"I wouldn't take that run," croaked Somers, "if they gave me a solid gold engine with the tender full of diamonds. I left an arm on that route. Say, Dave Little and I had a construction run over those sliding curves up and down the canyon grades. It lasted a month. There were snowslides, washouts, forest fires. There's a part of the road that's haunted. There's a hoodoo over one section, where they kill a man about once a week. Little lost his leg and his job there. My old arm is sleeping thereabouts in some ravine. No Mountain Division run for me, boys!" "You won't get it, never fear," observed a voice. "No, I know that," retorted Somers a little sadly, indicating his helplessness by moving his stump of an arm, "but I pity the fellow who does." Day by day after that there were new additions to the fund of gossip concerning the new run. It all interested Ralph. Nothing definite, however, was as yet stated officially. Ralph and Fogg continued on the accommodation, and there was now little break in the regular routine of their railroad experience. Ralph had made a short cut across the switch yards one morning, when a stirring episode occurred that he was not soon to forget, nor others. It took an expert to thread the maze of cars in motion, trains stalled on sidings, and trains arriving and departing. It was the busiest hour of the day, and Ralph kept his eye out sharply. He had paused for a moment in a clear triangle formed by diverging rails, to allow an outward bound train to clear the switch, when a man on the lower step of the last car waved his hand and hailed him. It was the master mechanic, and Ralph was pleased at the notice taken of him, and interested to learn what the official wanted of him. The master mechanic, alighting, started across the tracks to join Ralph. A train was backing on the one track between them. Another train was moving out on the rails still nearer to Ralph. It was a scene of noise, commotion and confusion. If the master mechanic had been a novice in railroad routine, Ralph could not have repressed a warning shout, for with his usual coolness that official, timing all train movements about him with his practiced eye, made a quick run to clear the train backing in to the depot. He calculated then, Ralph foresaw, to cross the tracks along which the outgoing train was coming. "He's taking a risk--it's a graze," murmured the young engineer in some trepidation. The master mechanic was alert and nimble, though past middle age. He took the chances of a spry jump across the rails, his eye fixed on the outgoing train, aiming to get across to Ralph before it passed. In landing, however, he miscalculated. The run and jump brought him to a dead halt against a split switch. His foot drove into the jaws of the frog as if wedged there by the blow of a sledge-hammer. CHAPTER XXIV THE NEW RUN