The Scotchman had the grade to help him, which was fortunate.  When he had the string of empties fairly in retreat, the beam of Gallagher’s headlight was shining full in his face and blinding him.  For a heart-breaking second he feared that the opposing train would follow him in on the siding; there was but an instant for the flicking of the switch.  But by this time the sleepy flagman was wide awake, and he jerked the switch lever for his life the moment Graham’s engine had cleared the points.  It was the closest possible shave.  Gallagher’s cab ticked the forward end of the other engine’s running board in passing, and if Graham had not been still shoving backward with the throttle wide open, the “01,” being wider than its piloting engine, would have had its side ripped out.

Graham had a glimpse into the cab of the 956 as it passed and saw Gallagher, sitting erect on his box with wide-staring eyes.  He knew the symptoms, and feared that he had only postponed the catastrophe.  The siding was a short one, and he knew that in backing down he must inevitably have shoved the rear end of his train out upon the main line at the lower switch.  Once again the level brain righted itself to the emergency.  Four sharp shrieks of the whistle for switches, a jamming of the whistle lever to set the canyon echoes yelling in the hope of arousing Gallagher, and Graham slammed his engine into the forward motion without pausing to close the throttle.  There was a grinding of fire from the wheels, a running jangle of slack-taking down the long line of empties, and the freight train shot ahead, snatching its rear end out of harm’s way just as Gallagher, dreaming that his boiler had burst and that all the fiends of the pit were screeching the news of it, came to life and snapped on the air.

When the stop was made, the little Irishman roused his fireman, got off and footed it up the line to see what he had done.  Graham had stopped his engine when he was sure his train was clearing the lower switch, and was on his way back to find out what had happened to Gallagher.  The two men met in the shadow of the halted material empties, and it was the Irishman who began it.

“Paste me wan, Scotchie,” he said. “‘Tis owin’ to me.”

Without a word the Scotchman gave the blow, catching the little man full in the chest and knocking him half a car-length.  That was enough.  Gallagher picked himself up out of the gravel, the lust of battle hot upon him.

“Wan more like thot, ye divvle, and I cajo lick ye if ye wor Fin-mac-Coul himself,” he panted; and Graham gave it judiciously, this time on the point of the jaw.  For five bloody minutes it went on, give and take, down and up; methodically on Graham’s part, fiery hot on Gallagher’s.  And in the end the Irishman had the heavier man backed against the string of empties and yelling for quarter.

“Are you full awake now, ye red-hot blastoderm?” gasped Graham, struggling to free himself when Gallagher gave him leave.