Without a qualm the engineer opened his throttle and hooked up his bar and the engine leaped blindly ahead into the storm. Glover, in a few words, told Gertrude their situation. He made no effort to disguise it, and to his astonishment she heard him quietly. He cramped himself down at her feet and muffled his head in his cap and collar to look ahead.
They had hardly more than recovered their lost distance, and were running very hard when a shower of heavy blows struck the cab and the engine gave a frantic plunge. Forgetting that he pulled no train McGraw's eyes flew to the air gauge with the thought his train had broken, but the pointer stood steady at the high pressure. Again the monster machine strained, and again the cab rose and plunged terrifically. The engineer leaped at the throttle like a cat; Gertrude, jolted first backward, was thrown rudely forward on Glover's shoulder, and the fireman slid head first into the oil cans. Worst of all, Glover, in saving Gertrude, put his elbow through the lower glass of the running-board door. The engine stopped and a blast of powdered ice streamed in on them; their eyes met.
She tried to get her breath. "Don't be frightened," he said; "you are all right. Sit perfectly still. What have you got, Paddy?" he called to the engineer. The engineer did not attempt to answer; taking lanterns, the two men climbed out of the cab to investigate. The wind swept through the broken pane and Gertrude slipped down from her seat with relief, while the fireman caught up a big double handful of waste from his box and stuffed it into the broken pane. So intense had the strain of silence become that she would have spoken to him, but the sudden stop sprung the safety-valve, and overwhelmed with its roar she could only watch him in wretched suspense shake the grate, restore his drip can, start his injector, and hammer like one pursued by a fury at the coal. Since she had entered the cab this man had never for one minute rested.
McGraw, followed by Glover, climbed back under the canvas from the gangway. Their clothing, moist with the steam of the cab, had stiffened the instant the wind struck it. McGraw hastening to the furnace seized the chain, jerked open the door and motioned to Glover to come to the fire, but Glover shook his head behind McGraw, his hands on the little man's shoulders, and forced him down in front of the fearful blaze to thaw the gloves from his aching fingers.