Then, too, a third factor entered into the problem. There was No. 56. She was a limited express and famous for her speed. The operator at Corridon had said that on this stretch of road, supposed to be clear, she would make up time. If she reached and passed the switch before the runaway, no power on earth could prevent a frightful disaster. And just then, while this fear was tugging at his heart, a faint whistle in the distance drove all the color from his face. 56 was coming!
He dared not take his eyes from the road in front, but he knew from the lessened noise behind him that he was increasing his lead. And then as he swept around a slight curve in the road, the abandoned quarry came into view. There were the empty shacks, the deserted platform and, a few rods further on, the switch.
He raced to the tracks and threw himself from the machine, almost falling headlong from the momentum, although he had turned off the power. Then he grasped the lever and tried to throw the switch.
It groaned and creaked, but, although it protested, it yielded to the powerful young muscles that would not be denied. But, when it had moved two-thirds of the way it balked, and, despite his frenzied attempts, refused to budge another inch. And now the runaway engine was coming close, rumbling and roaring hideously, while round the curve, a scant quarter of a mile away, appeared the smokestack of No. 56.
Looking wildly about for the obstacle, he saw that a stone had been wedged into the frog. He tried to remove it, but the turning of the switch had jammed it against the rail. Straightening up, he swung the lever far enough back to release the stone. He worked as if in a nightmare. Fifty feet away, the Mogul was bearing down like a fire-breathing demon. With one swift movement he threw the stone aside; with the next he bowed his back over the lever until it felt as though it would break. Then the rusted rails groaned into place; with an infernal din and uproar the runaway took the switch. Scarcely had it cleared the track when 56 thundered past, its wheels sending out streams of sparks as the brakes ground against them.
The Mogul struck the bumpers with terrific force, tore them away and leaped headlong against the wall of the quarry. There was a crash that could be heard for miles, and the wrecked locomotive reared into the air and then rolled over on its side, enveloped in smoke and hissing steam.
As soon as the long train of 56 could be stopped, the throttle was reversed and it came gliding back to the switch. The engineer and fireman sprang from their cab, conductor and trainmen came running up, and the passengers swarmed from the cars.
There was a tumult of excited questionings, as they gathered round the young fellow who stood there, panting with the strain of his tremendous efforts. Now that he had succeeded in the forlorn hope that he had undertaken, he was beginning to feel the reaction. He responded briefly and modestly to the questions that were showered upon him, and, as the full meaning of their narrow escape from death burst upon them, passengers and trainmen alike were loud in their praise of his presence of mind and thanks for their deliverance. They were for making him a hero, but he shrank from this and would have none of it.
“Don’t thank me,” he laughed. “It was this that made it possible;” and he patted the handlebars of the motorcycle. “She certainly did herself proud this day.”
“She surely is a dandy,” smiled the conductor, “but you must admit that you had a little to do with it. We’ll never forget what you have done for us to-day. But now we must be starting. We’ll put the machine in the baggage car, and you come in here with me.”
A blast of the whistle and No. 56 had resumed its interrupted journey.
A ringing cheer burst from the anxious crowds that surged about the platform as the great train, puffing and snorting, came into the station. The agent, white as a ghost, could not believe his eyes.
“Thank God,” he cried. “I thought it was all over. I’ve telegraphed for the wrecking crew, and all the doctors in town have been called to go along. How on earth did you escape? Where is the Mogul?”
“You’ll find that down in the quarry smashed to bits,” answered the conductor. “You’ll need the wrecking train for that, all right, but you can call off the doctors. We would have needed plenty of them – and undertakers too – if it hadn’t been for this young man. He threw the switch without a second to spare.”
The station agent grasped the rider’s hand and stammered and stuttered, as he tried to pour out his thanks. But just then a flying wedge of college boys came through the crowd and, grabbing the reluctant hero, hoisted him to their shoulders.
“Wilson.” “Bert Wilson.” “O, you Bert.” “O, you speed boy,” they yelled. The enthusiastic lookers on took up the shout and it was a long time before Bert, blushing and embarrassed, could free himself from his boisterous admirers.
“O, cut it out, fellows,” he protested. “It was all in the day’s work.”
“Sure,” assented Tom Henderson, “but such a day’s work.”
“And such a worker,” added Dick Trent.
“Three times three and a tiger for Bert Wilson,” roared a stentorian voice. The answer came in a tempest of cheers, and, as the train pulled out, the last sound that came to the waving passengers was the lusty chorus:
“For he’s a jolly good fellow,
Which nobody can deny.”
CHAPTER II
The “Blue Streak”
“Isn’t it a beauty?” exclaimed Bert, as, a few days later, he swept up to a waiting group of friends and leaped from the saddle.
There was a unanimous assent as the boys crowded around the motorcycle, looking at it almost with the rapt intentness of worshippers at a shrine.
“It’s a dandy, all right,” declared Dick, with an enthusiasm equal to Bert’s own. “You skimmed along that last stretch of road like a bird.”
“It’s about the speediest and niftiest thing on the planet,” chimed in Tom. “You’d give an airship all it wanted to do to keep up with you.”
“Easy, easy there,” laughed Bert. “I wouldn’t go as far as that. But on ‘terra cotta,’ as Mrs. Partington calls it, there are mighty few things that will make me take their dust.” And he patted the machine with as much affection as if it could feel and respond to the touch.
“About how fast can that streak of greased lightning travel, any way?” asked Drake. “What’s the record for a motorcycle?”
“The best so far is a mile in thirty-six and four-fifths seconds,” was the answer. “That’s at the rate of ninety-eight miles an hour.”
“Some traveling,” murmured Dick.
“Of course,” went on Bert, “that was for a sprint. But even over long distances some great records have been hung up. In England last year a motorcycle made 300 miles in 280 minutes. I don’t think the fastest express train in the world has ever beaten that.”
“Gee,” said Tom, “I’d hate to be in the path of a cannon ball like that. It would be the ‘sweet by and by’ for yours truly.”
“It might possibly muss you up some,” grinned Bert. “It’s a case of ‘the quick or the dead’ when you amble across the path of a twin-cylinder.”
“I should think,” remarked Drake, “that it would shake the daylights out of you to travel at the speed you were going just now along that last bit of road.”
“A few years ago it would have,” admitted Bert. “The way they bumped along was a sure cure for dyspepsia. But with this saddle I could ride all day and scarcely feel a jar. Why, look at this cradle spring frame,” he went on enthusiastically; “it has the same flat leaf springs that they use in the finest kind of automobiles. You wouldn’t believe that there are over 250 inches of supple, highly tempered springs