and that's the best trick of the trade.

Guerin looked out at the fireman's window again. The headlight was now
entirely snowed in and the big black machine was poking her nose into
the night at the rate of a mile a minute.

"My God! how she rolls," said Guerin, going back to his place again. Of
a sudden she began to quicken her pace, as though the train had parted.
She might be slipping--he opened the sand lever. No, she was holding the
rail, and then he knew that they had tipped over Zero Hill. He cut her
back a notch, but allowed the throttle to remain wide open. Bennie saw
the move and left the door ajar again. He knew where they were and
wondered that Guerin did not ease off a bit, but he had been taught by
Moran to fire and leave the rest to the engineer. Guerin glanced at his
watch. He was one minute over-due at Zero Junction, a mile away. At the
end of another minute he would have put that station behind him, less
than two minutes late. He was making a record for himself. He was
demonstrating that it is the daring young driver who has the sand to go
up against the darkness as fast as wheels can whirl. He wished the snow
was off the headlight. He knew the danger of slamming a train through
stations without a ray of light to warn switchmen and others, but he
could not bring himself to send the boy out to the front end in that
storm the way she was rolling. And she did roll; and with each roll the
bell tolled! tolled!! like a church bell tolling for the dead. The snow
muffled the rail, and the cry of the whistle would not go twenty rods
against that storm; and twenty rods, when you're making a mile and a
half in a minute, gives barely time to cross yourself.

About the time they tipped over the hill the night yard master came from
the telegraph office, down at the junction, and twirled a white light at
a switch engine that stood on a spur with her nose against an empty
express car. "Back up," he shouted: "and kick that car in on the house
track."

"The Limited's due in a minute," said the switch engineer, turning the
gauge lamp upon his watch.

"Well, you're runnin' the engine--I'm runnin' the yard," said the
official, giving his lamp another whirl, and the engine with the express
car backed away. The yard master unbent sufficiently to say to the
switchman on the engine that the Limited was ten minutes late, adding,
that she would probably be fifteen at the junction, for it was storming
all along the line. The