“Well, along about midnight Hubbard’s headlight got so close, and kept so close, that I could not sleep.  His brother, who was pulling the Mail, avoided whistling him down; for when he did he only showed that there was danger, and published his bad brother’s recklessness.  The result was that when the Mail screamed I invariably braced myself.  I don’t believe I should have stood it, only I felt it would all be over in another hour; for we should lose Yank at Effingham, the end of the freight’s division.  It happened, however, that there was no one to relieve him, or no engine rather; and Yank went through to Terre Haute.  I was sorry, but I hated to show the white feather.  I knew our fresh engine would lose him, with his tired fireman and dirty fire.  Once or twice I saw his lamp, but at Longpoint we lost him for good.  I went to bed again, but I could not sleep.  I used to boast that I could sleep in a boiler-maker’s shop; but the long dread of that fellow’s pilot had unnerved me.  I had wild, distressing dreams.

* * * * *

“The next morning, when I got to my office, I found a column of news cut from a morning paper.  It had the usual scare-head, and began by announcing that the White Mail, with General Manager Blank’s car Kaskaskia, came in on time, carrying signals for a freight train.  The second section had not arrived, ‘as we go to press.’  I think I swore softly at that point.  Then I read on, for there was a lot more.  It seemed, the paper stated, that a gang of highwaymen had planned to rob the Mail at Longpoint, which had come to be regarded as a regular robber station.  One of the robbers, being familiar with train rules, saw the signal lights on the Mail and mistook it for a special, which is often run as first section of a fast train, and they let it pass.  They flagged the freight train, and one of the robbers, who was doubtless new at the business, caught the passing engine and climbed into the cab.  The engineer, seeing the man’s masked face at his elbow, struck it a fearful blow with his great fist.  The amateur desperado sank to the floor, his big, murderous gun rattling on the iron plate of the coal-deck.  Yank, the engineer, grabbed the gun, whistled off-brakes, and opened the throttle.  The sudden lurch forward proved too much for a weak link, and the train parted, leaving the rest of the robbers and the train crew to fight it out.  As soon as the engineer discovered that the train had parted, he slowed down and stopped.

“When he had picketed the highwayman out on the tank-deck with a piece of bell-cord, one end of which was fixed to the fellow’s left foot and the other to the whistle lever, Yank set his fireman, with a white light and the robber’s gun, on the rear car and flagged back to the rescue.  The robbers, seeing the blunder they had made, took a few parting shots at the trainmen on the top of the train, mounted their horses, and rode away.