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"I hope that hasn't been stolen too," said Cain. Now they were at the station. They knew that it would be impossible to make the necessary speed with a hand-car. If they were to reach the runaways they must obtain an engine, and quickly at that. "By all that's lucky," shouted Murphy; "there's 'The Yonah'!" There, right alongside the platform, was the welcome engine.
Fortunately "nobody was hurt on our side." The truck was soon placed on the road again; enough hands were left to repair the track, and with all the power of determined will and muscle, they pushed on to Etowah Station, some twenty miles above. Here, most fortunately, Major Cooper's old coal engine, the "Yonah" one of the first engines on the State road was standing out, fired up.
But we must return to Fuller and his party, whom we have unconsciously left on the old "Yonah," making their way to Kingston.
It was about to start on a trip to the iron furnaces. The steam was up; the fire was burning brightly. Etowah was ablaze with excitement as soon as the pursuers explained what had happened. "I must have 'The Yonah," cried Fuller, "and I want some armed men to go along with me!" No question now about seizing the engine; no question as to the armed men.
The engine which Fuller now had was smaller and slower than the Yonah. The engineer, upon entering Kingston, had allowed the steam pressure to sink, and they crawled slowly from the station. Five minutes later they came to the break in the telegraph lines, and Fuller knew that his message to Chattanooga had not gone through. They worked feverishly at the engine, but the steam pressure rose slowly.
The Yonah would have been on its way up the branch before the hand car arrived. As it was, the engineer of the Yonah was climbing aboard when his attention was attracted by the yells of the men on the approaching car, flying down the track as fast as a hand car ever traveled. He waited, wondering what was wrong. Fuller ran to the Yonah, while his men pushed the hand car from the track.
With hardly any delay Fuller was steaming to the northward with "The Yonah," and the tender was crowded with plucky Southerners carrying loaded rifles. The speed of the engine was at the rate of a mile a minute, and how it did fly, to be sure. Yet it seemed as if Kingston would never be reached.
The Yonah slipped from the turn-table, swung into the main track and started in pursuit. The throttle was open wide. Fuller and Murphy exchanged glances; the same thought had crossed their minds. If the Yanks had torn up the track ahead of them, the Yonah would be wrecked, and, traveling at such speed, a wreck meant death for them all.
At Etowah we found the "Yonah," an old locomotive owned by an iron company, standing with steam up; but not wishing to alarm the enemy till the local freight had been safely met, we left it unharmed. Kingston, thirty miles from the starting-point, was safely reached. A train from Rome, Georgia, on a branch road, had just arrived and was waiting for the morning mail our train.
They jumped to their feet, pushed the car over the obstruction, and were soon on their way again, going even more rapidly than before. In this way the pursuit led by Captain Fuller came to Etowah Station. Here he found the old "Yonah," a locomotive belonging to the Mark A. Cooper Iron Works. The "Yonah" was a superannuated engine, but Captain Fuller pressed it and its crew into his service.
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