Running a mile or so behind them, they caught occasional glimpses of the smoke of the _Texas_. There were moments when the smoke paused and mounted straight into the sky; then a few seconds later it flattened out and rose in a long black stream. The _Texas_ was running from obstruction to obstruction, clearing the way and pressing forward. How had they done it? How had they passed the broken rail, the ties along the track, the box-cars and the snag? Those questions were pounding in the brains of Andrews' men. If ever a man combined determination with luck it was Fuller. He had started on foot from Big Shanty in complete ignorance of what was happening to his stolen train. Undoubtedly, if he had known that a party of Northern raiders had taken it, he would have waited until a locomotive came from Atlanta. The idea of running after a locomotive would have seemed too ridiculous. But, expecting to find it abandoned around each curve, he raced on and on until they came to the hand car; then the _Yonah_. When the _Yonah_ had run out of fuel, the _New York_ was there to carry him to the Rome engine. When the Rome engine had been stopped by the break in the track, they had come to the _Texas_. They had shunted and outraced the train, jumped the broken track, and avoided wrecking on obstructions so many times that they had lost count. And still they pressed on. The force of Fuller's determination seemed greater than the force of the steam which flashed against the pistons of the _Texas_. Fuller and Murphy, still sitting on the edge of the tender, saw the abandoned box-car as they swerved around the bend. Fuller waved his arms up and down slowly to the engineer as a signal to come to a gradual stop. They coasted down upon the box-car, picked it up and carried it on with them. Fuller and Murphy climbed to the top of it; Murphy, staying at the rear end to repeat the signals of Fuller, who was perched on the front. At the sight of ties lying across the track, Fuller's arms shot up. An instant later, the _Texas_ was laboring to a stop under reversed power, her brakes grabbing at the wheels. Then, when the decreasing speed of the train gave his legs the advantage, Fuller was ahead, heaving ties from the road. Far to the northward, across the bend which hid the Reseca bridge from view, Fuller caught a glimpse of the _General_ speeding on its way. He saw that the train had been shortened once more, that the engine was hauling only one box-car. He dreaded that first sight of the Reseca bridge, for, if Andrews had left it in flames, the race was over for the _Texas_. Then they swept around the curve and the bridge lay before them, indistinct in the drizzle of rain. It appeared intact, but Fuller knew that long curving shed too well through his years of travel over the road not to be suspicious of what lurked inside. He waved a signal to approach gradually; then, as they came to the entrance, his arms shot up. The _Texas_ came to a stop.