Bert Wilson's Twin Cylinder Racer

CHAPTER I

The Runaway Locomotive

“Stop her. Stop her. She’s running wild!”

The cry ended almost in a shriek that rang high above the murmur of voices at the railroad station.

It was a bright sunny morning early in June. The usual crowd of rustics had gathered at the depot to see the train come in and depart. A few commercial travelers were consulting time tables and attending to the disposition of their baggage. Gay laughter and hasty farewells arose from a bevy of girls and the young men who had assembled to see them off. The conductor, watch in hand, stood ready to give the signal, and the black porters were already gathering up the folding steps preparatory to boarding the train. The bells were ringing and the whistle had given its preliminary toot, when all were startled at the sight of the station agent, who issued wild-eyed from his office and ran on the track, frantically waving his hands and shouting at the top of his voice.

As the startled passengers and trainmen followed the direction of his look, they saw what had occasioned the wild commotion, and, for a moment, their hearts stood still.

A big Mogul engine that had been shunted to a side track was moving down the line, slowly at first but gathering speed with every passing second. Neither engineer nor fireman could be seen in the cab. It was evident that they had left before the power was completely shut off, or that some sudden jar had started the mechanism. Even while the frightened spectators watched as though under a spell, the pace grew swifter. Some of the men lounging about the roundhouse made a hurried rush for it, with a faint hope of getting aboard and shutting off steam. One of these made a desperate grab at the rear end of the tender, but was flung in a ditch alongside the track, where he rolled over and over. It was too late to stop her. Amid a tempest of yells and a tumult of excitement she gathered way and sped down the line.

The station master wrung his hands and tore his hair in desperation. For the moment he was crazed with fright.

A clear eyed young fellow, tall, stalwart, muscular, had been chatting with a party of friends on the road beside the platform. While he talked, his hand rested on the handle-bars of a motorcycle at which he glanced at intervals with a look of pride that was almost affection. It was a superb machine, evidently of the latest type, and in its graceful lines suggested in some vague way a resemblance to its owner. Both looked like thoroughbreds.

At the Babel of cries that rent the air the young motorcyclist looked up and his nostrils dilated with sudden purpose. At a glance he took in the situation – the running men, the panic cries, the runaway engine. Then he came plunging through the crowd and grasped the dazed agent by the shoulder.

“Come, wake up,” he cried. “Do something. Telegraph to the next station.”

The man looked up dully. Terror had benumbed his faculties. He was clearly not the man for a sudden emergency.

“No use,” he moaned. “The next station is thirteen miles away. And it’s a single track,” he wailed, “and No. 56 is due in twenty minutes. If she’s on time she’s already left there. They’ll meet head-on – O God!”

“Quick,” the newcomer commanded, as he fairly dragged him into the office. “There’s the key. Get busy. Call up the next station and see if you can stop 56.”

But as he saw the aimless, paralyzed way in which the agent fumbled at the key, he thrust him aside and took his place. He was an expert telegrapher, and his fingers fairly flew as he called up the operator at Corridon.

“Engine running wild,” he called. “Stop 56 and sidetrack the runaway.”

A moment of breathless suspense and the answer came in sharp, staccato clicks that betrayed the agitation of the man at the other end.

“56 just left. Rounding the curve half a mile away. Making up time, too. For heaven’s sake, do something.”

“Do something.” What bitter irony! What could be done? Death was at the throttle of that mad runaway rushing down the line.

But the young fellow was of the never say die kind, and always at his best when danger threatened. He thought with the rapidity of lightning. Then he clutched the station agent, who sat with his head bowed on his hands, a picture of abject misery.

“Is there a switch between here and Corridon?” he demanded fiercely.

“N-no,” muttered the stupefied man. “That is, there is one at the old stone quarry, but – ”

The remainder of the sentence fell on empty air. Like a flash, the youth who had so cavalierly taken matters in his own hands was out of the room. He ploughed through the huddled group of passengers and trainmen, and flung himself into the saddle of the waiting motorcycle. A roar as he threw in the clutch, a quick scattering of those in front, and the machine, like a living thing, darted down the road that lay beside the track.

The wind sang in his ears and the path fell away behind him as he crouched low over the fork so that his body might offer as little resistance as possible. And, as he rushed along, his active mind was thinking – thinking —

He knew the surrounding country like an open book. There was scarcely a lane that he had not threaded, and as for the highways, he had gone over them again and again. Now, as in a panorama, he saw every turn and bend, every height and hollow of the road that lay before him. In sheer delight of living he had ridden it before; now he must do it to keep others from dying.

The old stone quarry was a familiar landmark. More than once, he and other fellows from the College interested in geology had come over there to hunt fossils. At an earlier date, it had been a buzzing hive of activity, and a side track had been laid by the railroad company in order to load the stone more easily. But of late it had proved unprofitable to work the quarry, and nothing now remained but the abandoned shacks of the workmen and some broken tools and machinery, rusting in the grass that had grown up around them. He remembered that the siding ran for about twenty rods and ended at bumpers set within a few feet of the wall of rock.

For two or three miles, the road he was traveling ran almost parallel to the railroad. At times, a shoulder of the path hid the rails from sight, and at one place he had to make quite a wide detour before he again came close to the right of way. The switch at the quarry was seven miles from the town, and, though he hoped to make it in less than that many minutes, it seemed as though he would never reach it. To his agonized mind he appeared to be merely crawling. In reality he was flying.

For he was riding now as he had never ridden before. Human life was at stake – perhaps hundreds of lives. He pictured the long line of cars full of passengers – for 56 was the road’s finest train, and almost always filled to capacity – coming toward him without a thought of danger. Some would be reading, others gazing out of the windows, still others laughing and talking. But everywhere would be confidence, ease of mind, an eager looking for the journey’s end without the slightest apprehension. And all this time, death was grimly bearing down upon them in one of his most fearful forms.

He shuddered as in his mind’s eye he saw the two monster locomotives leaping at each other like enraged giants. He had seen a wreck once and had fervently prayed that he might never see another. And as that scene now came before him, he bent lower over the bars and let out every ounce of speed that the machine possessed.

It was leaping now, only touching the high places. Had he been a less skilful rider he would have been hurled from the saddle. Discretion was thrown to the winds. It was no time to measure possibilities or look out for his personal safety. He had to take chances. His siren warned all comers to give him the road. A team was hauled up on its haunches by the frightened driver; an automobile drew so hastily to one side that two wheels went into the ditch. He caught a glimpse of startled faces at doors and windows as he passed. Like a meteor he flashed by, all his heart and soul wrapped up in the thought of rescue.

Now he had overtaken the locomotive and was running parallel to it. The Mogul swayed and lurched as it tore along with all steam up on its mission of destruction. Steadily the rider drew up on even terms, with less than twenty feet separating the tracks from the high road. Then the motorcycle swept into the lead and increased it with every bound.

Only two miles more to the quarry! His heart exulted as he realized that he would get there first. But the margin would be fearfully close. The switch might prove rusty and refuse to work. Some part of it might be out of gear. For years it had been utterly abandoned. What a bitter jest of fate if, after reaching it ahead of the locomotive, he should have to stand helplessly by and see it dash past on its errand of slaughter.

Then, too, a third factor entered into the problem. There was No. 56. She was a limited express and famous for her speed. The operator at Corridon had said that on this stretch of road, supposed to be clear, she would make up time. If she reached and passed the switch before the runaway, no power on earth could prevent a frightful disaster. And just then, while this fear was tugging at his heart, a faint whistle in the distance drove all the color from his face. 56 was coming!

He dared not take his eyes from the road in front, but he knew from the lessened noise behind him that he was increasing his lead. And then as he swept around a slight curve in the road, the abandoned quarry came into view. There were the empty shacks, the deserted platform and, a few rods further on, the switch.

He raced to the tracks and threw himself from the machine, almost falling headlong from the momentum, although he had turned off the power. Then he grasped the lever and tried to throw the switch.

It groaned and creaked, but, although it protested, it yielded to the powerful young muscles that would not be denied. But, when it had moved two-thirds of the way it balked, and, despite his frenzied attempts, refused to budge another inch. And now the runaway engine was coming close, rumbling and roaring hideously, while round the curve, a scant quarter of a mile away, appeared the smokestack of No. 56.

Looking wildly about for the obstacle, he saw that a stone had been wedged into the frog. He tried to remove it, but the turning of the switch had jammed it against the rail. Straightening up, he swung the lever far enough back to release the stone. He worked as if in a nightmare. Fifty feet away, the Mogul was bearing down like a fire-breathing demon. With one swift movement he threw the stone aside; with the next he bowed his back over the lever until it felt as though it would break. Then the rusted rails groaned into place; with an infernal din and uproar the runaway took the switch. Scarcely had it cleared the track when 56 thundered past, its wheels sending out streams of sparks as the brakes ground against them.

The Mogul struck the bumpers with terrific force, tore them away and leaped headlong against the wall of the quarry. There was a crash that could be heard for miles, and the wrecked locomotive reared into the air and then rolled over on its side, enveloped in smoke and hissing steam.

As soon as the long train of 56 could be stopped, the throttle was reversed and it came gliding back to the switch. The engineer and fireman sprang from their cab, conductor and trainmen came running up, and the passengers swarmed from the cars.

There was a tumult of excited questionings, as they gathered round the young fellow who stood there, panting with the strain of his tremendous efforts. Now that he had succeeded in the forlorn hope that he had undertaken, he was beginning to feel the reaction. He responded briefly and modestly to the questions that were showered upon him, and, as the full meaning of their narrow escape from death burst upon them, passengers and trainmen alike were loud in their praise of his presence of mind and thanks for their deliverance. They were for making him a hero, but he shrank from this and would have none of it.

“Don’t thank me,” he laughed. “It was this that made it possible;” and he patted the handlebars of the motorcycle. “She certainly did herself proud this day.”

“She surely is a dandy,” smiled the conductor, “but you must admit that you had a little to do with it. We’ll never forget what you have done for us to-day. But now we must be starting. We’ll put the machine in the baggage car, and you come in here with me.”

A blast of the whistle and No. 56 had resumed its interrupted journey.

A ringing cheer burst from the anxious crowds that surged about the platform as the great train, puffing and snorting, came into the station. The agent, white as a ghost, could not believe his eyes.

“Thank God,” he cried. “I thought it was all over. I’ve telegraphed for the wrecking crew, and all the doctors in town have been called to go along. How on earth did you escape? Where is the Mogul?”

“You’ll find that down in the quarry smashed to bits,” answered the conductor. “You’ll need the wrecking train for that, all right, but you can call off the doctors. We would have needed plenty of them – and undertakers too – if it hadn’t been for this young man. He threw the switch without a second to spare.”

The station agent grasped the rider’s hand and stammered and stuttered, as he tried to pour out his thanks. But just then a flying wedge of college boys came through the crowd and, grabbing the reluctant hero, hoisted him to their shoulders.

“Wilson.” “Bert Wilson.” “O, you Bert.” “O, you speed boy,” they yelled. The enthusiastic lookers on took up the shout and it was a long time before Bert, blushing and embarrassed, could free himself from his boisterous admirers.

“O, cut it out, fellows,” he protested. “It was all in the day’s work.”

“Sure,” assented Tom Henderson, “but such a day’s work.”

“And such a worker,” added Dick Trent.

“Three times three and a tiger for Bert Wilson,” roared a stentorian voice. The answer came in a tempest of cheers, and, as the train pulled out, the last sound that came to the waving passengers was the lusty chorus:

CHAPTER II

The “Blue Streak”

“Isn’t it a beauty?” exclaimed Bert, as, a few days later, he swept up to a waiting group of friends and leaped from the saddle.

There was a unanimous assent as the boys crowded around the motorcycle, looking at it almost with the rapt intentness of worshippers at a shrine.

“It’s a dandy, all right,” declared Dick, with an enthusiasm equal to Bert’s own. “You skimmed along that last stretch of road like a bird.”

“It’s about the speediest and niftiest thing on the planet,” chimed in Tom. “You’d give an airship all it wanted to do to keep up with you.”

“Easy, easy there,” laughed Bert. “I wouldn’t go as far as that. But on ‘terra cotta,’ as Mrs. Partington calls it, there are mighty few things that will make me take their dust.” And he patted the machine with as much affection as if it could feel and respond to the touch.

“About how fast can that streak of greased lightning travel, any way?” asked Drake. “What’s the record for a motorcycle?”

“The best so far is a mile in thirty-six and four-fifths seconds,” was the answer. “That’s at the rate of ninety-eight miles an hour.”

“Some traveling,” murmured Dick.

“Of course,” went on Bert, “that was for a sprint. But even over long distances some great records have been hung up. In England last year a motorcycle made 300 miles in 280 minutes. I don’t think the fastest express train in the world has ever beaten that.”

“Gee,” said Tom, “I’d hate to be in the path of a cannon ball like that. It would be the ‘sweet by and by’ for yours truly.”

“It might possibly muss you up some,” grinned Bert. “It’s a case of ‘the quick or the dead’ when you amble across the path of a twin-cylinder.”

“I should think,” remarked Drake, “that it would shake the daylights out of you to travel at the speed you were going just now along that last bit of road.”

“A few years ago it would have,” admitted Bert. “The way they bumped along was a sure cure for dyspepsia. But with this saddle I could ride all day and scarcely feel a jar. Why, look at this cradle spring frame,” he went on enthusiastically; “it has the same flat leaf springs that they use in the finest kind of automobiles. You wouldn’t believe that there are over 250 inches of supple, highly tempered springs between the saddle and the road. It’s as elastic and flexible as a bamboo cane. Each spring has double scrolls that come into action one after another whenever you have a jolt. Then, too, there are rubber bumpers to take the recoil. Why, it’s like a parlor car on a limited express. No fellow sitting back in a Pullman has anything on me.”

“You’re a pampered son of luxury, all right,” mocked Tom. “We children of toil take off our hats to you.”

Bert made a playful pass at him and went on:

“As to power, it would take the strength of seven horses to match it. The engine has a piston displacement of 61 inches. And yet you can control that tremendous power so far as to slow down to three miles an hour. Not that I often get down to that, though. Fifty or sixty suit me better.”

“You ought to name it ‘Pegasus,’ after the flying horse,” suggested Hinsdale.

“Old Pegasus would have his work cut out for him if he tried to show me the way,” smiled Bert. “Still I don’t claim to beat anything that goes through the air. But when you get down to solid earth, I’d back this daisy of mine to hold its own.”

“The old Red Scout might make you hustle some,” suggested Tom.

“Yes,” admitted Bert, “she certainly was a hummer. Do you remember the time she ran away from the Gray Ghost? Speed was her middle name that day.”

“It was, for fair,” agreed Dick, “but perhaps she went still faster when we scudded up the track that day, with the express thundering behind.”

“Our hearts went faster, anyway,” declared Tom. “Gee, but that was a narrow squeak. It makes me shiver now when I think of it.”

“Same here,” echoed Bert, little dreaming that before long, on the splendid machine whose handlebars he held, he would graze the very garments of death.

Happily, however, the future was hidden, and for the moment the little group were absorbed in the mechanical wonders of the motorcycle that loomed large in the road before them. It stood for the last word in up-to-date construction. The inventive genius of the twentieth century had spent itself on every contrivance that would add to its speed, strength and beauty. It was a poem in bronze and steel and rubber. From the extremity of the handlebars in front to the rim of its rear wheel, not the tiniest thing had been overlooked or left undone that could add to its perfection. Fork and cams and springs and valves and carburetor – all were of the finest material and the most careful workmanship.

“It seemed an awful lot to pay, when I heard that it cost you over three hundred bucks,” said Tom, “but after looking it over, I guess you got your money’s worth.”

“The value’s there, all right,” asserted Bert confidently. “I wouldn’t take that amount of money for the fun I’ve had already. And what I’m going to have” – he made a comprehensive wave of the hand – “it simply can’t be reckoned in cold coin.”

“It’s getting to be a mighty popular way of traveling,” said Dick. “I saw it stated somewhere that a quarter of a million are in use and that the output is increasing all the time.”

“Yes,” added Drake, “they certainly cover a wide field. Ministers, doctors, rural mail carriers, gas, electric and telephone companies are using them more and more. In the great pastures of the West, the herders use them in making their rounds and looking after the sheep. All the police departments in the big cities employ a lot of them, and in about every foreign army there is a motorcycle corps. You’ve surely got lots of company, old man.”

“Yes, and we’re only the vanguard. The time is coming when they’ll be used as widely as the bicycle in its palmiest days.”

“A bicycle wouldn’t have done you much good the other day, in that wild ride down to the switch,” grinned Drake. “By the way, Bert, the press associations got hold of that, and now the whole country’s humming with it.”

“Well,” said Bert, anxious to change the subject, “if she’ll only do as well in the race from coast to coast, I won’t have any kick coming.”

“How about that contest anyway?” queried Hinsdale. “Have you really decided to go into it?”

“Sure thing,” answered Bert. “I don’t see why I shouldn’t. Commencement will be over by the eighth, and the race doesn’t start until the tenth. That will give me plenty of time to get into shape. As a matter of fact, I’m almost fit now, and Reddy is training me for two hours every afternoon. I’ve almost got down to my best weight already, and I’m going to take the rest off so slowly that I’ll be in the pink of condition when the race begins. Reddy knows me like a book and he says he never saw me in better form.”

“Of course,” he went on thoughtfully, “the game is new to me and I’m not at all sure of winning. But I think I have a chance. I’d like to win for the honor of it and because I hate to lose. And then, too, that purse of ten thousand dollars looks awfully good to me.”

The race to which the boys referred had been for some time past a subject of eager interest, and had provoked much discussion in sporting and college circles. The idea had been developing since the preceding winter from a chance remark as to the time it would take a motorcycle to go from the Atlantic to the Pacific. A guess had been hazarded that it could be done in twenty days. This had been disputed, and, as an outcome of the discussion, a general race had been projected to settle the question. The Good Roads Association of America, in conjunction with a number of motorcycle manufacturers, had offered a purse of five thousand dollars for the competitor who made the journey in the shortest time. If that time came within twenty days, an additional two thousand dollars was to be given to the winner.

One other element entered into the problem. The San Francisco Exposition, designed to celebrate the opening of the Panama Canal, would be in full swing at the time the survivors of the race reached the coast. One of the great features of the Fair was to be an international carnival of sports. There were to be contests in cavalry riding, in fencing, in auto racing, and the pick of the world were expected to compete. But of special interest to Bert was the international motorcycle race, which for the first time was to be held in America. Two years before, it had taken place in Paris and, a year later, in London. But this year it was America’s turn, and because of the immense crowds expected at the Exposition, San Francisco had been chosen as the city to stage the event. There was to be a first prize of three thousand dollars and lesser purses for those that came in second and third. If, by any chance, the winner of the long distance race should break the twenty day limit and also win the final race at the Fair, his total reward would amount to ten thousand dollars.

With such a possibility in prospect, it was not surprising that Bert should be strongly tempted to enter the race. He was a natural athlete, and in his college course so far had stood head and shoulders above his competitors. As pitcher on the ’Varsity team, he had cinched the pennant by his superb twirling in a most exciting series of diamond battles. He had been chosen as a contender on the American Olympic team, and had carried off the Marathon after a heart-breaking race, in which every ounce of speed and stamina had been tried to the utmost. In an auto race between rival campers, his hand at the wheel had guided the Red Scout to victory over the Gray Ghost, its redoubtable antagonist. He was a splendid physical machine of brawn and sinew and nerve and muscle. Outdoor life, vigorous exercise and clean living, combined with his natural gifts, made him a competitor to be feared and respected in any contest that he chose to enter.

But his lithe, supple body was not his only, or indeed, his chief asset. What made him preëminent was his quick mind and indomitable will, of which his body was only the servant. His courage and audacity were superb. Again and again he had been confronted with accidents and discouragements that would have caused a weaker fellow to quit and blame the result on fate. He had won the deciding game in the baseball race, after his comrades had virtually thrown it away. In the Marathon, it was with bruised and bleeding feet that he overtook his antagonist at the very tape. The harder bad luck tried to down him, the more fiercely he rose in rebellion. And it was this bulldog grip, this unshaken tenacity, this “never know when you are beaten” spirit that put him in a class by himself and made him the idol of his comrades. They had seen him so often snatch victory from the very jaws of defeat, that they were prepared to back him to the limit. Win or lose, they knew that he would do his best, and, if defeated, go down fighting.