Would Giddings hold them at Point of Rocks till the Special reported?
Would he send them out to keep the track open regardless of the
Special's reaching Point of Rocks?
Had they themselves reached Point of Rocks at all? If past it, had
they been seen? Were the ploughs ahead or behind? And the fireman
asked another question; if they were by the Point tank, would the water
hold till they got to Medicine Bend? No one could answer.
There was but one thing to do; to keep in motion. They started slowly.
The alternatives were discussed. Glover, pondering, cast them all up,
his awful responsibility, unconscious of her peril, watching him from
the fireman's box. The engineer looked to Glover instinctively for
instructions and, hesitating no longer, he ordered a dash for Medicine
Bend regardless of everything.
Without a qualm the engineer opened his throttle and hooked up his bar
and the engine leaped blindly ahead into the storm. Glover, in a few
words, told Gertrude their situation. He made no effort to disguise
it, and to his astonishment she heard him quietly. He cramped himself
down at her feet and muffled his head in his cap and collar to look
ahead.
They had hardly more than recovered their lost distance, and were
running very hard when a shower of heavy blows struck the cab and the
engine gave a frantic plunge. Forgetting that he pulled no train
McGraw's eyes flew to the air gauge with the thought his train had
broken, but the pointer stood steady at the high pressure. Again the
monster machine strained, and again the cab rose and plunged
terrifically. The engineer leaped at the throttle like a cat;
Gertrude, jolted first backward, was thrown rudely forward on Glover's
shoulder, and the fireman slid head first into the oil cans. Worst of
all, Glover, in saving Gertrude, put his elbow through the lower glass
of the running-board door. The engine stopped and a blast of powdered
ice streamed in on them; their eyes met.
She tried to get her breath. "Don't be frightened," he said; "you are
all right. Sit perfectly still. What have you got, Paddy?" he called
to the engineer. The engineer did not attempt to answer; taking
lanterns, the two men climbed out of the cab to investigate. The wind
swept through the broken pane and Gertrude slipped down from her seat
with relief, while the fireman caught up a big double handful of waste
from his box and stuffed it into the broken pane. So intense had the
strain of silence become that she would have spoken to him, but the
sudden stop sprung the safety-valve, and overwhelmed with its roar she
could only watch him in wretched suspense shake the grate, restore his
drip can, start his injector, and hammer like one pursued by a fury at
the coal. Since she had entered the cab this man had never for one
minute rested.