Fifteen minutes later Lidgerwood finished his breakfast and went back to his camp-chair on the observation platform of the service-car.  A glance over the side rail showed him his train crew still working on the heated axle-bearing.  Another to the rear picked up the passenger-train storming around the climbing curves of the eastern approach to the summit.  There was a small problem impending for the division despatcher at Angels, and the new superintendent held aloof to see how it would be handled.

It was handled rather indifferently.  The passenger-train was pulling in over the summit switches when Bradford, sauntering into the telegraph office as if haste were the last thing in the world to be considered, asked for his clearance card, got it, and gave Williams the signal to go.

Lidgerwood got up and went into the car to consult the time-table hanging in the office compartment.  Train 201 had no dead time at Crosswater; hence, if the ten-minute interval between trains of the same class moving in the same direction was to be preserved, the passenger would have to be held.

The assumption that the passenger-train would be held aroused all the railroad martinet’s fury in the new superintendent.  In Lidgerwood’s calendar, time-killing on regular trains stood next to an infringement of the rules providing for the safety of life and property.  His hand was on the signal-cord when, chancing to look back, he saw that the passenger-train had made only the momentary time-card stop at the summit station, and was coming on.

This turned the high crime into a mere breach of discipline, common enough even on well-managed railroads when the leading train can be trusted to increase the distance interval.  But again the martinet in Lidgerwood protested.  It was his theory that rules were made to be observed, and his experience had proved that little infractions paved the way for great ones.  In the present instance, however, it was too late to interfere; so he drew a chair out in line with one of the rear observation windows and sat down to mark the event.

Pitching over the hilltop summit, within a minute of each other, the two trains raced down the first few curving inclines almost as one.  Mile after mile was covered, and still the perilous situation remained unchanged.  Down the short tangents and around the constantly recurring curves the special seemed to be towing the passenger at the end of an invisible but dangerously short drag-rope.

Lidgerwood began to grow uneasy.  On the straight-line stretches the following train appeared to be rushing onward to an inevitable rear-end collision with the one-car special; and where the track swerved to right or left around the hills, the pursuing smoke trail rose above the intervening hill-shoulders near and threatening.  With the parts of a great machine whirling in unison and nicely timed to escape destruction, a small accident to a single cog may spell disaster.