Yet perilous possibilities were in their rear.  Their delay at Kingston had been threateningly long.  They must guard against pursuit.  Stopping the train, and seizing their tools, they sprang out to tear up a rail.  Suddenly, as they worked at this, a sound met their ears that almost caused them to drop their tools in dismay.  It was the far-off bugle blast of a locomotive whistle sounding from the direction from which they had come.

The Confederates, then, were on their track!  They had failed to distance pursuit!  The delay at Kingston had given their enemies the needed time!  Nervous with alarm, they worked like giants.  The rail yielded slightly.  It bent.  A few minutes more and it would be torn from its fastenings.  A few minutes!  Not a minute could be spared for this vital work.  For just then the whistle shrieked again, now close at hand, the rattle of wheels could be heard in the distance, and round a curve behind them came a locomotive speeding up the road with what seemed frantic haste, and filled with armed men, who shouted in triumph at sight of the dismayed fugitives.  It was too late to finish their work.  Nothing remained to the raiders but to spring to their engine and cars and fly for life.

We have seen the beginnings of this pursuit.  We must now go back to trace the doings of the forlorn-hope of pursuers, Fuller and his companion.  After their adventure with the broken rail, that brace of worthies pushed on in their hand-car till the station of Etowah was reached.  Here, by good fortune for them, an engine stood with steam up, ready for the road.  Fuller viewed it with eyes of hope.  The game, he felt, was in his hands.  For he knew, what the raiders had not known, that the road in advance would be blocked that day with special trains, and on a one-tracked road special trains are an impassable obstacle.

There were soldiers at Etowah.  Fuller’s story of the daring trick of the Yankees gave him plenty of volunteers.  He filled the locomotive and its cab with eager allies, and drove on at the greatest speed of which his engine was capable, hoping to overtake the fugitives at Kingston.  He reached that place; they were not there.  Hurried questions taught him that they were barely gone, with very few minutes the start.  Away he went again, sending his alarm whistle far down the road in his front.

The race was now one for life or death.  Andrews and his men well knew what would be their fate if they were caught.  They dared not stop and fight; their only arms were revolvers, and they were outnumbered by their armed foes.  Their only hope lay in flight.  Away they went; on came their shouting pursuers.  Over the track thundered both locomotives at frightful speed.  The partly-raised rail proved no obstacle to the pursuers.  They were over it with a jolt and a jump, and away on the smooth track ahead.

If the fugitives could have halted long enough to tear up a rail or burn a bridge all might have been well; but that would take more minutes than they had to spare.  A shrewd idea came into Andrews’s fertile mind.  The three box-cars behind him were a useless load.  One of them might be usefully spared.  The rear car of the train was uncoupled and left behind, with the hope that the pursuers might unwittingly dash into it and be wrecked.  On they went, leaving a car standing on the track.