“‘No! ol’ man, eh?  Well!  I’ll give him a canter for his currency this trip,’ said Yank, gloating.  ’I’ll follow him like a scandal; I’ll stay with him this night like the odor of a hot box.  Say, Jimmie,’ he laughed, ’when that tintype of yours begins to lay down on you, just bear in mind that my pilot is under the ol’ man’s rear brake-beam, and that the headlight of the 99 is haunting him.’

“‘Don’t get gay, now,’ said the engineer of the White Mail.

“’Oh, I’ll make him think California fruit is not all that’s perishable on the road to-night,’ said Yank, hurrying away to the round-house.

“Just as we were about to pull out, our engineer, who was brother to Yank, found a broken frame and was obliged to go to the house for another locomotive.  We were an hour late when we left that night, carrying signals for the fast freight.  As we left the limits of the yard, Hubbard’s headlight swung out on the main line, picked up two slender shafts of silver, and shot them under our rear end.  The first eight or ten miles were nearly level.  I sat and watched the headlight of the fast freight.  He seemed to be keeping his interval until we hit the hill at Collinsville.  There was hard pounding then for him for five or six miles.  Just as the Kaskaskia dropped from the ridge between the east and west Silver Creek, the haunting light swept round the curve at Hagler’s tank.  I thought he must surely take water here; but he plunged on down the hill, coming to the surface a few minutes later on the high prairie east of Saint Jacobs.

“Highland, thirty miles out, was our first stop.  We took water there; and before we could get away from the tank, Hubbard had his twin shafts of silver under my car.  We got a good start here, but our catch engine proved to be badly coaled and a poor steamer.  Up to this time she had done fairly well, but after the first two hours she began to lose.  Seeing no more of the freight train, I turned in, not a little pleased to think that Mr. Yank’s headlight would not haunt me again that trip.  I fell asleep, but woke again when the train stopped, probably at Vandalia.  I had just begun to doze again when our engine let out a frightful scream for brakes.  I knew what that meant,—­Hubbard was behind us.  I let my shade go up, and saw the light of the freight train shining past me and lighting up the water-tank.  I was getting a bit nervous, when I felt our train pulling out.

“Of course Hubbard had to water again; but as he had only fifteen loads, and a bigger tank, he could go as far as the Mail could without stopping.  Moreover, we were bound to stop at county seats; and as often as we did so we had the life scared out of us, for there was not an air-brake freight car on the system at that time.  What a night that must have been for the freight crew!  They were on top constantly, but I believe the beggars enjoyed it all.  Any conductor but Jim Lawn would have stopped and reported the engineer at the first telegraph station.  Still, I have always had an idea that the train-master was tacitly in the conspiracy, for his bulletin had been a hot one delivered orally by the Superintendent, whom I had seen personally.