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Then, shivering as the blasts struck the cab, we crouched, alternately frozen and roasted, in the most sheltered corner we could find, while, feeling the pulse of the great quivering machine with a grimy hand, Robertson hurled his engine along past Carberry and the slumbering Portage, until at last, just before the dawn, sheeted white from head-lamp to tank-rail and dripping below, she came pounding into Winnipeg.
Then the roar of blown-off steam grew still, and with loud blasts from the funnels that rapidly quickened they swept again down the slight grade like snorting giants, the huge head-lamp casting a blaze of radiance before them.
You don't know all you have done. I will not forget " Somebody waved a lantern, a whistle shrieked, and the locomotive bell began to toll. Lister jumped back and seized the rails above the platform steps as the car lurched forward. They moved faster, the beam of the head-lamp faded, and the train rolled on into the dark. When the train started Lister did not go to his berth.
"If you are resolved to go, I may be able to help you off," Lister said. "I must go," she replied, and although Lister remarked that her hands trembled as she smoothed her crumpled dress, her voice was steady. "Very well," he said. "Come along." When he opened the vestibule door the train was stopping and the beam from a standing locomotive's head-lamp flooded the track with dazzling light.
Startled by the blaze of the head-lamp and the scream of the whistle, one of the horses plunged and kicked; a wheel of the wagon, sinking in the loose ballast, skidded against a tie; and Prescott stood between the rails, struggling to extricate the beasts, while the great locomotive rushed down on them.
The girl, however, was fearless, and at length they reached the front, and stood beneath the big head-lamp with the triangular frame of the pilot running down to the rails at their feet. The ledge along the top of it was narrow, and when his companion sat down George felt concerned about her safety.
Warm gleams shone out from the store windows upon the hard-trodden snow; a train of lighted cars stood at the station, and the intense white glare of the head-lamp mingled with the beam flung far across the prairie by a freight locomotive on a side-track. Groups of people strolled up and down the low platform, waiting to see the train go out, and their voices rang merrily on the frosty air.
The great light was very close. I could see the cars behind it and hear the grind of brakes, while a man was bent double over a lever where the blaze of our head-lamp ran along the ground. The engine rocked beneath us; there was a heavy lurch as the fore-wheels struck the points; then Robertson laughed exultantly and wiped his greasy face.
Heatherlegh of Simla, volunteered to bear me company as far as our roads lay together. I accepted his offer with gratitude. My instinct had not deceived me. It lay in readiness in the Mall, and, in what seemed devilish mockery of our ways, with a lighted head-lamp. The red-whiskered man went to the point at once, in a manner that showed he had been thinking over it all dinner time.
Just then a bright, blinking spot emerged from the dark at the other end of the line and increased in radiance as it came forward, flickering along the slope of stone. It was the head-lamp of the locomotive that pushed the massive concrete block they waited for.
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