Page:Ralph on the Railroad.djvu/66

52 warning: "Powder! Danger!" stared squared and menacingly into the eye of the pilot front.

Griscom struggled to his feet. He fell against Ralph. The latter thought he was delirious, for his lips were moving, and his tortured face working spasmodically. Finally he said weakly: "Put my hands on the gearing. We're out of it?"

"Yes, but the car is blazing."

"What's ahead?"

"Dead tracks for nearly a thousand feet."

"And the dump pit beyond?"

"It looks so," said Ralph, leaning from the window and glancing ahead anxiously. "Yes, it's rusted rails clear up to what looks like a slough hole, and no buildings beyond."

He held his breath as Griscom pulled the momentum up another notch. This last effort palsied the engineer, his fingers relaxed, and he slipped again to the floor, nerveless but writhing.

"Keep her going—full speed for five hundred feet," he panted. "Then stop her."

"Yes," breathed Ralph quickly. "Stop her—how," he projected, knowing in a way, but wanting to be sure, for the sense of crisis was strong on him, and the present was no time to make mistakes. Griscom's directions came quick and clear, and Ralph obeyed every indication with promptness.