Page:Ralph on the Railroad.djvu/782

214 blows on lever, throttle and everything in the way of machinery inside of the cab.

Past the red light, blotting it out, sped the train, turning a curve. Ralph anticipated a waiting or a coming train, but, to his relief, the rails were clear. Ahead, however, there was a great glow, and he now understood what the warnings meant.

The road at this point for two miles ran through a marshy forest, and this was all on fire. Ralph gained the tender.

"Back, back!" roared Lyle, facing him, weapon in hand. "She's fixed to go, can't stop her now. Whoop!"

With deep concern the young fireman noted the disabled machinery.

Half-way between centers, the big steel bar on the engineer's side of the locomotive had snapped in two and was tearing through the cab like a flail, at every revolution of the driver to which it was attached.

Just as Ralph jumped down from the tender, the locomotive entered the fire belt—in a minute more the train was in the midst of a great sweeping mass of fire. The train crew, blinded and singed, retreated. Ralph trembled at a sense of the terrible peril that menaced.

Lyle had drawn back from the lever or he would have been annihilated. Then as the fire