Just an hour later they cleared the old rickety cut off. It was dark now. They ran down the main line ten miles, and at The Barrens took coal and water, while Ralph was busy with the station operator in communication with headquarters. He calculated closely as they started on the long home run. It would take some steam and the best of luck to reach the yards at Stanley Junction by eleven p. m. At nine o'clock they passed Revere without stopping. At ten they switched at Wayne, forty-five miles from terminus. It lacked just ten minutes of eleven o'clock when the special came in sight of the lights of the Junction. To follow the main and risk a stoppage at the limits would never allow of an arrival on the time set. "I have got an idea," said Ralph, slowing up as they neared the first siding of the yards in-tracks. "Go to it, then--anything to pull through on time," responded the fireman with vigor. Ralph jumped down from the cab, unset a switch, glanced ahead down the open track, and then glanced at his watch. "Eight minutes," he said, quite excited now. "Crowd on every pound of steam you can. We may make it by a bare scratch." Ahead was the outline of the fence of the yards. The gate to its west special track outlet was shut after working hours, Ralph knew well, but it was a flimsy affair used less for protection than to exclude intruders. "Four minutes," he spoke, and the flying locomotive was rushing ahead with a grinding roar. "Three." They took the gate, sending its frail boards flying up into the air in a cascade of riven splinters. "Arrived!" shouted the fireman triumphantly. Ralph started to let down speed. Just then something happened. The brake beam of the truck under the tender dropped, causing the wheels to leave the rails. The locomotive played a veritable "crack the whip" with the cars behind, became separated from the train, and traveled fully four hundred feet before she stopped. The train broke in three sections. The wheels seemed to be smashing through logs, rails and stones. The noise was deafening. A yardman said later that as the train burst through the switches each car seemed to carry beneath it a huge ball of fire, caused by the wheels being dead-locked by the automatic brakes. Not a car was smashed, and no two cars were left on the same tracks or pointing the same way. The caboose had its rear wheels on one track and its front wheels on the track south. The cars were standing in every direction, but not a person was hurt, not a car was invalided. Ralph ran up to the yardmaster and held out his watch to him. "Verify the arrival," he ordered hastily. "Yes, 10:58, two minutes ahead of time," said the man with a stare of wonderment. "We were expecting you, Fairbanks, but--not in that way!" CHAPTER XXX THE PAY CAR ROBBER Ralph Fairbanks sat at work on the task apportioned him by the general superintendent six hours after he had delivered the California fruit special "on time."