. But that's the only way I can think of stopping them."

"If there was any way a fellow could get aboard the runaways--"

Alex broke off sharply. Would it not be possible to board the runaway train as he and Jack had boarded the engine on the day of the forest fire? Say, from a hand-car?

He started to his feet. "Billy, get me a lantern, quick!

"I'm going for the section-boss, and see if we can't board the runaways from the hand-car," he explained as he caught up and began struggling into his coat. "I did that once at Bixton--boarded an engine."

"Board it! How?"

"Run ahead of it, and let it catch us."

Saunders sprang for the lantern, lit it, and catching it up, Alex was out the door, and off across the tracks through the still pouring rain for the lights of the section foreman's house. Darting through the gate, he ran about to the kitchen door, and without ceremony flung it open. The foreman was at the table, at his supper. He started to his feet.

"Joe, there is a wild ore train coming down from the Canyon," explained Alex breathlessly, "and the wire has failed east so we can't clear the line. Couldn't we get the jigger out and board the runaways by letting them catch us?"

An instant the section-boss stared, then with the prompt.i.tude of the old railroader seized his cap, exclaiming "Go ahead!" and together they dashed out to the gate, and across the tracks in the direction of the tool-house.

"Where did they start from? How many cars?" asked the foreman as they ran.

"Indian Canyon. Ten, and all loaded."

The section-man whistled. "They'll be going twenty-five or thirty miles an hour. We will be taking a big chance. But if we can catch them just over the grade beyond the sand-pits I guess we can do it. That will have slackened them.

"Here we are."

As they halted before the section-house door the boss uttered a cry. "I haven't the key!"

Alex swung the lantern about, and discovered a pile of ties. "Smash it in," he suggested, dropping the lantern. One on either side they caught up a tie, swayed back, and hurled it forward. There was a crash, and the door swung open.

Catching up the lantern, they dashed in, threw from the hand-car its collection of tools, placed the light upon it, ran it out, and swung it onto the rails.

"Do you hear them?" asked Alex as he threw off his coat. The foreman dropped to his knees and placed his ear to the rails, listened a moment, and sprang to his feet. "Yes, they're coming! Come on!

"Run her a ways first." They pushed the car ahead, quickly had it on the run, and springing aboard, seized the handles, and one on either side, began pumping up and down with all their strength.

As they neared the station the door opened and Saunders ran to the edge of the platform. "The wire came O K and I just heard Z pa.s.s Thirty-three," he shouted, "but couldn't make them hear me. He reported the superintendent's--"

They whirled by, and the rest was lost.

"Did you catch it?" shouted Alex above the roar of the car.

"I think he meant," shouted the foreman as he swung up and down, "superintendent's car ... attached to the Accommodation ... heard he was coming ... makes it bad.... We need every minute ... and Old Jerry ...

the engineer ... 'll be breaking his neck ... to bring her ... through on time!

"Do you hear ... runaways yet?"

"No."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THEY WHIRLED BY, AND THE REST WAS LOST.]

On they rushed through the darkness, bobbing up and down like jumping-jacks, the little car rumbling and screeching, and bounding forward like a live thing.