Leaning uncomfortably now to this side, now to that, and with angry grinding of flange on rail, it swept around the curves with ever-increasing speed. A crashing roar, a flare of yellow sunset light reflected from rocky walls, told of a cutting safely passed, while bridge, and culvert, and trestle bellowed again as the engine cleared them at a bound. The Three-Sevens devoured the way. Again and again Hosselkus proved the correctness of his theory by the terrific bursts of speed with which the mighty engine responded to his every impulse; but his nerves were no longer responsive to the exultant thrill of triumph. A sickening foreboding griped his heart; yet, whenever he would have shut off steam and slackened speed, an unconquerable impulse restrained him; for, in the exhaust of the engine and the roar of wheels, he fancied he heard one word repeated over and over again, with maddening persistency: “Hurry! hurry! hurry! hurry!” And the fireman, as he shoveled in coal and struggled to maintain his difficult footing, noted with wonder, not unmixed with uneasiness, that Hosselkus was working steam on grades where it was usual to “let them down” under the restraining pressure of the air-brakes. The lagging summer twilight gradually deepened until the illuminated faces of clock and steam-gauge stood out with pallid distinctness in the gloom of the cab. Lights in lonely section-houses shot past, and occasionally a great flare of red rushed upward from the momentarily opened door of the fire-box. The dazzling light of the furnace revealed old Hard Luck crouching forward on his seat, one hand on the throttle, the other grasping the reversing lever. His features were set and sharpened, and so pale that through its grimy enameling his face looked positively blue. An occasional swift, comprehensive glance took in clock, steam-gauge, and water-glass, and then his eyes were again fixed upon the arrowy torrent of ties that streamed into the glare of the headlight and disappeared beneath the pilot with unbroken, dizzying swiftness. At last a white post flitted by and Hosselkus relaxed. He glanced at the clock, and the next moment a long, wailing blast of the whistle warned the yardmen at the division’s end.