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The Pintsch burned dim; the Teton song crooned through the ventilators; the wheels of the Lalla Rookh struck muffled at the fish-plates; the curtains of Section Eleven swung slowly in and out of the berth but the head was not there. A creepy feeling touched his back; his first impulse was to ignore the incident, go into the stateroom and lie down.
McCloud at last gave the awaited signal, and, with keen-eyed, anxious men watching every revolution of the cautious driving-wheels, the engine, hissing and pausing as the air-brakes went off and on, pushed the light caboose slowly out on the rough spur to its extreme end and stopped with the pilot facing the main track at right angles; but before it had reached its halting-place spike-mauls were ringing at the fish-plates where a moment before it had left the line on the curve.
Generally it was a genial copper-brown; now it was a sickly yellow. "You will pardon me, Mr. Audley," he said, with asthmatic breathlessness. "I have great apprehensions. Your fish-plates, they are cleared away with the knife and fork on them!" "Well, I hope so," said the chairman, with some warmth. "You see him?" panted the excited hotel keeper; "you see the waiter who took them away?
When the inclement weather set in, for want of something better to do, I drifted back towards the lone prairie section reservation to take my place in the ranks of those who tamp the ties and tighten the "fish-plates," which hold the rails together.
The tableware for the most part was of pewter, some four dozen plates being listed, together with porringer, chafing-dish, fish-plates and pie-plates. Among the silver was a punch bowl, candlesticks, serving dish, several spoons and the cover of a tobacco box.
The jointing of the rails is excessively simple. The rail to the right hand is furnished with two fish-plates; that to the left with a small steel plate riveted underneath the rail and projecting 1¼ in. beyond it.
These rails had been laid down as far as could be done without danger of attracting attention, and now it was merely a case of completing a juncture with the line, and arranging the points as they had been before. The sleepers had never been removed, and the rails, fish-plates and rivets were all ready, for we had taken them from a siding on the abandoned portion of the line.
The only accident that can happen to the track is the breaking of a fish-plate. It happens often that the fish-plates get twisted, owing to rough handling on the part of the workmen, and break in the act of being straightened.
When it was found, it proved Cranford's assertion in part. There was a gap in the rail on the river side of the line, but it was not a fracture. At one of the joints the fish-plates were missing, and the rail-ends were sprung apart sidewise sufficiently to let the wheel flanges pass through. Groner went down on his hands and knees with the lantern held low, and made another discovery.
It is only necessary to lay the lengths end to end with one another, making the rail which is furnished with the small plate lie between the two fish-plates, and the junction can at once be effected by fish-bolts. A single fish-bolt, passing through the holes in the fish-plates, and through an oval hole in the rail end, is sufficient for the purpose.
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