L. P. Brockett, The camp, the battlefield, and the hospital: or, lights and shadows of the great rebellion

[208] the engine was almost sure to make it mount the track again. On the track again, but a few rods ahead of us, was the formidable barricade, and beyond that the yawning chasm. Joe was standing up now, with eyes blazing, still holding the throttle wide open, as he braced himself for the shock. I had grasped the brake rod of the tender the instant I threw the piece of wood. Crash --my hold didn't avail me, as I was pitched head over heels against the fire-box, and laid flat on my back on the footboard or floor of the engine.

Joe was as suddenly jerked half around, his back striking the little door in front of where he had stood, breaking the door and shivering the glass to atoms. But we were through; how, we couldn't tell, except that we were still on the track, and thundering over the gorge. Joe's spirits rose with the occasion. Extricating himself almost as suddenly as he had been deposited in the little glass door, he jerked a tin flask from his pocket, sprung on top of the tender, and from thence to the roof of the cab. Steadying himself for a moment, with his face toward the rebels, he shouted, “good-by,” made them a low bow, and took a drink, perfectly regardless of the white puffs of smoke, as one after another discharged their pieces at him; as he afterward explained, “the engine made too much noise for him to hear the bullets, and they didn't seem to be hitting anybody.”

After having, in spite of sore bones, performed a jig, which he had extemporized for that occasion for the express edification of the “rebs,” Joe descended from his perch and deliberately shutting off steam, stopped.

We were still in sight of them, though at a tolerably safe distance, and now saw a group of them standing