loss of time a slow
order over new construction work back a dozen miles or so had cost him,
the 1601 was hitting a pretty fast clip as he whistled for Elbow Bend.
Owsley checked just a little as he nosed the curve--the Imperial
Limited made no stop at Elbow Bend--and then, as the 1601 sort of got
her footing, so to speak, on the long bend, he opened her out again,
and the storm of exhausts from her short, stubby stack went echoing
through the mountains like the play of artillery.

The light of the west-end siding switch flashed by like a scintillating
gem in the darkness. Brannigan, Owsley's fireman, pulled his door,
shooting the cab and the heavens full of leaping, fiery red, and swung
to the tender for a shovelful of coal. Owsley, crouched a little
forward in his seat, his body braced against the cant of the mogul on
the curve, was "feeling" the throttle with careful hand, as he peered
ahead through the cab glass. Came the station lights; the black bulk
of a locomotive, cascading steam from her safety, on the siding; and
then the thundering reverberation as the 1601 began to sweep past a
long, curving line of boxes, flats and gondolas, the end of which
Owsley could not see--for the curve.

Owsley relaxed a little. That was right--Extra No. 49, west, was to
cross him at Elbow Bend--and she was on the siding as she should be.
His headlight, streaming out at a tangent to the curve, played its ray
kaleidoscopically along the sides of the string of freights, now edging
the roof of a box car, now opening a hole to the gray rock of the cut
when a flat or two intervened--and then, sudden, quick as doom, with a
yell from his fireman ringing in his ears, Owsley, his jaws clamping
like a steel trap, flung his arm forward, jamming the throttle shut,
while with the other hand he grabbed at the "air."

Owsley had seen it, too--as quick as Brannigan--a figure, arms waving
frantically, for a fleeting second strangely silhouetted in the dancing
headlight's glare on the roof of one of the box cars. A wild shout
from the man, fluttering, indistinguishable, reached them as they
roared by--then the grind and scream of brake-shoes as the "air" went
on--the answering shudder vibrating through the cab of the big
racer--the meeting clash of buffer plates echoing down the length of
the train behind--and a queer obstructing blackness dead ahead ere the
headlight, tardy in its sweep, could point the way--but Owsley knew
now--too late.