CHAPTER XXXI
As A Crow Flies
ALAN had plenty of time for thought. Speech was impossible while the biplane was in motion, and it was seldom otherwise, but only infrequently at pause when the necessity for replenishing its store of oil and gasoline would force it to descend.
Between whiles the plane flew fast and high, as the crow flies, athwart the Eastern and Middle Western States.
Chicago they saw as a smudge on the northern horizon about one o'clock in the afternoon; thereafter some little time was lost in descents to ascertain the identity of the many railroad lines.
And it was some hours later, though still daylight, when they picked up the special flying like a hunted thing across the levels, on the line of the Santa Fé.
Alan contrived to focus his binoculars upon the rear platform of the car and saw a white-coated figure with a black face that was watching the biplane in the same manner—that is, with glasses. It was the right train then!
And the man in the white coat was Barcus.
And hardly had he comforted himself with this assurance when the motor stopped. The aviator merely shook a weary head and muttered the words: "Engine trouble."
Swiftly the earth rose to receive the volplaning mechanism. Under Coast's admirable handling the biplane settled down on the outskirts of a city whose name Alan never learned.
Barely were they down before he was out and making his way toward the manager's office connected with the adjacent train-yard.
Judith followed him like a shadow.
Lavish disbursement of money won him his way. Within twenty minutes Alan and Judith were spinning through open country in the cab of an engine running light, with only clear track between it and the special.
The several hours that ensued before the lights of the special appeared were none too many for the task of overcoming the scruples of the engineer and fireman. But convinced (at least outwardly) that they were not dealing with a lunatic, they at length accepted his money and his promise of a life pension should they lose their jobs, and, disregarding signals, brought the light engine rapidly up toward the rear of the special.
Within a few hundred feet of the special, Alan saw first one figure hurtle over the rear rail, fall to the tracks, and scramble off just in time to escape annihilation. A blur of white remained on the back platform, and Alan understood that Barcus had merely been clearing the way of Trine's guards. Another minute, and less than fifty feet separated the two trains. Then Alan crept out alongside of the boiler. It seemed an hour before he worked himself up to the cow-catcher, now within four feet of the rear platform of the special. On this last he could see a woman's figure, and beside her a man in a white coat, clinging for dear life to the knob of the door, holding it shut against the frantic efforts of some person inside.
Another hour of suspense dragged out—or such was the effect—while the light engine bridged these four scant feet.
At length it was feasible to attempt the thing. Rose was half over the rail of the car ahead, ready to jump. Straining forward and holding on to a bar so hot that it scorched his palm, he offered a hand to the girl on the rail.
Her hand fell confidently into it. She jumped. His arm wound round her as she landed on the platform of the cow-catcher. He heard her breathe his name, then passed her to the footway at the side. The fireman was waiting there to help her. Alan turned his attention to Barcus.
To his dismay he found that the engine was losing ground. The space was widening as Barcus released the knob and threw himself over the rail. By a flying leap, the man gained the platform. Then their engine ground slowly to a halt as the rear lights of the train swept from sight around a bend.
And then the engineer, backed by his fireman, started an argumentative complaint. "They hadn't bargained to be shot at with pistols," and so forth, and so forth. But while engineer and fireman were "chewing the rag like a couple of sea-lawyers," as Mr. Barcus elegantly phrased it, there came a diversion.
Revolvers began to pop once more. And they looked up the track to see the special backing down upon them, several persons on the back platform plying busy trigger-fingers all the while.
As these last threw open the platform gates and dropped to the ballast, still perforating the air with many bullets, all those under fire turned simultaneously and sought shelter at the rear of the tender. At a word from Alan, Barcus and the two girls ran on with him around the engine, and, undiscovered, made for the special now close at hand on the track ahead. It began to move forward as they reached it, but they scrambled aboard somehow. Mr. Barcus who had acted as rear-guard, or at any rate bullet-shield, for the others, heaved a heartfelt sigh as he sat down heavily on a camp-chair and mopped his brow, while the lights of the locomotive dropped swiftly back into the gloaming. The fact that several of the figures grouped round it continued to fire their revolvers at the fast-departing special troubled him not at all.
"If any of those guys," he assured Mr. Law presently, "could hit a barn door with a Gatling gun at twenty paces—well, I wouldn't be proving myself the giddy ass I am by sticking to your ill-starred fortunes. There wouldn't be any to stick to, because you'd have been snuffed out long, long ago—with all the chances they've had to blow your fool head off!"