Whispering Smith
bars and a renewed shouting it was thrown gradually quite across the long gap in the main line, and the new joints in a very rough curve were made fast just as the engine, running now with its pilot ahead, steamed slowly around the new curve and without accident regained the regular grade. It was greeted by a screeching yell as the men climbed into the caboose, for the engine stood safely headed into the teeth of the storm for Piedmont. The ten miles to cover were now a matter of less than thirty minutes, and the construction train drew into the Piedmont yards just as the telegraph wires were heating from headquarters with orders annulling freights, ordering ploughs on outgoing engines, and battening the division hatches for a grapple with a Christmas blizzard.
No man came back better pleased than Stevens. “That man is all right,” said he to Mears, nodding his head toward McCloud, as they walked up from the caboose. “That’s all I want to say. Some of these fellows have been a little shy about going out with him; they’ve hounded me for months about stepping over his way when Sinclair and his mugs struck. I reckon I played my hand about right.”
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