Page:Frank Packard - On the Iron at Big Cloud.djvu/267

 engine fling up the sparks, for that's about all he could see, I guess—was Perley.

The car was swinging like a hammock with the heave and strain of the big pusher coupled right behind it—it acts queer, that does. Every time I've felt it I've always thought of a cat and a mouse. It's like the engine had the caboose by the scruff and was trying to shake the life out of it.

You've felt it a little if you've ever been in the rear Pullman going up—the difference is that a caboose hasn't any springs to speak of, you understand? Racket enough to raise the dead. You couldn't hear yourself think. Not so much from the noise of the train or the storm, but from the booming roar of the trailer's exhaust—like she was trying to cough her boiler tubes out every time the valves slid.

Now, there's just one more thing I want you to get. The engine crew of a pusher naturally can't see any track, road-bed, or anything of that kind, and it isn't their business to, either. All they watch is the leader and the intermediate, if there is one. Their headlight plays along over a few cars if it's high enough, or loses itself on the top of the door or the roof of the caboose if it isn't, understand?

Lee didn't hear anything. He was sitting bent over with his head between his hands, and it was the current of air from the opening door that made him twist around and look up, thinking it had blown open. I don't know as you'd call him a coward; maybe yes, maybe no; anyway, he was a white-faced, terrified man that next instant, as he started up from his chair. He