the meaning behind the strategy didn’t become clear to them. At the open door of the speeding car, Smitty caught Mac by the thighs and lifted him straight up till the Scot could grasp the shank of the old hand-brake wheel atop the car. The shrieking rush of air caused by the train’s speed helped hold Mac in place.
Smitty tossed Benson up the same way, then swarmed up himself like a great gorilla. For just an instant his eyes rested speculatively on the hand brake, but he knew the thing had no meaning here. He could twist it clear off, and the speed of the train wouldn’t be slowed enough, in the short distance left to the curve, even to notice.
“Here we go!” his great voice loomed.
The roar of the locomotive behind them had risen to a steady shriek. The flatcars loaded with rails were doing a kind of devil’s dance along the track, seeming almost to leave it at times, such was the pace.
They had almost reached the sharp curve ahead!
Benson was crouching on the sloping left side of the car roof, the lake side. Smitty and Mac had taken similar positions, several yards apart.
They swayed there on the balls of their feet, on the lake side of the jerking car. Benson hadn’t had to simplify his orders any more. Their quick brains had understood when they were on the car top.
The old day coach hit the beginning of the curve. With its first awful lurch, Benson and Smitty and Mac jumped.
Like three stones shot from a sling, their three bodies whirled out, away from the track, over the twenty-foot drop, a dozen feet out into the lake. The terrible snap of the car at the curve, plus their own impetus, had catapulted them an unbelievable distance.
They hit—not hard earth as they would have struck had they leaped before—but waist-deep water. Hitting even this, with such force, was a little like being rolled over granite paving blocks. But at least it wasn’t sure death.
They plowed like surfboards over the water for a dozen yards, then sank, but came to the surface again in time—so short had been the elapsed interval—to see the last of the work train.
For an instant it had seemed that the three cars and the engine would actually make the curve, in spite of the terrible speed. But the instant hadn’t endured. Halfway around, the old day coach tore from its forward truck and launched out over the embankment into the lake. The three flatcars and the locomotive followed it, like obedient sheep following a leader’s change of course, while the loose truck and car wheels went skimming on end around the curve and off down the track.
The coach struck the water with a geyser splash like the eruption of Old Faithful. It kept on going.
On the flatcars behind, the chains holding the tons of rails did queer, snaky things, and the rails began to cascade forward, driven by their original impetus.
The rails went into the rear end of the wooden coach, and on through and out the front end, like giant needles piercing through tissue paper. And behind them came the engine. Hundreds of tons of train, going at well over a mile a minute, takes a lot of stopping.
The day coach was shoved out till it was clear under water before the forward movement ceased. By then it was so pierced by rails that it looked like a giant’s pincushion. And then the water hit the locomotive’s firebox—and that was that. The whole west beach of Lake Michigan seemed to rise up into the air, spit out rails and sand and pieces of car wheels. And then there was silence.
Mac stood up in water about breast-high and wiggled both arms. They seemed to work all right. He moved his neck and legs. He was apparently unfractured anywhere; and Smitty and Benson seemed that way, too. It had been a narrow squeak indeed, but now all seemed clear sailing. Whereupon, the Scot instantly began to view the world with gloomy pessimism.
Even his pessimism was put to it to function after such an escape. But finally he found something to croak about.
“Whoosh!” he
Smitty tossed Benson up the same way, then swarmed up himself like a great gorilla. For just an instant his eyes rested speculatively on the hand brake, but he knew the thing had no meaning here. He could twist it clear off, and the speed of the train wouldn’t be slowed enough, in the short distance left to the curve, even to notice.
“Here we go!” his great voice loomed.
The roar of the locomotive behind them had risen to a steady shriek. The flatcars loaded with rails were doing a kind of devil’s dance along the track, seeming almost to leave it at times, such was the pace.
They had almost reached the sharp curve ahead!
Benson was crouching on the sloping left side of the car roof, the lake side. Smitty and Mac had taken similar positions, several yards apart.
They swayed there on the balls of their feet, on the lake side of the jerking car. Benson hadn’t had to simplify his orders any more. Their quick brains had understood when they were on the car top.
The old day coach hit the beginning of the curve. With its first awful lurch, Benson and Smitty and Mac jumped.
Like three stones shot from a sling, their three bodies whirled out, away from the track, over the twenty-foot drop, a dozen feet out into the lake. The terrible snap of the car at the curve, plus their own impetus, had catapulted them an unbelievable distance.
They hit—not hard earth as they would have struck had they leaped before—but waist-deep water. Hitting even this, with such force, was a little like being rolled over granite paving blocks. But at least it wasn’t sure death.
They plowed like surfboards over the water for a dozen yards, then sank, but came to the surface again in time—so short had been the elapsed interval—to see the last of the work train.
For an instant it had seemed that the three cars and the engine would actually make the curve, in spite of the terrible speed. But the instant hadn’t endured. Halfway around, the old day coach tore from its forward truck and launched out over the embankment into the lake. The three flatcars and the locomotive followed it, like obedient sheep following a leader’s change of course, while the loose truck and car wheels went skimming on end around the curve and off down the track.
The coach struck the water with a geyser splash like the eruption of Old Faithful. It kept on going.
On the flatcars behind, the chains holding the tons of rails did queer, snaky things, and the rails began to cascade forward, driven by their original impetus.
The rails went into the rear end of the wooden coach, and on through and out the front end, like giant needles piercing through tissue paper. And behind them came the engine. Hundreds of tons of train, going at well over a mile a minute, takes a lot of stopping.
The day coach was shoved out till it was clear under water before the forward movement ceased. By then it was so pierced by rails that it looked like a giant’s pincushion. And then the water hit the locomotive’s firebox—and that was that. The whole west beach of Lake Michigan seemed to rise up into the air, spit out rails and sand and pieces of car wheels. And then there was silence.
Mac stood up in water about breast-high and wiggled both arms. They seemed to work all right. He moved his neck and legs. He was apparently unfractured anywhere; and Smitty and Benson seemed that way, too. It had been a narrow squeak indeed, but now all seemed clear sailing. Whereupon, the Scot instantly began to view the world with gloomy pessimism.
Even his pessimism was put to it to function after such an escape. But finally he found something to croak about.
“Whoosh!” he
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