CHAPTER XXI.

MAKING UP TIME.

It seemed to me, if the locomotive ran over that child, that I could not have the audacity to live another day, though it would not be my fault. It was so awful, so horrible, that I prayed to be saved from the catastrophe. I did not feel as though I could ever hold up my head again if that innocent little child was sacrificed. It would be better that the Lake Shore Railroad should be sunk at the bottom of the lake than that a single precious life should be lost.

My blood ran cold through my veins as I gazed at the little child, who seemed to be paralyzed with astonishment as the iron monster swept towards her. It was a little girl, not more than four or five years old. The woman who ran shrieking towards the track was doubtless her mother. What a moment of agony it was to her! My heart bled for her, and the triumph of the Lightning Express sank into insignificance as I contemplated the thrilling scene.

As the engine came nearer to the little girl, my hopes rose higher, for our speed was effectually checked by the efforts we had made. Tom Walton was on the cow-catcher, and I knew that he would do the right thing at the right time. The child showed no disposition to move; indeed, I think she had no power to do so, even if she comprehended the nature of her peril. As we came near enough, I saw her eyes set in a kind of fixed stare, which indicated astonishment rather than fear.

“Jam down the brakes, Lewis!” I called to the fireman, as I labored to check the speed of the engine; and I must do him the justice to say that he was not at all backward in obeying my order, though I doubt whether he would have been equally zealous if it had been I, instead of the child, who was on the track.

The speed of the train was checked, but it was not stopped; and so far as the life of the child was concerned, we might as well have been going at the rate of forty as five miles an hour, for the slightest blow of the cow-catcher would have killed her. All this transpired within a few seconds. Hardly an instant elapsed after the steam was shut off, and the brakes put on, before I was trying to back the engine. The sparks flew under the drivewheels, but still the iron mass swept on towards the child, whose instants appeared to be numbered. It seemed to me that I stopped breathing as the little child disappeared behind the forward part of the locomotive. I expected to hear a shriek--to be conscious that the child was a gory, mangled, and shapeless mass beneath.

Almost at the same moment, Tom Walton straightened up, holding the child in one arm. The engine had almost stopped, and was still groaning and struggling under my ineffectual labors to bring it to a complete stand. My heart leaped the instant I saw the child in the arms of my friend. My blood, rolled back by the fearful suspense, seemed to be bursting through my veins, and I was disposed to shout for joy.

[Illustration: THE RESCUE.--Page 246.]

“She is safe!” cried Tom, at the top of his voice, as he leaped from the engine upon the ground, and placed the little girl in the arms of her mother.

I saw the horror-stricken parent press the little one to her bosom. I heard the sob of convulsive agony which attended the tremendous reaction. It was like passing from death to life for her, and I felt that I could almost understand even a mother’s emotion.

“Thank God! Thank God!” I cried; and they were not idle words that I uttered, for it seemed to me that the Good Father had interposed to save me from what I should have remembered with horror all the rest of my life.

I could not but regard it as an interposition of Providence in my favor, rather than the child’s; but in the mother’s favor rather than that of either of us, for she would have been the greatest sufferer. I am sure this incident had a powerful influence upon me, not for the moment, or the day only, but for all the rest of my life. It has kept my eyes open when I was disposed to close them; it has decided the question of running a risk when nothing else seemed to restrain me; it taught me to regard human life as too sacred to be trifled with.

I saw the fond mother clasp her child, and with the reaction came the thought that I was running the Lightning Express train; that the reputation of Middleport depended upon the time I should make.

“Jump on, Tom!” I called to my friend, as he paused for a moment to gaze at the mother and her rescued child.

“That was a narrow squeak!” said he; and the whole face of the generous fellow expanded into one smile of satisfaction.

“It was, indeed, Tom,” I replied, as I let on the steam, and whistled to take off the brakes. “It was a merciful providence that you were on the engine with me. If you had not been, the child would have been dead at this instant.”

“I am glad I was here, then. I think that woman will keep her child in the house after this,” replied he.

I crowded on the steam again, and once more the train flew like the wind along the lake shore. All the time I was thinking of that little child; of the anguish that would have filled that cottage by the lake, at this moment, if Tom Walton had not happened to be on the engine with me. I could have done no more than I did do, and though the train was on the very point of stopping, there was still momentum enough left in it to have crushed the little one to death. I was grateful to God as I had never been before for sparing me such a calamity.

In the exhilaration of the moment I urged forward the locomotive till I saw the steamer which was waiting to convey the passengers across the river. I looked at my gold watch, thought of Grace Toppleton, as I always did when I glanced at its face, and almost forgot why I had taken it from my pocket in thinking of the expression of her beautiful face when I should relate to her the thrilling incident which had just occurred. I was on time; I was ahead of time, for I had driven the engine at a furious speed. But I had worked carefully; I had favored it on the curves, and I felt as safe myself as if I had been in my father’s house.

The brakes were put on, and the train stopped at the rude pier which had been built for the steamer. Major Toppleton had carefully instructed Captain Underwood, and the boat was ready to start on the instant. Hardly had the cars stopped before the deck hands began to load the baggage on the trucks. Everybody worked as if the salvation of the nation depended upon his individual exertions, and I am afraid that some of the passengers had occasion to weep as they saw the rude manner in which their baggage was tossed about. I do not think it would have taken a moment longer for the men to handle the trunks respectfully--for this seems to me to be the proper word, since the feelings of the traveller are so largely centred in his luggage.

Major Toppleton stood on the platform, and drove up the men. He did not seem to care whose trunk was smashed if he only succeeded in carrying out his own plans. He had allowed just one hour for the transportation of the passengers from Middleport to the station in Ucayga, and I think he would cheerfully have given ten thousand dollars rather than fail in the enterprise.

Tommy stood on the platform near his father; but there was no expression of satisfaction on his face. He had labored to defeat the enterprise in order to overwhelm me. It was disaster to him, and I am inclined to think he was still holding in lively remembrance the disobedience of which I had been guilty three months before.

The trucks, piled high with trunks and valises, were wheeled on the forward deck of the Middleport, from which they could be rolled to the baggage car on the other side when the train arrived. The boat started. The long experience of Captain Underwood enabled him to clear or make a landing in the shortest possible time. But fifteen minutes had been allowed for getting the passengers over, and I had the satisfaction of seeing the trucks on the platform upon the other side of the river full five minutes before the train was due. My anxiety had come to an end. I looked upon the Lightning Express as a glorious triumph, and, in contrast with it, I could not help thinking how cheap and mean we should have felt if the train had rushed off before the passengers arrived. The failure would have been charged upon me, and I am afraid I could not have saved myself by exposing the conspiracy which had been instigated by Tommy.

The trains from the east and from the west, which passed each other at Ucayga, were both on time, as they generally were. I saw the truck unloaded, then loaded again with the baggage of the passengers who were going up the lake, and in a few moments the Middleport was crossing the river. The train was to leave at quarter past ten, but the promptness of the steamer’s people allowed me five minutes of grace. Lewis had left the engine, when he knew that it was his duty to “oil up,” and I was performing this work myself, when Major Toppleton came up, his face beaming with smiles. My fireman was talking with Tommy on the platform.

“Well, Wolf, this works to a charm,” said the magnate, rubbing his hands with satisfaction.

“Yes, sir; we came through on time, after all,” I replied, as I poured the oil on one of the piston rods.

“I heard there was a child on the track this side of the Springs.”

“Yes, sir; Tom Walton, who was on the engine with me, went out on the cow-catcher and saved it. I think we should have lost the trip if Tom had not been with me,” I continued, fully explaining the exciting incident.

“Tom is a good fellow, and he always has his head near the ends of his fingers,” answered the major.

I wanted to tell him that Tommy and my fireman had done what they could to defeat the great enterprise; but I concluded that it would be useless to do so, for the son was the master. I had made a good impression in Tom Walton’s favor, and I reserved my next step till a more convenient season.