derail runaway engines. It runs right off into
the country. We'll pile him up there. Ready with your guns, boys."

"If we should meet another train coming up on this track----" protested
the frightened engineer.

"Then we'd jump or be smashed. Hi! look! There he is." As the freight
engine rounded a curve, Dyke's engine came into view, shooting on some
quarter of a mile ahead of them, wreathed in whirling smoke.

"The switch ain't much further on," clamoured the engineer. "You can see
Pixley now."

Dyke, his hand on the grip of the valve that controlled the steam, his
head out of the cab window, thundered on. He was back in his old place
again; once more he was the engineer; once more he felt the engine
quiver under him; the familiar noises were in his ears; the familiar
buffeting of the wind surged, roaring at his face; the familiar odours
of hot steam and smoke reeked in his nostrils, and on either side of
him, parallel panoramas, the two halves of the landscape sliced, as it
were, in two by the clashing wheels of his engine, streamed by in green
and brown blurs.

He found himself settling to the old position on the cab seat, leaning
on his elbow from the window, one hand on the controller. All at once,
the instinct of the pursuit that of late had become so strong within
him, prompted him to shoot a glance behind. He saw the other engine on
the down line, plunging after him, rocking from side to side with the
fury of its gallop. Not yet had he shaken the trackers from his heels;
not yet was he out of the reach of danger. He set his teeth and,
throwing open the fire-door, stoked vigorously for a few moments. The
indicator of the steam gauge rose; his speed increased; a glance at
the telegraph poles told him he was doing his fifty miles an hour. The
freight engine behind him was never built for that pace. Barring the
terrible risk of accident, his chances were good.

But suddenly--the engineer dominating the highway-man--he shut off his
steam and threw back his brake to the extreme notch. Directly ahead
of him rose a semaphore, placed at a point where evidently a derailing
switch branched from the line. The semaphore's arm was dropped over the
track, setting the danger signal that showed the switch was open.

In an instant, Dyke saw the trick. They had meant to smash him here;
had been clever enough, quick-witted enough to open the switch, but had
forgotten the automatic semaphore that worked simultaneously with t