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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77344 ***
+
+
+
+
+                     ON ADVANCE OF TIME
+
+                   By George Keyports Brady
+
+
+“Again I ask you, Elsie Macumber, will you marry me?”
+
+“Me, Elsie Macumber, the daughter of a full time engineer on the Pennsy
+railroad, marry the likes of you, Sam Dobinski? You what’s only a
+hostler down at the round house! Isn’t it fine nerve you’re possessin’.”
+
+“Because I’m a hostler y’ won’t marry me, eh?” Dobinski punctuated his
+sentence with a large stream of tobacco juice, as if he wanted to lay
+all the dust about the signal tower where they were standing. “Because
+you got fine black hair and pretty black eyes and a hell of a pride you
+won’t marry a Polack like me. Because you got a pretty face you think
+you can marry any man on the division, and so you snaps your fingers at
+a hostler. Tell me once, what was your father when he first went to work
+on this line?”
+
+“No, Sammy, you’re a hostler. That’s bad enough, but it ain’t the real
+reason I won’t marry y’. It’s because I don’t love you, that’s what. I
+would marry the devil, or even a hostler if I was sure I loved him, but
+if I was dead sure I didn’t love him I wouldn’t marry the guardian angel
+of Saint Peter, if he was t’ ask me for me heart and hand, and offer me
+a crown of glory t’ boot. ’Tain’t pride, Sam Dobinski. It’s just me.”
+
+“It’s five times I’ve asked you, and----”
+
+“And if it was fifty times I’d still be sayin’ no, just as I do now. You
+better stick to that little Duch girl, Marie Gross, that I saw you
+cuddlin’ down in the park th’ other evening. The man I love has got to
+be taller than I am, and brave. Y’ ain’t neither.”
+
+“Y’ say I’m not brave, eh?” Sam flushed to the roots of his hair,
+although his reaction was nearly obscured by his coat of grease and
+soot. His beady eyes narrowed down the dangerous slits, and the hammer
+he held in his hand swung dangerously back and forth. “What for do you
+say that?”
+
+“You know why, Sam Dobinski. Last Saturday you let that young wop dare
+y’ to be seen again with Marie, an’ y’ didn’t knock his teeth out then
+and there. And here it is Wednesday an’ you ain’t had a date with her
+since, an’ what’s more y’ ain’t even asked her for one. She told me so
+herself. So be off with y’ now, and don’t ask me no more.”
+
+A heavy freight, headed out of Toledo for Mansfield, Ohio, came slowly
+along the track, and as it passed Elsie handed a dinner pail up to one
+of the brakemen who boarded with her family. Sam, who had been waiting
+for clearance on this track in order to drive a free engine down to the
+round house, climbed deliberately up into the cab, but his blood was
+boiling furiously.
+
+Elsie, with the long free stride of a big strong girl who has never
+learned the art of “cultured” walking, swung round the tender of the
+engine, and started across lots toward the high road. As she did so, Sam
+grasped the throttle and gave it a vicious jerk.
+
+There was a snort of steam hissing through the valves, as the huge
+drivers slipped swiftly on the rails, unable to get traction so
+suddenly. Instead of easing up on the steam pressure, Sam Dobinski,
+furiously opening the sand pipes, poured sand on the rails. The huge
+drivers, hissing and screeching, tried to take hold, but went on
+spinning ineffectually.
+
+Elsie, hearing the racket, glanced back over her shoulder, and remarked
+to herself, “The blame fool, treatin’ a perfectly good engine like that
+just because a woman tells him the truth about himself!” Then she
+continued along her path, ruminating as she went. “Imagine me, a
+strappin’ big Irish lass, married t’ a little runt of a Polack like Sam.
+Just picture the census taker a-comin’ to the door. ‘Sure now, and who
+are you that lives here,’ says he, polite like a raisin’ of his hat. And
+lookin’ at the likes o’ me he expects t’ hear a good soundin’ name that
+reeks o’ the Emerald Isle, somethin’ like--well, just for fun let’s say
+Mrs. Patrick O’Hara.”
+
+If a certain young giant of a brakemen on the Toledo division had heard
+that last observation he would have made the fur fly proposing to Elsie
+Macumber. But then if he had been there the remark would never have been
+made.
+
+Perhaps it was the fact that she had a date with Patrick for that
+evening that put his name in her mind, and there may have been a bit
+more to it than that.
+
+“But instead of sayin’ Mrs. Patrick O’Hara,” Elsie said to herself, “I
+blushes an’ says, Mrs. Sam Dobinski. Then the census man gets even more
+polite because he thinks sure I’m lyin’ to him, but he writes the name
+in the book because it’s his business to record souls and not to save
+them. ‘And how many little Dobinski’s be there,’ he says. ‘Fourteen,’
+says I, feelin’ a wee bit embarrassed.”
+
+Elsie burst into a roar of laughter at the idea of herself as the mother
+of children named Dobinski, and continued across the lots, wondering how
+long it would be before Patrick O’Hara would have nerve enough to--well,
+to stop hesitating and get down to the business of buying a ring for
+her.
+
+“If the great big handsome ox weren’t such a bashful, blushin’ thing, I
+could have lined him up weeks ago.”
+
+Meanwhile Dobinski recovered sufficiently from his wrath to realize that
+he was abusing one of Mr. Baldwin’s best locomotives. He curtailed the
+steam until the drivers began to behave themselves as their inventor
+intended they should, and the engine moved smoothly off down the siding,
+crossed over onto the now vacated down track, and proceeded toward the
+round house.
+
+When Dobinski put the engine in its stall he went about his customary
+duties, but his fellow workmen declared he swore even more viciously
+than usual, and they observed that he barked his knuckles by giving an
+extra hard jerk on a nut he was tightening.
+
+Finally they saw him pick up his hammer and walk deliberately across the
+round house to a pit where a young Italian was working, and without any
+warning he fell upon his victim so viciously that the man had to be
+carried to the hospital for facial repairs.
+
+Only the timely interference of the workmen prevented Dobinski from
+killing the fellow with the hammer. In the language of the round house
+“the runt Polack was in one hell of a rage.”
+
+At noon, when Dobinski went off duty, instead of going to the “hash
+house” for grub, he proceeded to get royally drunk, and during the
+process gave public vent to uncomplimentary remarks about “that damned
+stuck up Macumber girl.” By the time his companions carried him to his
+room Dobinski was in a fine mood to commit murder.
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+
+In the small hours of the morning the next day the Pittsburgh-Detroit
+Express, running on a seven hour schedule, drew into Mansfield, one hour
+behind time. Heavy weather on the first part of the run, had slowed the
+train down and forced Macumber, the engineer, to lose time.
+
+At Mansfield the station master handed him an “advance of time” order,
+which meant that Macumber was to do his best to make up the lost hour,
+so that the crack express train could live up to its reputation for
+arriving on time in Detroit. Under such an order the engineer knew he
+would have clear track all the way, that all the block signals would
+flash “green eyes” at him as his train roared past.
+
+Once out of Mansfield, Macumber opened up the throttle. For fifteen
+years he had made this run, and he knew every mile of the track
+thoroughly, knew just how much time he dared to make every inch of the
+way.
+
+He sat with his hand on the throttle and watched the steam gage climb,
+while the fireman worked furiously keeping up the pressure. At every
+mile Macumber glanced at the block signals to be sure of his clearance
+ahead, although his orders practically assured him that his track was
+clear.
+
+The white lights of one small town after another flashed into view, and
+quickly faded away in the rear of the on-rushing train. Sixty miles an
+hour the gage registered, and then slowly climbed to sixty-five, and
+still more slowly crept up toward seventy.
+
+Passengers, asleep in their berths, woke up under the swift motion, and
+the more accustomed ones congratulated themselves on the fine time the
+train was making. Some, not so anxious for speed, lay nervously awake
+and worried over the furious pace, while the train plunged on through
+the gradually graying dawn towards Toledo, its first scheduled stop.
+
+At five o’clock the train flashed past the Walbridge block that marks
+the entrance to the Toledo yards. A heavy fog hung low over the Maumee
+valley, making sight ahead impossible beyond a very short range.
+
+Half way up the yards on the down track, waiting for clearance papers
+from the yard master, stood the early freight headed for Pittsburgh.
+Patrick O’Hara, the brakeman on this train, had walked forward to talk
+to the engineer until the train was ready to pull out. Both men heard
+the shriek of the whistle on the express as the train plunged through
+the yards.
+
+“He’s making sixty, and all the time I’ve been on the road,” declared
+O’Hara, “I’ve never known him to go through the yards a mile above
+forty.”
+
+“You’re allowed all the tracks will stand on an advance of time order,”
+replied his companion, “but I’d hate to be making that speed through all
+these switches.”
+
+They both stared ahead into the fog to see the express shoot into view.
+At that instant, and much to his amazement, O’Hara thought he saw a free
+engine moving slowly along a switch track parallel with the up track
+along which the express was advancing. He knew the siding ran out onto
+the main not twenty yards ahead of the place where he was standing.
+
+He calculated the speed of both the engine and the express and realized
+that the free engine would arrive on the main not very far in advance of
+the express, and too close to the express to allow time for stopping
+before a collision occurred.
+
+He spoke to the freight engineer about it, but the man assured him that
+the up track switch signal showed a green eye, which meant that the
+derail on the siding would prevent anything from arriving on the main
+ahead of the express. But in spite of this assurance, O’Hara continued
+to strain his eyes as he gazed into the heavy fog ahead and watched the
+ghostly form of the free engine creeping over the rails.
+
+Then he heard an ominous click which he instantly recognized as the
+lifting of the hand control of the derailing device.
+
+Visibility was so low, due to the dense fog, that he could not
+distinguish the person who lifted the derailer. Was it possible the
+infernal fool did not know the express was thundering along the up track
+at that very instant?
+
+Everybody in the yard had been discussing the speed which constant
+telegraphic reports indicated Macumber to be making. Yet here was some
+stupid hostler letting a free engine out onto the main at a moment when
+a wreck would be inevitable.
+
+There was no doubt about the derailer having been lifted, because the
+free engine, without a pilot, glided out onto the up-track. The freight
+engineer turned pale as he realized what was about to happen.
+
+“God help the express,” he muttered to himself.
+
+The express could be heard rushing up the track at a speed only possible
+under advance of time orders. Otherwise an experienced and trusted
+engineer would have been proceeding more cautiously through the yards. A
+wreck appeared absolutely certain.
+
+In an instant O’Hara realized that there was but one possibility of
+escaping it, and that was very slim. Without taking time to think of the
+awful risk he was taking, he jumped down from the cab, where he was
+watching, and ran impulsively toward the engine as it glided onto the
+open track. He bounded onto the catcher, clambered madly up to the rail,
+and raced wildly along the boiler to the cab.
+
+Whether the engine had up a full head of steam, he did not know, but in
+that respect luck was with him, as he saw by a glance at the gage. He
+clutched at the throttle, with the roar of the advancing express in his
+ears, but not being an experienced engineer he lost a precious moment by
+pulling the throttle too far open, so that the drivers began to fly on
+the rails in spite of the fact that the engine already had some headway.
+
+Realizing his error instantly, he shut off part of the steam and began
+frantically to pour sand on the track.
+
+Behind O’Hara sat Macumber at the throttle of his engine. Secure in the
+evidence of clearance which the succession of green signal lights gave
+him, he was plunging along at top speed.
+
+Suddenly in the fog ahead of him he saw the form of the free engine
+looming up. At first he could not realize the awful possibility as a
+reality; for a moment because of the strain on his eyes from looking
+into the fog, he thought he must be seeing things, but in the next
+instant he saw that a wreck was almost a certainty.
+
+Instinctively he applied the brakes, but even in the act of doing so he
+knew that stopping was impossible in such a short distance. He thought
+of the lives at stake in the cars behind him, and recognized that there
+was danger of throwing the train off the track if the brakes went on too
+suddenly at the speed he was traveling. However, he had no time to
+reason about it, and as there was nothing else to do he threw the air
+valve wide open. The wheels screeched as the brakes locked and forced
+them to skid on the rails.
+
+For an instant Macumber released the brakes to relieve the strain, then
+locked them again. The huge iron monster shuddered and groaned under the
+torture of the strain, but it had been built strong and true, and in
+spite of everything it held to the rails, while sparks flew from the
+heated wheels in showers.
+
+Still, to stop so much momentum in such a short space seemed out of the
+question. The express continued to close up the short remaining gap
+between it and the engine ahead. Macumber closed his eyes helplessly for
+what he thought was to be the moment of the crash, and as he did so
+muttered to himself:
+
+“Where did this engine come from, anyway?”
+
+
+
+
+III.
+
+
+Standing back of the yards, hidden by the depth of the fog, and waiting
+for the crash that he hoped would put an end to the father of Elsie,
+stood the drunken-eyed hostler, Sam Dobinski. He had gone on duty that
+morning as usual at four o’clock, and, like all the rest of the men, he
+had heard of the speed the Pittsburgh-Detroit express was making. He was
+still infuriated by the fact that Elsie had called him a coward the day
+before, and his enraged brain, excited by liquor, conceived the fiendish
+idea of taking revenge on the father of the girl.
+
+That his plan involved the lives of others did not trouble him in the
+least. He waited until all were busy about the roundhouse, then he
+prepared the freight engine it was his business to take out each
+morning. He got up steam, and at the proper moment started the engine
+out of the roundhouse. Since he was performing a regular duty, nobody
+noticed that he ran the engine out onto a track that led directly down
+to the main. When he heard the express whistle as it entered the
+Walbridge block, he gave his engine a small head of steam, jumped off,
+and, running ahead of it, lifted by hand the derail, which he knew had
+already been set from the signal tower.
+
+On a clear morning his operations would have been detected quickly
+enough to prevent damage, but under cover of the heavy fog his plans
+worked to perfection as far as his part was concerned. He had not
+thought it possible for anybody on the down freight to mount his free
+engine and get it under way in time to prevent a collision.
+
+But at the risk of his life Patrick O’Hara had attempted what the
+freight engineer swore could only have been accomplished by “a
+confounded brave man or a fool.”
+
+Patrick stood at his throttle doing his best to hasten the pick-up on
+his engine, but as he glanced back over his shoulder he saw that the
+express was closing in on him in spite of everything he could do. The
+two engines closed up the gap between them until there was scarcely a
+yard left, then the drivers of Patrick’s engine took hold solidly and
+his locomotive shot off down the track and began to draw away from the
+slowing express.
+
+At the moment when the two engines were closest together Macumber had
+closed his eyes as he stood at the throttle. He waited there, rigid, for
+what seemed to him an age, until he heard the terrific blast of the
+whistle on the engine ahead, and opened his eyes to realize that by a
+miracle a wreck had been averted.
+
+Slowly he released his brakes and crept after the free engine, until a
+couple of hundred yards farther down the track they both came to a halt.
+
+In the confusion of the moment nobody noticed Sam Dobinski, thoroughly
+sobered by what he then realized he had attempted, and what would happen
+to him if he were caught, make his escape by slipping away under cover
+of the fog.
+
+Macumber climbed down from his cab, and there was wrath in his heart.
+Convinced that some dirty hostler was responsible for the affair, he
+advanced toward the engine, expressing himself freely and resolved to
+take vengeance without waiting for due process of law.
+
+His grizzly jaw dropped when he saw O’Hara climbing down out of the cab
+to greet him. He knew by all that was holy that Patrick had no business
+to be there.
+
+“What the devil be y’ doin’ there, O’Hara?” he called.
+
+“I’m after doin’ y’ a good turn by keepin’ this free engine out o’ your
+reach, is all.”
+
+When passengers began climbing out of the coaches to learn the trouble,
+and the situation was explained, O’Hara found himself a hero, a
+situation to which the bashful but burly Irishman was not accustomed.
+Without waiting for formal permission to depart, he dodged around the
+end of the engine and started back up the track, calling to Macumber to
+have some yard man take care of the free engine.
+
+“And, Macumber,” he added, “use your influence with Elsie to do me a
+favor some time.”
+
+Macumber climbed back up into the cab and muttered to himself: “A funny
+man, that Patrick O’Hara, riskin’ his neck one minute and the next
+admittin’ he’s afraid of a woman.”
+
+Two days later when Macumber had his time off, he was sitting at home in
+the evening on the front porch. Like all grizzly Irishmen, he had on
+loud socks and no shoes, and his feet were perched up on the porch rail,
+waving bold defiance at every son of England that passed along the
+street. From his virulent pipe the fumes of strong tobacco rose
+contentedly on the evening air.
+
+The huge Patrick came bashfully up the street, looking like a big
+overgrown kid that was just about to take in his first dancing party, he
+was that dressed up, sporting a red tie and the proper equipment to go
+with it. Under his arm there was tucked a small box of candy.
+
+“Good evenin’ to you, Mr. Macumber,” he said, while still advancing up
+the front walk.
+
+Macumber, who was a right deliberate sort of a man, carefully removed
+his pipe from his mouth and thoughtfully spit over the rail of the porch
+before he replied:
+
+“An’ t’ you, also, Mr. O’Hara. Have they caught the runt Polack yet?”
+
+“They have not, Mr. Macumber. It’s a great mystery to me why he did it,
+and it’s a nice pleasant evenin’, isn’t it?”
+
+Pat was trying vainly to conceal the candy box under his hat, but with
+small success. Macumber realized they were both talking to kill time. He
+carefully wiggled his toes in his socks, and regarded those flaming
+garments meditatively before he finally broke into speech.
+
+“Patrick O’Hara, y’ are a big, strong man, and a devil of a brave one to
+do what y’ did t’other day, but ye are one hell of a coward when it
+comes to the wimmen. I have did y’ the favor y’ asked th’ other day, and
+have used me influence with Elsie, but you are the only man living that
+could get me to propose t’ me own daughter for him. Get your big,
+handsome self into the parlor and take her. She is expectin’ y’ with
+considerable impatience.”
+
+
+[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the December 19, 1925 issue
+of _Argosy All-Story Weekly_ magazine.]
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77344 ***
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+<!DOCTYPE html>
+<html lang="en">
+<head>
+  <meta charset="utf-8">
+  <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
+  <title>On Advance of Time</title>
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+<body>
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77344 ***</div>
+<div class='illustration pos-center' style='width: 75%;' id='i001'>
+<img src='images/illus-001.jpg' style='max-width: 100%; height: auto;' alt=''>
+</div>
+<h1>ON ADVANCE OF TIME</h1>
+
+<div class='tac fs11 mb10'>By George Keyports Brady</div>
+
+<p>“Again I ask you, Elsie Macumber, will you marry me?”</p>
+
+<p>“Me, Elsie Macumber, the daughter of a full time engineer on the Pennsy
+railroad, marry the likes of you, Sam Dobinski? You what’s only a
+hostler down at the roundhouse! Isn’t it fine nerve you’re possessin’.”</p>
+
+<p>“Because I’m a hostler y’ won’t marry me, eh?” Dobinski punctuated his
+sentence with a large stream of tobacco juice, as if he wanted to lay
+all the dust about the signal tower where they were standing. “Because
+you got fine black hair and pretty black eyes and a hell of a pride you
+won’t marry a Polack like me. Because you got a pretty face you think
+you can marry any man on the division, and so you snaps your fingers at
+a hostler. Tell me once, what was your father when he first went to work
+on this line?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, Sammy, you’re a hostler. That’s bad enough, but it ain’t the real
+reason I won’t marry y’. It’s because I don’t love you, that’s what. I
+would marry the devil, or even a hostler if I was sure I loved him, but
+if I was dead sure I didn’t love him I wouldn’t marry the guardian angel
+of Saint Peter, if he was t’ ask me for me heart and hand, and offer me
+a crown of glory t’ boot. ’Tain’t pride, Sam Dobinski. It’s just me.”</p>
+
+<p>“It’s five times I’ve asked you, and——”</p>
+
+<p>“And if it was fifty times I’d still be sayin’ no, just as I do now. You
+better stick to that little Duch girl, Marie Gross, that I saw you
+cuddlin’ down in the park th’ other evening. The man I love has got to
+be taller than I am, and brave. Y’ ain’t neither.”</p>
+
+<p>“Y’ say I’m not brave, eh?” Sam flushed to the roots of his hair,
+although his reaction was nearly obscured by his coat of grease and
+soot. His beady eyes narrowed down to dangerous slits, and the hammer
+he held in his hand swung dangerously back and forth. “What for do you
+say that?”</p>
+
+<p>“You know why, Sam Dobinski. Last Saturday you let that young wop dare
+y’ to be seen again with Marie, an’ y’ didn’t knock his teeth out then
+and there. And here it is Wednesday an’ you ain’t had a date with her
+since, an’ what’s more y’ ain’t even asked her for one. She told me so
+herself. So be off with y’ now, and don’t ask me no more.”</p>
+
+<p>A heavy freight, headed out of Toledo for Mansfield, Ohio, came slowly
+along the track, and as it passed Elsie handed a dinner pail up to one
+of the brakemen who boarded with her family. Sam, who had been waiting
+for clearance on this track in order to drive a free engine down to the
+roundhouse, climbed deliberately up into the cab, but his blood was
+boiling furiously.</p>
+
+<p>Elsie, with the long free stride of a big strong girl who has never
+learned the art of “cultured” walking, swung round the tender of the
+engine, and started across lots toward the high road. As she did so, Sam
+grasped the throttle and gave it a vicious jerk.</p>
+
+<p>There was a snort of steam hissing through the valves, as the huge
+drivers slipped swiftly on the rails, unable to get traction so
+suddenly. Instead of easing up on the steam pressure, Sam Dobinski,
+furiously opening the sand pipes, poured sand on the rails. The huge
+drivers, hissing and screeching, tried to take hold, but went on
+spinning ineffectually.</p>
+
+<p>Elsie, hearing the racket, glanced back over her shoulder, and remarked
+to herself, “The blame fool, treatin’ a perfectly good engine like that
+just because a woman tells him the truth about himself!” Then she
+continued along her path, ruminating as she went. “Imagine me, a
+strappin’ big Irish lass, married t’ a little runt of a Polack like Sam.
+Just picture the census taker a-comin’ to the door. ‘Sure now, and who
+are you that lives here,’ says he, polite like a raisin’ of his hat. And
+lookin’ at the likes o’ me he expects t’ hear a good soundin’ name that
+reeks o’ the Emerald Isle, somethin’ like—well, just for fun let’s say
+Mrs. Patrick O’Hara.”</p>
+
+<p>If a certain young giant of a brakeman on the Toledo division had heard
+that last observation he would have made the fur fly proposing to Elsie
+Macumber. But then if he had been there the remark would never have been
+made.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps it was the fact that she had a date with Patrick for that
+evening that put his name in her mind, and there may have been a bit
+more to it than that.</p>
+
+<p>“But instead of sayin’ Mrs. Patrick O’Hara,” Elsie said to herself, “I
+blushes an’ says, Mrs. Sam Dobinski. Then the census man gets even more
+polite because he thinks sure I’m lyin’ to him, but he writes the name
+in the book because it’s his business to record souls and not to save
+them. ‘And how many little Dobinskis be there,’ he says. ‘Fourteen,’
+says I, feelin’ a wee bit embarrassed.”</p>
+
+<p>Elsie burst into a roar of laughter at the idea of herself as the mother
+of children named Dobinski, and continued across the lots, wondering how
+long it would be before Patrick O’Hara would have nerve enough to—well,
+to stop hesitating and get down to the business of buying a ring for
+her.</p>
+
+<p>“If the great big handsome ox weren’t such a bashful, blushin’ thing, I
+could have lined him up weeks ago.”</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile Dobinski recovered sufficiently from his wrath to realize that
+he was abusing one of Mr. Baldwin’s best locomotives. He curtailed the
+steam until the drivers began to behave themselves as their inventor
+intended they should, and the engine moved smoothly off down the siding,
+crossed over onto the now vacated down track, and proceeded toward the
+roundhouse.</p>
+
+<p>When Dobinski put the engine in its stall he went about his customary
+duties, but his fellow workmen declared he swore even more viciously
+than usual, and they observed that he barked his knuckles by giving an
+extra hard jerk on a nut he was tightening.</p>
+
+<p>Finally they saw him pick up his hammer and walk deliberately across the
+roundhouse to a pit where a young Italian was working, and without any
+warning he fell upon his victim so viciously that the man had to be
+carried to the hospital for facial repairs.</p>
+
+<p>Only the timely interference of the workmen prevented Dobinski from
+killing the fellow with the hammer. In the language of the roundhouse
+“the runt Polack was in one hell of a rage.”</p>
+
+<p>At noon, when Dobinski went off duty, instead of going to the “hash
+house” for grub, he proceeded to get royally drunk, and during the
+process gave public vent to uncomplimentary remarks about “that damned
+stuck up Macumber girl.” By the time his companions carried him to his
+room Dobinski was in a fine mood to commit murder.</p>
+
+<div class='tac fs12 mt10 mb05'>II.</div>
+
+<p>In the small hours of the morning the next day the Pittsburgh-Detroit
+Express, running on a seven hour schedule, drew into Mansfield, one hour
+behind time. Heavy weather on the first part of the run, had slowed the
+train down and forced Macumber, the engineer, to lose time.</p>
+
+<p>At Mansfield the station master handed him an “advance of time” order,
+which meant that Macumber was to do his best to make up the lost hour,
+so that the crack express train could live up to its reputation for
+arriving on time in Detroit. Under such an order the engineer knew he
+would have clear track all the way, that all the block signals would
+flash “green eyes” at him as his train roared past.</p>
+
+<p>Once out of Mansfield, Macumber opened up the throttle. For fifteen
+years he had made this run, and he knew every mile of the track
+thoroughly, knew just how much time he dared to make every inch of the
+way.</p>
+
+<p>He sat with his hand on the throttle and watched the steam gage climb,
+while the fireman worked furiously keeping up the pressure. At every
+mile Macumber glanced at the block signals to be sure of his clearance
+ahead, although his orders practically assured him that his track was
+clear.</p>
+
+<p>The white lights of one small town after another flashed into view, and
+quickly faded away in the rear of the on-rushing train. Sixty miles an
+hour the gage registered, and then slowly climbed to sixty-five, and
+still more slowly crept up toward seventy.</p>
+
+<p>Passengers, asleep in their berths, woke up under the swift motion, and
+the more accustomed ones congratulated themselves on the fine time the
+train was making. Some, not so anxious for speed, lay nervously awake
+and worried over the furious pace, while the train plunged on through
+the gradually graying dawn towards Toledo, its first scheduled stop.</p>
+
+<p>At five o’clock the train flashed past the Walbridge block that marks
+the entrance to the Toledo yards. A heavy fog hung low over the Maumee
+valley, making sight ahead impossible beyond a very short range.</p>
+
+<p>Halfway up the yards on the down track, waiting for clearance papers
+from the yardmaster, stood the early freight headed for Pittsburgh.
+Patrick O’Hara, the brakeman on this train, had walked forward to talk
+to the engineer until the train was ready to pull out. Both men heard
+the shriek of the whistle on the express as the train plunged through
+the yards.</p>
+
+<p>“He’s making sixty, and all the time I’ve been on the road,” declared
+O’Hara, “I’ve never known him to go through the yards a mile above
+forty.”</p>
+
+<p>“You’re allowed all the tracks will stand on an advance of time order,”
+replied his companion, “but I’d hate to be making that speed through all
+these switches.”</p>
+
+<p>They both stared ahead into the fog to see the express shoot into view.
+At that instant, and much to his amazement, O’Hara thought he saw a free
+engine moving slowly along a switch track parallel with the up track
+along which the express was advancing. He knew the siding ran out onto
+the main not twenty yards ahead of the place where he was standing.</p>
+
+<p>He calculated the speed of both the engine and the express and realized
+that the free engine would arrive on the main not very far in advance of
+the express, and too close to the express to allow time for stopping
+before a collision occurred.</p>
+
+<p>He spoke to the freight engineer about it, but the man assured him that
+the up track switch signal showed a green eye, which meant that the
+derail on the siding would prevent anything from arriving on the main
+ahead of the express. But in spite of this assurance, O’Hara continued
+to strain his eyes as he gazed into the heavy fog ahead and watched the
+ghostly form of the free engine creeping over the rails.</p>
+
+<p>Then he heard an ominous click which he instantly recognized as the
+lifting of the hand control of the derailing device.</p>
+
+<p>Visibility was so low, due to the dense fog, that he could not
+distinguish the person who lifted the derailer. Was it possible the
+infernal fool did not know the express was thundering along the up track
+at that very instant?</p>
+
+<p>Everybody in the yard had been discussing the speed which constant
+telegraphic reports indicated Macumber to be making. Yet here was some
+stupid hostler letting a free engine out onto the main at a moment when
+a wreck would be inevitable.</p>
+
+<p>There was no doubt about the derailer having been lifted, because the
+free engine, without a pilot, glided out onto the up-track. The freight
+engineer turned pale as he realized what was about to happen.</p>
+
+<p>“God help the express,” he muttered to himself.</p>
+
+<p>The express could be heard rushing up the track at a speed only possible
+under advance of time orders. Otherwise an experienced and trusted
+engineer would have been proceeding more cautiously through the yards. A
+wreck appeared absolutely certain.</p>
+
+<p>In an instant O’Hara realized that there was but one possibility of
+escaping it, and that was very slim. Without taking time to think of the
+awful risk he was taking, he jumped down from the cab, where he was
+watching, and ran impulsively toward the engine as it glided onto the
+open track. He bounded onto the catcher, clambered madly up to the rail,
+and raced wildly along the boiler to the cab.</p>
+
+<p>Whether the engine had up a full head of steam, he did not know, but in
+that respect luck was with him, as he saw by a glance at the gage. He
+clutched at the throttle, with the roar of the advancing express in his
+ears, but not being an experienced engineer he lost a precious moment by
+pulling the throttle too far open, so that the drivers began to fly on
+the rails in spite of the fact that the engine already had some headway.</p>
+
+<p>Realizing his error instantly, he shut off part of the steam and began
+frantically to pour sand on the track.</p>
+
+<p>Behind O’Hara sat Macumber at the throttle of his engine. Secure in the
+evidence of clearance which the succession of green signal lights gave
+him, he was plunging along at top speed.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly in the fog ahead of him he saw the form of the free engine
+looming up. At first he could not realize the awful possibility as a
+reality; for a moment because of the strain on his eyes from looking
+into the fog, he thought he must be seeing things, but in the next
+instant he saw that a wreck was almost a certainty.</p>
+
+<p>Instinctively he applied the brakes, but even in the act of doing so he
+knew that stopping was impossible in such a short distance. He thought
+of the lives at stake in the cars behind him, and recognized that there
+was danger of throwing the train off the track if the brakes went on too
+suddenly at the speed he was traveling. However, he had no time to
+reason about it, and as there was nothing else to do he threw the air
+valve wide open. The wheels screeched as the brakes locked and forced
+them to skid on the rails.</p>
+
+<p>For an instant Macumber released the brakes to relieve the strain, then
+locked them again. The huge iron monster shuddered and groaned under the
+torture of the strain, but it had been built strong and true, and in
+spite of everything it held to the rails, while sparks flew from the
+heated wheels in showers.</p>
+
+<p>Still, to stop so much momentum in such a short space seemed out of the
+question. The express continued to close up the short remaining gap
+between it and the engine ahead. Macumber closed his eyes helplessly for
+what he thought was to be the moment of the crash, and as he did so
+muttered to himself:</p>
+
+<p>“Where did this engine come from, anyway?”</p>
+
+<div class='tac fs12 mt10 mb05'>III.</div>
+
+<p>Standing back of the yards, hidden by the depth of the fog, and waiting
+for the crash that he hoped would put an end to the father of Elsie,
+stood the drunken-eyed hostler, Sam Dobinski. He had gone on duty that
+morning as usual at four o’clock, and, like all the rest of the men, he
+had heard of the speed the Pittsburgh-Detroit express was making. He was
+still infuriated by the fact that Elsie had called him a coward the day
+before, and his enraged brain, excited by liquor, conceived the fiendish
+idea of taking revenge on the father of the girl.</p>
+
+<p>That his plan involved the lives of others did not trouble him in the
+least. He waited until all were busy about the roundhouse, then he
+prepared the freight engine it was his business to take out each
+morning. He got up steam, and at the proper moment started the engine
+out of the roundhouse. Since he was performing a regular duty, nobody
+noticed that he ran the engine out onto a track that led directly down
+to the main. When he heard the express whistle as it entered the
+Walbridge block, he gave his engine a small head of steam, jumped off,
+and, running ahead of it, lifted by hand the derail, which he knew had
+already been set from the signal tower.</p>
+
+<p>On a clear morning his operations would have been detected quickly
+enough to prevent damage, but under cover of the heavy fog his plans
+worked to perfection as far as his part was concerned. He had not
+thought it possible for anybody on the down freight to mount his free
+engine and get it under way in time to prevent a collision.</p>
+
+<p>But at the risk of his life Patrick O’Hara had attempted what the
+freight engineer swore could only have been accomplished by “a
+confounded brave man or a fool.”</p>
+
+<p>Patrick stood at his throttle doing his best to hasten the pick-up on
+his engine, but as he glanced back over his shoulder he saw that the
+express was closing in on him in spite of everything he could do. The
+two engines closed up the gap between them until there was scarcely a
+yard left, then the drivers of Patrick’s engine took hold solidly and
+his locomotive shot off down the track and began to draw away from the
+slowing express.</p>
+
+<p>At the moment when the two engines were closest together Macumber had
+closed his eyes as he stood at the throttle. He waited there, rigid, for
+what seemed to him an age, until he heard the terrific blast of the
+whistle on the engine ahead, and opened his eyes to realize that by a
+miracle a wreck had been averted.</p>
+
+<p>Slowly he released his brakes and crept after the free engine, until a
+couple of hundred yards farther down the track they both came to a halt.</p>
+
+<p>In the confusion of the moment nobody noticed Sam Dobinski, thoroughly
+sobered by what he then realized he had attempted, and what would happen
+to him if he were caught, make his escape by slipping away under cover
+of the fog.</p>
+
+<p>Macumber climbed down from his cab, and there was wrath in his heart.
+Convinced that some dirty hostler was responsible for the affair, he
+advanced toward the engine, expressing himself freely and resolved to
+take vengeance without waiting for due process of law.</p>
+
+<p>His grizzly jaw dropped when he saw O’Hara climbing down out of the cab
+to greet him. He knew by all that was holy that Patrick had no business
+to be there.</p>
+
+<p>“What the devil be y’ doin’ there, O’Hara?” he called.</p>
+
+<p>“I’m after doin’ y’ a good turn by keepin’ this free engine out o’ your
+reach, is all.”</p>
+
+<p>When passengers began climbing out of the coaches to learn the trouble,
+and the situation was explained, O’Hara found himself a hero, a
+situation to which the bashful but burly Irishman was not accustomed.
+Without waiting for formal permission to depart, he dodged around the
+end of the engine and started back up the track, calling to Macumber to
+have some yard man take care of the free engine.</p>
+
+<p>“And, Macumber,” he added, “use your influence with Elsie to do me a
+favor some time.”</p>
+
+<p>Macumber climbed back up into the cab and muttered to himself: “A funny
+man, that Patrick O’Hara, riskin’ his neck one minute and the next
+admittin’ he’s afraid of a woman.”</p>
+
+<p>Two days later when Macumber had his time off, he was sitting at home in
+the evening on the front porch. Like all grizzly Irishmen, he had on
+loud socks and no shoes, and his feet were perched up on the porch rail,
+waving bold defiance at every son of England that passed along the
+street. From his virulent pipe the fumes of strong tobacco rose
+contentedly on the evening air.</p>
+
+<p>The huge Patrick came bashfully up the street, looking like a big
+overgrown kid that was just about to take in his first dancing party, he
+was that dressed up, sporting a red tie and the proper equipment to go
+with it. Under his arm there was tucked a small box of candy.</p>
+
+<p>“Good evenin’ to you, Mr. Macumber,” he said, while still advancing up
+the front walk.</p>
+
+<p>Macumber, who was a right deliberate sort of a man, carefully removed
+his pipe from his mouth and thoughtfully spit over the rail of the porch
+before he replied:</p>
+
+<p>“An’ t’ you, also, Mr. O’Hara. Have they caught the runt Polack yet?”</p>
+
+<p>“They have not, Mr. Macumber. It’s a great mystery to me why he did it,
+and it’s a nice pleasant evenin’, isn’t it?”</p>
+
+<p>Pat was trying vainly to conceal the candy box under his hat, but with
+small success. Macumber realized they were both talking to kill time. He
+carefully wiggled his toes in his socks, and regarded those flaming
+garments meditatively before he finally broke into speech.</p>
+
+<p>“Patrick O’Hara, y’ are a big, strong man, and a devil of a brave one to
+do what y’ did t’other day, but ye are one hell of a coward when it
+comes to the wimmen. I have did y’ the favor y’ asked th’ other day, and
+have used me influence with Elsie, but you are the only man living that
+could get me to propose t’ me own daughter for him. Get your big,
+handsome self into the parlor and take her. She is expectin’ y’ with
+considerable impatience.”</p>
+
+<div class='tn'>
+Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the December 19, 1925 issue
+of <i>Argosy All-Story Weekly</i> magazine.
+</div>
+
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77344 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for eBook #77344
+(https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77344)