Trailing a dense black canopy of smoke, wrapped in a sheet of flame that spurted even from the trucks, the oil-tank car lurched around the bend and plunged for him--and for once, Sammy Durgan thought very fast. There was no room to let it pass--on one side was just nothing, barring a precipice; and on the rock side, no matter how hard he squeezed back from the right of way, there wasn't any room to escape that spurting flame that even in its passing would burn him to a crisp. And with one wild squeak of terror Sammy Durgan flung himself at his handcar, and, pushing first like a maniac to start it, sprang aboard. Then he began to pump. There were a hundred yards between the bend and the scene of Sammy Durgan's siesta--only the tank-car had momentum, a whole lot of it, and Sammy Durgan had not. By the time Sammy Durgan had the handcar started the hundred yards was twenty-five, and the monster of flame and smoke behind him was travelling two feet to his one. Sammy Durgan pumped--for his life. He got up a little better speed--but the tank-car still gained on him. Down the grade he went, the handcar rocking, swaying, lurching, and up and down on the handle, madly, frantically, desperately, wildly went Sammy Durgan's arms, shoulders and head--his hat blew off, and his red hair sort of stood straight up in the wind, and his face was like chalk. Down he went, faster and faster, and the handcar, reeling like a drunken thing, took a curve with a vicious slew, and the off wheels hung in air for an instant while Sammy Durgan bellowed in panic, then found their base again and shot along the straight. And faster and faster behind him, on wings of fire it seemed, spitting flame tongues, vomiting its black clouds of smoke like an inferno, roaring like a mighty furnace in blast, came the tank-car. It was initial momentum and mass against Sammy Durgan's muscles on a handcar pump handle--and the race was not to Sammy Durgan. He cast a wild glance behind, and squeaked again, and his teeth began to go like castanets, as the hot breath of the thing fanned his back. "'Tis my finish," wheezed and stuttered Sammy Durgan through bursting lungs and chattering teeth. "'Tis a dead man, I am--oh, Holy Mither--'tis a dead man I am!" Ahead and to either side swept Sammy Durgan's eyes like a hunted rat's--and they held, fascinated, on where the old spur track led off from the main line. But it was not the spur track that interested Sammy Durgan--it was that the rock wall, diverging away from his elbow, as it were, presented a wide and open space. "It's killed I am, anyway," moaned Sammy Durgan. "But 'tis a chance. If--if mabbe I could jump far enough there where there's room to let it pass, I dunno--but 'tis killed, I'll be, anyway--oh, Holy Mither--but 'tis a chance--oh, Holy Mither!"