Page:Frank Packard - On the Iron at Big Cloud.djvu/166

 brain swam. "There's the trestle gone!"—he coughed it out between blue lips.

"There's the trestle gone!"

Keefer's Siding was a mile away. Somehow he must reach it, must get the word along the line that the trestle was out, get the word along before the stalled traffic moved, before the first train east or west crashed through to death, before more wreck and ruin was added to the tale that had gone before. He bent to Spirlaw's ear and three times called him frantically: "Spirlaw! Spirlaw! Spirlaw!" There was no response. He tried to lift him, tried to drag him—the great bulk was far beyond his strength. And the minutes were flying by, each marking the one perhaps when it would be too late, too late to warn any one that the trestle was out.

Just up past the rock cut, a bare twenty yards away where the leads to the temporary track swung into the straight of the main line, was the platform handcar they had used for carrying tools and the odds and ends of supplies between the storehouse and the work—if he could only get Spirlaw there!

He called him again, shook him, breathing a prayer for help. The road boss stirred, raised himself a little, and sank down again with a moan.

"Spirlaw, Spirlaw, for God's sake, man, try to get up! I'll help you. You must, do you hear, you must!"—he was dragging at the road boss's collar.

Keating's voice seemed to reach the other's consciousness, for, weakly, dazed, without sense, blindly, Spirlaw got upon his knees, then to his feet, and,