The brake screamed, but the speed of the caboose was not appreciably
slackened. "It's had too good a start!" Bryce moaned. "The momentum
is more than I can overcome. Oh, Shirley, my love! God help you!"
He cast a sudden despairing look over his shoulder downward at the
coupling. He was winning, after all, for a space of six feet now
yawned between the end of the logging-truck and the bumper of the
caboose. If he could but hold that tremendous strain on the wheel for
a quarter of a mile, he might get the demon caboose under control!
Again he dug his knees into the front of the car and twisted on the
wheel until it seemed that his muscles must crack.
After what seemed an eon of waiting, he ventured another look ahead.
The rear logging-truck was a hundred yards in front of him now, and
from the wheels of the caboose an odour of something burning drifted
up to him. "I've got your wheels locked!" he half sobbed. "I'll hold
you yet, you brute. Slide! That's it! Slide, and flatten your
infernal wheels. Hah! You're quitting--quitting. I'll have you in
control before we reach the curve. Burn, curse you, burn!"
With a shriek of metal scraping metal, the head of the Juggernaut
ahead took the curve, clung there an instant, and was catapulted out
into space. Logs weighing twenty tons were flung about like kindling;
one instant, Bryce could see them in the air; the next they had
disappeared down the hillside.
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