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Not so fast as to hurry the greedy flames that were doing their worst upon him, but at a rate that ran them over the river and upon solid earth as the fuel in the tender burst into a blaze and the forward car began to crackle and smoke in the hot draught. At that point steam and air-brakes did their work in effecting a safe halt.
Since the train was running wholly on the air-brakes there was nothing for the fireman to do, and Jackson, the loyalest understudy Gallagher had ever known, tumbled from his box in a doze, staggered across the gang-way into the half-filled tender, and fell like a man anæsthetized full length on the coal. Gallagher did not try to arouse him.
The men on No. 4 had only time to say that four miles out from Argenta, down the Run beyond Narrow Gauge Junction, their whistle suddenly shrieked, the air-brakes were set with a clamp that jolted the whole train, and they slowed down just enough not to knock into flinders a hand-car that was sailing ahead of them, down-grade.
"How are the air-brakes working?" asked Sinclair. "First-rate." "Then, if you slowed down now, you could stop the train in a third of her length, couldn't you?" "Easy, if you don't mind being shaken up a bit." "That is good. How is the country about the xth mile-post?" "Dead level, and smooth." "Good again.
Suddenly the air-brakes ground sharply upon the wheels, shrill whistlings from the 266 sounded the stop signal, and past the end of the slowing service-car a trackman ran frantically up the line toward the following passenger, yelling and swinging his stripped coat like a madman.
We saw the wreck, all of us, from the back platform of my car. Williams had just pulled us out on the old spur. Just before Cranford shut off and jammed on his air-brakes, a man ran down the track, swinging his arms like a madman. Of course, there wasn't the time or any chance for me to identify him, and I saw him only for the second or two intervening, and with his back toward us.