If you remember Flannagan, you will remember that the distance from Spider Cut to Big Cloud was twenty-one decimal seven miles. P. Walton figured it roughly twenty-two. No. 34, on time, had already left Spider Cut at 8.17--and the wires were cut. Her running time for the twenty-two miles was twenty-nine minutes--she made Big Cloud at 8.46. Counting Larry's estimate of seven miles to be accurate, No. 34 had fifteen miles to go from Spider Cut before they piled her in the ditch, and it would take her a little over nineteen minutes to do it. With two minutes already elapsed--_three_ now--and allowing, by shaving it close, another five before he started, P. Walton found that he was left with eleven minutes in which to cover seven miles. It took P. Walton four of his five-minute allowance to reach the station platform; and here, for just an instant, he paused while his eyes swept the twinkling switch lights in the yards. Then he raced along the length of the platform, jumped from the upper end to the ground, and lurching a little, up the main line track to where fore-shortened, unclassed little switching engine--the 229--was grunting heavily, and stealing a momentary rest after having sent a string of flats flying down a spur under the tender guidance of a brakeman or two. And as P. Walton ran, he reached into his pocket and drew out Nulty's revolver. There wasn't much light inside the cab--there was only the lamp over the gauges--but it was light enough to show P. Walton's glittering eyes, fever bright, the deadly white of his face, the deadly smile on his lips, and the deadly weapon in his hand, as he sprang through the gangway. "Get out!" panted P. Walton coldly. Neither Dalheen, the fireman, nor Mulligan, fat as a porpoise, on the right-hand side, stood upon the order of their going. Dalheen ducked, and took a flying leap through the left-hand gangway; and Mulligan, with a sort of anxious gasp that seemed as though he wished to convey to P. Walton the fact that he was hurrying all he could, squeezed himself through the right-hand gangway and sat down on the ground. P. Walton pulled the throttle open with an unscientific jerk. With a kind of startled scream from the hissing steam, the sparks flying from madly racing drivers as the wheel tires bit into the rails, the old 229, like a frightened thoroughbred at the vicious lash of a yokel driver, reared and plunged wildly forward. The sudden, violent start from inertia pitched P. Walton off his feet across the driver's seat, and smashed his head against the reversing lever that stood notched forward in the segment. He gained his feet again, and, his head swimming a little from the blow, looked behind him.