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He jerked his hand back with a startled shout of pain

The steel side of the gondola was hot-so hot it burned his skin

Bell ran to the next gondola and touched it tentatively It was hot, too And now he sain, and he realized in a flash the diabolic trick the Wrecker had pulled So-called down pressure was stabilizing the bridge as he had pro the weakened piers were shaking the bridge In turn, the bridge was shaking the train, which was shaking the coal Deep inside fifty coal cars, thousands of pieces of coal were rubbing against each other and creating friction Frictiontwo sticks to start a fire

Even as Bell realized the perverted genius of Kincaid’s schenited A dozen small sparks became a hundred flah the coal The entire train was se Any second, the wooden crossties under the train would catch fire

He had to e

The staging yard was jammed with stranded trains and locoines had stea black Baldwin attached to Hennessy’s special It always had steaht the Pullmans and the private cars and to be ready to move at the railroad president’s whim

Bell ran to it Every brakeman and yardman he saw he ordered to throitches to direct the Old Man’s loco frail in shirtsleeves, was standing next to the Baldwin He was breathing hard and leaning on a fireman’s scoop

“Where’s your train crew?” Bell asked

“I was keeping up steam before they were born Sent every hand beloork on the coffer da What do I se?”

“The coal has ignited Uncouple your engine I’ll pull the train off”

With Hennessy directing brake- and yard switches, Bell drove the Baldwin off the special, ran it forward, then backed it onto the bridge Partway across, he coupled onto the lead coal gondola, while every man still in the yard worked to switch a path of rails to an isolated siding where the burning train could be safely moved

Bell shoved the Johnson bar forward and notched the throttle ahead, feeding steah ti and pulling fifty heavy gondolas were two different propositions The wheels spun, the train did not move He remembered the sand valve, which spread sand under the wheels to i froondolas now, and he saw flaain

Suddenly, the Wrecker spoke through the side

“With ill you replace the weight?” he asked ly “More coal?”

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