Page:Vance--The trey o hearts.djvu/207

Rh us if we had any better luck. The saints be praised for this down-grade!"

The hand-car made a very fair pace, at the urge of the two, and the grade was happily long, turning and twisting like a snake through the hills.

Moreover, it seemed that the light engine had stopped at the siding long enough to couple up Trine's Pullman. It was fully a quarter of an hour before a growing rumble warned the trio on the hand-car, just as it gained the end of the grade. At this point discovery of the switch of a spur-line that shot off southward into the hills furnished Alan with an inspiration.

Stopping the hand-car after it had jolted over the frogs, he jumped down, set the switch to shunt the pursuit off upon the spur, and leaped back upon the car. Meeting his eye, Barcus nodded his approval. The stratagem served them. The special took the switch without pause, and the roar of its progress, shut off by an intervening mountain, was suddenly stilled to a murmur.

But even so there was neither rest for the weary nor much excuse for self-congratulation: the rumble of the special was not altogether lost to hearing when the thunder of the freight drowned it out. Then Alan stood up and signed to Barcus to imitate his example.

"Jump off—leave the hand-car where it is—they'll have to stop to clear it off the track."