He consulted a time-table, and found that if he made all connections he should reach Plainville in the early morning of the first day of the assizes. He supposed there would be a short session of the grand jury first, but did not know whether his absence then would affect his trial. He wondered if they would call his case first and immediately require Gardiner to forfeit his bail, and if they would return the bail when he appeared and gave himself up.
For twenty-four hours the train drilled steadily eastward, running without incident. Darkness had again settled down and the hour of midnight was approaching when suddenly the emergency brakes were applied with a force that threw the passengers forward in their seats. The train came to a stop in a moment, and the young men and a few of the older ones who had not gone to bed in the sleeping cars crowded out to see the cause of the delay. A dull glow shone down the track from ahead, and a whiff of wood smoke blew in their nostrils. Aside from that and the subdued lights in the cars all was darkness, darkness intense and illimitable, walled in only by the brooding silence of the great prairies.
A couple of trainmen with lanterns were seen walking on the track, and Burton hurried to overtake them. As he advanced the glow of light became brighter and the smell of smoke more noticeable. In a few minutes he had come up with them, and together they reached a wooden trestle which spanned a ravine where a little stream trickled at the bottom during the summer, but was now dried by the long period of rainless weather. The bridge was on fire; most of the timbers had already given way, and the hot rails hung in two shining streaks from bank to bank.
From the conversation of the trainmen Burton gathered that the fire was probably due to a falling coal from a passing engine lighting the woodwork. He ventured to ask how long it would delay the train.
“Well, that’s hard to say,” was the answer. “It’ll take at least twelve hours to throw a temporary bridge in there after the work train arrives, and they won’t likely be here before morning. The company knows nothing about it yet, so we’ll likely have to pull back to the last station to give information.”