Page:Vance--The trey o hearts.djvu/206

178 "It isn't the hard work I mind," he explained, laying hold of the handle-bar; "it's my silly pride, it's this swift descent from the sublime to the utilitarian that irks me. Think of it: yesterday a Pullman porter, to-day a donkey engine!"

None the less, he put a willing back into the work. Slowly the hand-car gathered momentum and surged noisily up the track as Alan and Barcus, on opposite sides of the handle-bar, alternately rose and fell back; slowly it mounted the slight grade to the bend in the track, rounded it, lost sight of the stalled Pullman on the siding, and began to move more swiftly on a moderate down-grade.

Behind it the thunder of an approaching train grew momentarily in volume. But just as Alan was about to advocate leaving the tracks to clear the way for the train, its rumble began to diminish and gradually was stilled.

"What do you make of that?" Alan panted.

"The freight has taken the siding to wait for some through train to pass. We'll have to look sharp and be ready to jump."

Five minutes later a second whistle, of a different tone, startled them.

"Afraid it's all up with us now," Alan groaned, "that sounded precisely like the whistle of the light engine."

"Sure it did!" Barcus agreed. "It wouldn't be