The captain obeyed meekly while the wounded fireman stared at his friend under the impression that he was losing his mind under the strain. The engineer took one of the large oil-cans with a long nozzle and then wrapping his two brawny arms tightly around the captain's waist, lowered him as far as he could from the tender and directed him to pour the oil directly on each rail without wasting a drop or allowing a foot to go unoiled. It was hard in the dark to see the rail or to keep one's balance on the bounding engine, but the captain was a light weight and the engineer let him down as far back from the tender as he dared and held him there until one rail was thoroughly oiled. He repeated the operation on the other side and the two once more came back to the fireman who was clinging limply to the throttle. "Now," said the engineer, "keep your eye open and you'll see some fun." The front engine puffed more and more slowly up the grade and the pursuing engine seemed to gain on them at every yard. Already the men in the cab were commencing to aim their rifles for the last fatal volley. At this moment the front wheels of the pursuing engine reached the oiled track and in a minute her speed slackened, the wheels whirled round and round at a tremendous speed and there was a sudden rush and hiss of escaping steam. The engine in front suddenly drew away from her anchored pursuer. The engineer took a last long look at them through his field-glasses. "It seems to me, captain," said he, "as if they are cussin' considerable. Her old wheels are spinnin' like a squirrel-cage." The engine dashed on more and more slowly, but there was no need for haste. In a few minutes a shot was fired in front of them and a sentry shouted for them to halt. They were within the picket lines of the Union Army. The engine was stopped and the three men staggered out holding tightly the precious dispatches which they carried in triplicate and in a few minutes more they were in the presence of General Stockton. A force was at once sent out and the Confederates and their locomotive were captured and within an hour thirty thousand men were on their way to relieve the beset Union forces. The gauntlet had been run and General Thomas' army was saved. CHAPTER XII FORGOTTEN HEROES "There was a little city and few men within it and there came a great king against it and besieged it and built great bulwarks against it. Now there was found in it a poor wise man and he by his wisdom delivered the city, yet no man remembered that same poor man." Thus wrote the great Solomon, hearing of a deed, the tale of which had come down through the centuries. The doer of the deed had been long forgotten.