on his face showed he had no intention of bringing the train to a standstill till he had rounded the curve and saw the situation for himself.
"Don't lose your pluck, sir," he said to Jack. "They've sent that spalpeen a long way ahead to flag us; but nothing but a torn-up rail will stop us now."
A moment later they turned the curve, and a scene of activity burst into view that brought a cry of despair to Jack's lips.
Gasoline torches burned beside the track. There was a crowd of hurrying workmen in the path of the express. At one side stood a locomotive on the newly laid track to Goldstone.
"They've done it!" gasped Jack.
"We'll make sure of that," cried Sullivan, and his whistle screeched.
The laborers scattered. All but one man cleared off the track. He was a grizzled hair, broad-backed fellow, and was working with all his might pulling a spike from one of the branch rails.
"That's Jenkins himself!" yelled Sullivan. The man's face was plainly visible in the light of the torches.
All three occupants of the cab shouted to the determined man, but he only bent more forcefully to the task which his Italian laborers had skulked from at the first scent of danger.
In an instant the engine was fairly upon him. The pilot struck the instrument he was using, and man and spike-puller were tossed unceremoniously into the ditch.
The express came to a halt with a jar. The loose rail moved under the drivers, but she kept the track, and the place where the rail spread was between the engine and the tender.
It was a narrow escape, but the express had arrived in the nick of time.
One part of Jack's self-imposed task was done, but the minutes were flying past with unfeeling swiftness. Arundel had to be reached by twelve o'clock.
"Can we spike that rail down again, Sullivan—can we do it?" Jack cried to Sullivan.
Sullivan shouted to his stoker to hand him out a sledge. He already had a spike. They sprung the rail back as far as possible into place, and Sullivan drove the spike home.
"I can haul her over that with care," he said.
"Well, then, start her up. We haven't a moment to spare, and we can't waste any on these blackguards here. Stop the train when the observation-car is exactly over the crossing. We'll uncouple it and let it stand there."
"But it won't hold that gang ten minutes after we're gone."
"It will," said Jack with conviction. "We've got two Winchesters and a revolver on the train on the train and I'll leave Winter and two of the brakemen to hold them off with them."
It was eleven-fifteen when the express, leaving the observation-car behind and garrisoned, pulled out again for Arundel.
"Glory be!" ejaculated Sullivan, as Jack climbed into the cab. "Three-quarters of an hour to midnight and fifty miles to go."
"Make her go, Sullivan! Make her go!" shouted Jack. "We simply must do it."
The engine bounded over the rails like a rubber ball, while Jack hung on for sheer life. He would not leave the locomotive. "If there's an accident now I don't want to come out alive," he told Sullivan.
Mile after mile spun out behind them as they shrieked round curves, thundered over trestles, and darted with a roar through the deep cuts in the hills. Luckily the road was now almost level.
"What are we doing, Sullivan?" Jacked yelled presently.
"Over ninety miles an hour this bit," screamed Sullivan.
On and on they flew. Ten minutes to twelve it was now by Jack's watch. Suddenly they rounded a curve and a light burst into view.
"What is it?" Jack gasped.
Before Sullivan could answer they were passing the light. It was a bonfire of ties beside the track, and a crowd of astonished men were standing by it.
"Arundel!" yelled the fireman.
They were over the County line. Once again the express was in the nick of time. The men beside the track were the laborers who had been hired by the Kansas Central to pull up the Sunset tracks on the stroke of twelve. But the franchise was saved with over five minutes to spare.
The train slowed down and came to a halt. Sullivan leaped down from the cab, dragging his stoker with him.
"Did I get it under my own steam, you spalpeen?" he roared.
The stoker had to admit it.
"Then put up yer fists. I'm goin' to give you that lickin' I promised you."
Jack reached the platform just in time to spoil a good fight.
*****
Three hours later John Fletcher reached Arundel in a special. Coleman had found him and explained all he knew of the mysterious disappearance of the express. When the president reached headquarters a message from the injured operator at Bywater had at last arrived telling of the switching of the express on to the Arundel line.
Wild with rage against his nephew, the president had made a record run in a hastily prepared special. At Arundel he found that Jack had been in bed for two and a half hours, but Sullivan, who was gloriously celebrating the affair, explained vaguely, but sufficiently.
The president declined to have Jack disturbed then; but in the morning, after breakfasting comfortably together, he carried Jack and his friend Kenneth Webster back to Bywater in his special, and from there took them right on to Denver.
"Take all the holiday you want, my boy," were his parting words. "When you come back I'll have something important to talk to you about."
It does not always do to agree with one's friends. The other day a youth was telling a friend of some silly thing he had done, and said:
"You know what a silly idiot I am?"
All innocently the other answered, "Yes," and his friend refused to continue his story any further.
