For some minutes the five occupants of the car waited to see if
it would start back down the grade. When it did not they got off
to decide what could be done.
"It's a mighty steep hill," Billie ventured. "Looks as though the
five of us ought to start it. Let's try."
The five put their shoulders against the car and pushed with all
their might, but it refused to budge.
"If we only had a crowbar," said Adrian, "we could start it in a
jiffy. Suppose some of you look in the car. There might be one
there."
The three Mexicans jumped to obey.
Directly they appeared in the doorway with a large claw-bar in
their hands.
"Will this do?" asked one.
"Sure! Throw it off," said Billie, "and I'll soon start the old
caboose."
Picking up the bar, Billie inserted the claw under one of the
wheels while Adrian stood with his hand on the car rail ready to
spring aboard.
At the first attempt the claw slipped and nothing happened, but
at the second attempt the wheels yielded a little.
"This time she'll go," Billie called. "All aboard!"
Adrian sprang onto the car as Billie bore down upon the bar and
the wheels began to revolve.
"Never mind the bar," cried Adrian as he saw that Billie was
raising the implement to throw it onto the platform. "Jump
aboard!"
Billie started to obey, but the advice came too late. As he
dropped the bar it struck one end of a tie, flopped over and hit
him on the shin.
"Wow!" he yelled, grabbing his ankle with both hands.
"Never mind your leg," shouted Adrian. "Jump on or you'll be
left."
Billie tried to obey, but the car was now under headway and
although he sprinted his best, he was soon left behind.
Adrian started to jump off the car, but seeing his intention
Billie called to him not to do it.
"I'll get there some time," he called. "Just tell them I'm
coming," and he stood in the middle of the track looking ruefully
after the rapidly disappearing car.
After some moments he picked up the claw-bar and threw it
spitefully into the ditch beside the track, as much as to say,
"Lay there! You're the cause of all the trouble." Then he started
slowly after the car.
In the meantime Adrian was flying as fast back toward Pachuca as
he had been flying away from it only a few minutes before. It
could not have been more than ten minutes altogether since the
wreck of the engine and Adrian figured that if the grade were
steep enough the car might gain momentum enough to carry it back
to the scene of the trouble; but he had little hope that it
would.
When he shot through Pitahaya on his return trip, however, he saw
that the car was going at a terrific rate of speed.
"What do you think?" he asked one of the Mexicans. "Do you think
we'll get all the way back?"
"Cierto," was the reply. "When they first built this road they
used to have mules haul the car to the top of this hill and then
turn it loose and it would run almost to Pachuca. That was before
it had any engines."
Adrian looked at the man and winked one eye very slowly.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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