A Fool For Love | Page 7

carefully reaching her wrap from the rack.
"I am so glad to have met you," she said, giving him the tips of her
fingers and going back to the conventionalities as if they had never
been ignored.

But the sincerity in Winton's reply transcended the conventional form
of it.
"Indeed, the pleasure has been wholly mine, I assure you. I hope the
future will be kind to me and let me see more of you."
"Who knows?" she rejoined, smiling at him level-eyed. "The world has
been steadily growing smaller since Shakespeare called it 'narrow.'"
He caught quickly at the straw of hope. "Then we need not say
good-by?"
"No; let it be auf Wiedersehen," she said; and he stood aside to allow
her to join her party.
Two hours later, when Adams was reading in his section and Winton
was smoking his short pipe in the men's compartment and thinking
things unspeakable with Virginia Carteret for a nucleus, there was a
series of sharp whistle-shrieks, a sudden grinding of the brakes, and a
jarring stop of the Limited--a stop not down on the time-card.
Winton was among the first to reach the head of the long train. The halt
was in a little depression of the bleak plain, and the train-men were in
conference over a badly-derailed engine when Winton came up. A vast
herd of cattle was lumbering away into the darkness, and a mangled
carcass under the wheels of the locomotive sufficiently explained the
accident.
"Well, there's only the one thing to do," was the engineer's verdict.
"That's for somebody to mog back to Arroyo to wire for the
wreck-wagon."
"Yes, by gum! and that means all night," growled the conductor.
There was a stir in the gathering throng of half-alarmed and all-curious
passengers, and a red-faced, white-mustached gentleman, whose soft
southern accent was utterly at variance with his manner, hurled a
question bolt-like at the conductor.

"All night, you say, seh? Then we miss ouh Denver connections?"
"You can bet to win on that," was the curt reply.
"Damn!" said the ruddy-faced gentleman; and then in a lower tone: "I
beg your pahdon, my deah Virginia; I was totally unaware of your
presence."
Winton threw off his overcoat.
"If you will take a bit of help from an outsider, I think we needn't wait
for the wrecking-car," he said to the dubious trainmen. "It's bad, but not
so bad as it looks. What do you say?"
Now, as everyone knows, it is not in the nature of operative railway
men to brook interference even of the helpful sort. But they are as
quick as other folk to recognize the man in essence, as well as to know
the clan slogan when they hear it. Winton did not wait for objections,
but took over the command as one in authority.
"Think we can't do it? I'll show you. Up on the tank, one of you, and
heave down the jacks and frogs. We'll have her on the steel again
before you can say your prayers."
At the hearty command, churlish reluctance vanished and everybody
lent a willing hand. In two minutes the crew of the Limited knew it was
working under a master. The frogs were adjusted under the derailed
wheels, the jack-screws were braced to lift and push with the nicest
accuracy, and all was ready for the attempt to back the engine in trial.
But now the engineer shook his bead.
"I ain't the artist to move her gently enough with all that string o'
dinkeys behind her," he said unhopefully.
"No?" said Winton. "Come up into the cab with and I'll show you
how." And he climbed to the driver's footboard with the doubting
engineer at his heels.

The reversing-lever went over with a clash; the air whistled into the
brakes; and Winton began to ease the throttle open. The steam sang
into the cylinders, the huge machine trembling like a living thing under
the hand of a master.
Slowly and by almost imperceptible degrees the life of the pent-up
boiler power crept into the pistons and out through the connecting rods
to the wheels. With the first thrill of the gripping tires Winton leaned
from the window to watch the derailed trucks climb by half-inches up
the inclined planes of the frogs.
At the critical instant, when the entire weight of the forward half of the
engine was poising for the drop upon the rails, he gave the precise
added impulse. The big ten-wheeler coughed hoarsely and spat fire; the
driving-wheels made a quick half-turn backward; and a cheer from the
onlookers marked the little triumph of mind over matter.
Winton found Miss Carteret holding his overcoat when he swung down
from the cab, and he fancied her enthusiasm was tempered with
something remotely like embarrassment.