Hoofbeats on the Turnpike Part 28

"We're coming into Delta now," Penny presently observed. "Perhaps if we watch sharp we'll see Joe Quigley and can say goodbye."

The train stopped with a jerk while still some distance from the station.

Then it pulled to a siding and there it waited. After ten minutes Penny sauntered through the train, thinking that if she could find an open door, she might get out and walk to the depot. Stopping a porter who was pa.s.sing through the car, she asked him the cause of the delay.

"We'se waitin' fo' ordehs," the colored man answered. "Anyhow, dat's what de cap'n says."

"The captain?"

"The conducteh o' dis heah train."

"Oh! And what does he say about the high water?"

"He says de track between heah and Hobostein's a foot undeh."

"Then that means the river must be coming up fast. Any danger we'll be stranded at Delta?"

"You betteh talk to de conductor," the porter said, jerking his head toward a fat, bespectacled trainman who had just swung aboard the coach.

"Dat's Mr. Johnson."

Penny stopped the conductor to ask him what the chances were of getting through the flooded area.

"Doesn't look so good," he rumbled. "The rails are under at Mile Posts 792 and 825."

"Then we're tied up here?"

"No, we're going as far as we can," the conductor answered. "The dispatcher's sending a work train on ahead to feel out the track. But we'll be lucky to make ten miles an hour."

Penny chatted with the conductor for a few minutes, then ambled back to the coach where she had left Louise. The prospects were most discouraging. At best it would be late afternoon before they could hope to reach Riverview.

"I'm starving too," Louise said. "I suppose there's no diner on this train."

As a stop gap the girls hailed a pa.s.sing vendor and bought candy bars.

Having thus satisfied their hunger, they tried to read magazines.

Presently the car started with a jerk. However, instead of proceeding toward the station it backed into the railroad yard.

"Now what?" Penny demanded impatiently. "Aren't we ever going to start?"

The porter hastened through the car, his manner noticeably nervous and tense. He paid no heed to a woman pa.s.senger who sought to detain him.

"Something's wrong!" Penny said with conviction.

"A wash-out, do you think?"

"Might be. Let's see what we can learn."

With a vague feeling of foreboding they could not have explained, the girls arose and followed the porter. Something was amiss. They were certain of it.

Losing sight of the colored man, they kept on until they reached the rear platform. Penny started to open the screen door. Just then the train whistle sounded a shrill, unending blast.

Startled, Louise gripped her chum's hand, listening tensely.

In the car behind, they heard the conductor's husky voice. He was shouting: "Run! Run, for your lives! Take to the hills!"

Penny was stunned for an instant. Then seizing Louise's arm, she pulled her out on the train platform. At first glance nothing appeared wrong.

The tracks were well above the river level. Between the road bed and a high hill on the left, flood water was running like a mill race, but the ditch was narrow and represented no immediate danger.

"Listen!" Penny cried.

From far away there came a deep, rumbling roar not unlike the sound of distant thunder.

Leaning far over the train platform railing, Penny gazed up the tracks.

The sight which met her eyes left her momentarily paralyzed.

Down the valley charged a great wall of water, taking everything before it. Trees had been mowed down. Crushed houses were being carried along like children's blocks. Far up the track a switch engine was lifted bodily from the rails and hurled backwards.

Penny waited to see no more.

"The dam's given away!" she shouted. "Quick, Louise! Climb over the railing and run for your life!"

CHAPTER 19 _TRAGEDY_

Leaping over the platform railing, Penny held up her arms to a.s.sist Louise. Now awakened to danger, her chum scrambled wildly after her only to stop aghast as she beheld the gigantic wall of water rus.h.i.+ng toward them.

"Jump the ditch and make for the hill!" Penny ordered tersely. "Be quick!"

Pa.s.sengers were pouring from the other cars, their terrified cries drowned by the grinding roar of the onrus.h.i.+ng torrent. The wall of water moved with incredible speed. It tore into the railroad yard, shattering a tool house and a coal dock. It roared on, sweeping a row of empty box cars into its maw.

Spurred by the sight, Penny and Louise tried to leap the ditch. They fell far short and both plunged into the boiling water up to their arm pits.

Penny's feet anch.o.r.ed solidly. With a gigantic shove, she helped Louise to safety. By swimming with the current she then reached sh.o.r.e a few yards farther down the railroad right of way.

"Run!" she shouted to the bewildered, bedraggled Louise. "Up the hill!"

Scrambling over the muddy edge of the ditch, she raced after her chum for higher ground. Just then the wall of water swept into the siding. As the train was struck it seemed to shudder from the terrific impact, then slowly settled on its side.

"Horrible!" Louise shuddered. "Some of the pa.s.sengers may have been trapped in there!"

"Most of them escaped," Penny gasped. "There goes the water tower!"

A building borne by the flood, rammed into the ironwork of the big dripping tower. It crumpled, falling with a great, shuddering splash.

With the back-wash of the flood slos.h.i.+ng against their knees, the girls raced for high ground. Reaching a point midway up the hill where other pa.s.sengers had paused, they turned to glance below. Yellow, angry water, rising easily ten feet, flowed over the railroad right of way.