AVIN was at his key, sending in Train Seventeen's "On Time" report, and through the side-light of the bay-window he saw Faulkner and young Driscoll "square" themselves with Johnson, the conductor of the freight, run the push-car from the shed, couple it to the rear of Seventeen 's caboose, and help the three young women aboard.
He knew what they were going to do, and that it was a highly reckless piece of railroad outlawry; but he persuaded himself that it was no part of his duty to interfere. Young Driscoll was the son of the master mechanic at Castle Cliff, an irrepressible collegian, home for the summer vacation; and Faulkner's father was a Dolomite multi-millionaire, and the owner of the Malachite mine. Gavin's thin lips came together in a straight line, and he went on sending the "O. T." report. Maisie French was one of the three young women, and if it were her good pleasure to take chances with the others, and with the two young men whose sport-loving recklessness was the daily terror of the chaperones at Piute Inn, it was pointedly his part to keep silence.
He was snapping his key upon the final word of the report when the freight pulled out with the push-car in tow. The young women were laughing and shrieking joyously; and Faulkner was standing up and waving his hat to a group of shocked witnesses protesting in dumb show on the veranda of the Inn.
What the young men meant to do they had done before, though not with the young women for accessories. Somewhere on the steep thirty-six-mile grade in Black Rock Canyon they would release the push-car for a flying coast back to the Broken Arrow portal. The risks were plentiful. The stick used for a lever-brake on the wheels might snap; the car might run away and jump the track; and there was always the chance of meeting a "wild" engine, or an unscheduled special train, going in the opposite direction.
The push-car adventurers were ignoring these risks, but Gavin took thought for them as he could. Before going to work on his records, he dropped the station signal board to "Stop for orders," and adjusted the spring of the telegraph relay so that he would be sure to hear anything that might go through over the wires. With the board down, no train would pass Broken Arrow without stopping, and at least one danger—the danger of a collision in mid canyon—would be averted for the young people who were making a coasting course of a live railroad track.
Half an hour later, Gavin began to grow nervous. The push-car had not yet returned; and the general manager's special, with Mr. Brice and a party of the Castle Cliff officials in the private car, was on the line below Broken Arrow, moving eastward. With an ear sharply attuned for the news of the wire, Gavin had been keeping up with the special's movements. There had been quite a long stop at Rockford, the second station west; but now the fast-running train was in motion again, speeding along toward Broken Arrow.
Gavin did not care to be caught with his order-board down when he had no orders to deliver—especially by the general manager's flyer. For aught he knew, Mr. Brice might wish to go through without halting at Broken Arrow. Hunching his big shoulders as if he were fitting them to the unwelcome burden, he threw the freight record aside and sat on the telegraph table, where he could watch the canyon portal and still keep an ear open for the clicking sounder.
Five minutes of suspense ticked themselves off, and at the end of them Pincho, the station next west of Broken Arrow, cut into the stream of wire chatterings to notify the division despatcher that Mr. Brice's special had passed eastward—without stopping.
Gavin heard the Pincho report with quickening heart-beats. The hazard which had been only a possibility was rapidly crystallizing into a certainty. Somewhere in the nearer reaches of the great gorge the push-car with its living freight must be racing westward. A few miles in the opposite direction the special train was flying eastward. Gavin hoped that the narrowing gap would close safely on the side of immunity for the push-car coasters. Explanations to the general manager would be awkward for all concerned.
Five other minutes, surcharged with keen anxiety for the watcher in the bay-window, passed; then, coincidently, Gavin heard the shout of the special's whistle below, and saw the push-car dart like a low-flung projectile out of the canyon portal above. One glance told him that death was reaching for the five rule-breakers. The push-car was entirely beyond control: it would dash past the station at bullet speed and meet the special on the grade below.