The new arrivals were greeted with exclamations of relief and demands for more details. Most of the soldiers simply grunted and shouldered past, but Rose, after a brief conference with the lieutenants, turned back to the crowd and sat heavily, fatigued muscles trembling slightly. "We were partway up the hill when the engine let go with a bang. They threw on the brake right away—we hadn't even started falling back yet—and ordered everypony off. I tried to talk 'em into coming with us, but the old coot insisted she couldn't abandon rolling stock on a through line, especially not mid-slope. She said they had to clear the line by rolling back to the loop we started from, and they'd catch up with us."