IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) 4 // ^ ^<^ f/, fc ^ 1.0 u 1^ IM 2.2 Ui 1^ III H: 1^ 6" 2.0 1.8 L25 111 1.4 IIIIII.6 ^ ^ '<^A e". c}, /a 7 /A vV^ 7 Sciences Corporation 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. 14580 (716) 872-4503 r\^^ ^ <> ^ V ^"1* c> CIHM/ICMH Microfiche Series. CIHM/ICMH Collection de microfiches. Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions / Institut Canadian de microreproductions historiques Technical and Bibliographic Notes/Notes techniques et biblicgraphiques The Institute has attempted to obtain the best original copy available for filming. Features of this copy which may be bibliographically unique, wiiich may alter any of the images in the reproduction, or which may significantly change the usual method of filming, are checked below. D -L D D Coloured covers/ Couverture de couleur I I Covers damaged/ Couverture endommag6e Covers restored and/or laminated/ Couverture restaurie et/ou pelliculie Cover title missing/ Le titre de couverture manque Coloured maps/ Cartes giographiques en couleur Coloured inl< (i.e. other than blue or black)/ Encre de couleur (i.e. autre que bleue ou noire) I I Coloured plates ar'^remely rough. At times he found himself at the bottom of a deep gorge, and again at the top of a steep blufif, and saw before him a black and apparently bottomless abyss. The.- was no moon, but the friendly stars would guide him. Pike's Peak, standing high against the sky, showed him where the east was, while the Greenhorn Range rose rough and abrupt to the west. But when he had been upon his journey less than an hour, a grey cloud hung like a heavy fog on the hills and shut out all the light from tlie heavens and obscured the earth. Instead of waiting for the mists to clear away, he kept on going and was soon hope- lessly lost, so far as any knowledge of the points of the compass was concerned. He might, for what he knew, be headed for the hills, or he might be walk- ing in the direction of the junction and the State's prison. At last, having reached what appeared to be the summit of a little hill, he sat down upon a huge rock to rest. As he sat there, he thought he heard a sound like that produced by horses stepping about 12 The Express Messenger. on a stone floor. Presently the cloud rolled away, and although the valley below was still obscured, the stars were bright above, and the crags of the main range stood out clean cut against the western sky. Before him he saw Pike's Peak and knew that a little way below him, hid in the mist, lay the junction. The sheriff and his posse, lost in the fog, had halted in a small basin and were waiting for the clouds to clear away. The sheriff insisted that he had heard a man cough, and now the little party were sitting their horses in silence, which was broken only by the nervous tramping of a broncho. " What's that ? " asked the sheriff, pointing to the rock above them. " I should say it was a bear sitting on his haunches," said one of the men. " I'll just tap it with a cartridge," continued the last speaker, but at that moment one of the horses gave a snort, and instantly the figure of the big messenger rose from the rock and stood out against the dark blue sky. Until now he had been sitting bareheaded, and that gave him the bunchy look of a bear, b'st when he stood up and clapped his bell-topped ca]) upon his head, the sheriff recognized him in an instant "Let's drop him," said one of the men; "there's a thousand in it, and if he ever leaves that rock he's gone." > -i. " Hold ! " said the sheriff ; " we must give hii'n a show to surrender." When the four men had swung their guns into position, the sheriff commanded the messenger to throw up his hands. Instead of obeying, the man The Express Messenger. 13 away, red, the e main :rn sky. that a lay the og, had for the that he le party s broken " What's ;k above on his ;t tap it ;r, but at lort, and ose from olue sky. led, and b»it when cap upon ustant ji" there's l-Qck he's ve him a guns into jsenger to the man turned as if he intended to bolt, and with the first move of his body, the four rifles cracked almost as one gun, and the messenger went down. Throwing the bridle reins over the necks of the horses, the sheriffs posse dismounted and hurried up the little hill, but when they reached the s^^ot where the messenger had stood, there was no messenger nor sign of messenger. Anticipating the rain of lead he had dropped behind the rocks, while the bullets passed over his head, and by the time the posse had reached the crest of the hill and recovered from their surprise, the messenger was far up the mountain hiding amo'\^ the crags. " What d'you say now. Cap } " asked the man who had been anxious to earn the reward. " Do we git 'im nex' time er do we let 'im go } " " Git 'im," said the sheriff, and the posse returned to their horses. IV. The white cloud rolled down the mountain as the fleece rolls from a sheep that is shorn, and lay in a tumbled heap at the foot of the range. The grey dawn came out of the east and revealed the pealzs that were hiding high up in heaven's blue. Upon either hand, before and behind him, the messenger, crouching in the crags, heard the clatter of steel- shod feet and knew that he was being surrounded. Delay was dangerous. The coming of dawn meant death. The whispering winds, hurrying away up the hill, reminded him of the approach of day. t ■ . .1 ' •'■■, 14 The Express Messenger. His only hope was in reaching a point beyond which the horsemen might not ride, and he hurried on up to the narrow gulch. At the exit his trail was blocked by one of the deputies, and immediately both men opened fire. Now for the first time, since it shot muzzle first into the river, the messenger thought of his rifle. He was by no means an expert with a six-shooter, but managed to hit the officer's horse with his first bullet, and at the same instant a slug of lead from a Winchester crashed through his left shoulder, leaving it shattered and useless. The deputy's horse, having received his death wound, plunged wildly and made it impossible for its rider to take accurate aim. Dropping his rifle, the officer began to use his revolver, but a chance shot from the messenger's forty-five pierced his heart. Another plunge of the horse hurled him to the ground, his foot caught in the stirrup, and the messenger was horrified to see the crazed broncho bounding away, dragging his rider, head down, over the jagged rocks. The maddened animal appeared to be blind with rage. He crashed through a low, broad cedar, and a moment later leaped over a precipice and went rolling down the splintered side of a deep gorge ; and when the sheriff and his com- panions came up the gulch they found where the horse and rider had fallen one mangled mass of torn and tattered flesh. Made desperate by this appalling sight, the three officers were soon hot upon the trail of the fugitive. Finding it impossible to run away from his pursuers, the messenger cached his treasure, took refuge The Express Messenger. 15 beyond hurried lis trail ediately le, since jssenpjer I expert officer's instant through useless, s death jible for his rifle, a chance reed his II him to and the broncho )wn, over appeared rh a low, over a d side of his com- rhere the mass of the three ; fugitive. pursuers, k refuge among some sharp rocks, and awaited the coming of the enemy. To his surprise only two men came out of the gulch ; the other, having taken another route in order to head the fugitive off, was now far out of range. The officers had the advantage of being armed with rifles, and to hold this advantage fought at long range. The besieged, being sheltered by the rocks, was able to stand them off until both of his ;; guns were empty, but the moment he ceased firing, : the sheriff and his deputy began to advance. The •; messenger, weak from his wound, worked nervously . with his one useful hand, and had barely succeeded i in refilling one of his pistols when he was surprised I by the sound of a gun almost directly behind him, I and not ten feet away. He turned his revolver upon I the new-comer, only to find that the man was aiming 1 at the deputies. Without a word he turned again I to the work in hand, and at the next crack of the I stranger's pistol saw the left arm of the sheriff fall I limp at his side, while the Winchester it was level- i ling fell to the ground. " Now, damn you, fight fair ! " shouted the stranger, advancing. Following the fear- less example of this man who had so unexpectedly I reinforced him, the messenger came from shelter and [began to advance upon his assailants. One of the j horses was hit by a bullet and became almost un- I manageable, so that the sheriff, finding the brunt of the fight upon himself, and seeing that the messenger had a confederate, was about to retire, when a badly- aimed shot from his companion shattered the ankle of the messenger, causing him to fall. In an instant i6 The Express Messenger. he rose to his knees and began again to use his gun. The sheriff, glancing at his companion, saw that he had been hit in the head, for blood was streaming down his face. The battle had gone against them, and now the wounded sheriff and his bleeding com- panion turned their horses and galloped away. The messenger sank to a sitting posture, laid his empty, smoking revolver upon the ground, and gazed at his new-found friend. " Are you hit ? " asked the latter, coming toward the young man, and the messenger made no reply until he had given his hand to the stranger ; then he answered, "Yes." The dark man openea the messenger's shirt (and he did it as deliberately as he had kicked the Ute from the Lone Spruce saloon), examined the shattered shoulder and then the broken ankle, and asked, " Is that all } " " Yes," said the wounded man ; " isn't that enough ? " " Not if they meant to kill you, for they haven't found your vitals. What a lot of farmers to go shootin' a man in the foot — guess they wanted you to dance. That top scratch wasn't bad. Reckon you must have got that in the previous engagement, eh ? The blood's begun to thicken up. I see that fellow's hoss go over the cliff; gee, he must have fell a mile." The dark man had risen after examining the messenger's wounds, and when the latter looked up his friend had his own shirt open and was squeezing at a little pink spot just under his right breast. The Express Messenger. 17 s gun. \at he aming them, r com- ^ haven". ;rs to go .nted you Reckon Tagement, see that nust have ining the looked up squeezing reast. "My God!" said the messenger; "are you shot tliere ? " " Yes ; that wasn't a bad shot, only on the wrong side." " But why doesn't it bleed ? " " It's bleedin' on the wrong side," was the answer ; and then the stranger closed his shirt, looked steadily at his companion, and asked : " Where's your dough ?" "Behind those two rocks that are partly hidden by the boughs of yon cedar. Can you bring it to me } There are five pieces." " Forty thousand, eh ? " said the dark man, as he dumped the five envelopes beside the messenger, " and it ain't worth the excitement you've gone through. But I like you ; there's good stuff in you, boy." " Half of it ought to be yours, for you saved me I and the money, too. But who are you, and how did you happen to be here?" asked the messenger, [eagerly. "I got your note — the one you left in the safe " " But that was for the agent." "Yes, I know — I opened it by mistake." "My! but those fellows did fight wicked," the lesscnger rem.arked, as he picked up his empty gun md began to kick the shell out. " Hope that was )ld Huerfano himself that went over the bluff." "The devil you do!" " Say ! are you bleeding inside ? " asked the lesscnger, as his companion sank to the ground ath the air of a tired man. " I reckon so. Can you set a hoss ? " c 1 8 The Express Messenger. " No," said the messenger ; " but if you've got a horse, for heaven's sake take this money and go, for those wolves will return, and I'd rather they'd get me without the money than the money without me, or what is more likely no'v, both of us, and the money, too." The dark man put two fingers to his lips, gave a shrill, wild whistle, and a beautiful horse — black as night- -came leaping up from the gulch behind him. " My ! but you're a verdant youth," said the dark man, as the messenger offered him the money, and there was a shade of a smile about his black moustache. " Come, let me help you into the saddle while I've got strength — be quick," and he reached to help the messenger to rise. " I shall never leave you here alone " " I'll be dead in twenty minutes — thirty at the outside. Now, don't be a fool," and he stooped to lift the big messenger by his wounded leg. But the effort caused him to cough, blood spurted from his mouth, and both men, weak from their wounds, fell down in a heap, and then, leaning on their elbows, they looked at each other, the dan: man with a cynical, the messenger with a sort of hysterical, smile. The black horse sniffed at his master and snorted at the smell of blood. V. The warden's dark-eyed daughter was taking her regular morning ride in the foothills. There were no daily papers to spread the news of the place, and she h; day a he ha( in the had a unable heart incline! was nc green 1 horsem men vv asked v to want fused w she tur until he He ma fugitive from "thief" "He mistake. "Yes, not shoo he'll nev whole to With liorse anc The di '^d stoo moments The Express Messenger. i^ ot a ►, for get : me, I the ave a ,ck as him. : dark f, and black :o the ind he at the >ped to 3ut the am his ds, fell icll'OWS, with a , smile, irted at ting her Ire were ice, and she had heard nothing of the washout of the previous day and of the flight of the messenger. Yesterday he had made her to feel herself the happiest woman in the world. She had gone to her bed happy, but had awakened in a dreadful dream, and had been unable to sleep from that hour until morning. Her heart was heavy within her breast. She felt half inclined to be angry with her spirited horse, who was now cantering away with her toward the fresh green hills. At the edge of the valley she met three horsemen riding hard toward the town. Two of the men were wounded — one was bleeding — and she asked what was the matter. The men appeared not to want to stop, but when she had heard, in a con- fused way, something about the express messenger, she turned and rode by the side of the sheriff until he had told her hurriedly all that had occurred. He made her understand that they had left the fugitive and his confederate at the top of the gulch from which they had just emerged, and that the " thief " was severely wounded. " He is no thief," she retorted ; " there is some mistake." "Yes," said the sheriff, "we made a mistake in not shooting him down like a dog at first sight ; but he'll never leave those hills alive. In an hour the whole town will be after him." With that the sheriff drove the spurs into his horse and galloped away after his companions. The dark-eyed woman reined her horse to a stop, and stood looking after the deputies. It was some moments before she could realize the awfulness of 20 The Express Messenger. what she had heard. " In an hour the whole town will be after him," — she repeated what the sheriff had said. The guards at the prison, those who could be spared — even her own father — would be upon his trail to kill him. It must not be. With a pr&yer upon her lips the bewildered woman turned her horse and dashed toward the hills. From the valley the gulch showed plainly, but when she found herself among the rocks she became confused. The heavy growth of pinon and cedar obscured her view, and for nearly an hour she galloped up and down along the foothills, unable to find the correct pass. Her horse was white with foam. Her veil had been torn away, and her face was bleeding from many wounds inflicted by the stiff branches of the spreading cedars. At times she actually cried out to God to guide her to her lover, whom she believed to be innocent. At last she found the trail made by the sheriff's posse as they came down the gulch, but a moment later her heart sank as she heard the rattle of horsemen behind her. Presently she came to the dead deputy and his horse, but the sight did not appall her. Nothing could stop her now. Even in the presence of these silent witnesses — the horse and rider slain by the messenger — she was a^^le still to believe in his inno- ce*- e. Such is the capacity of a woman's love. Now a new trouble confronted her. Her horse refused to pass the dead. In vain she urged, coaxed, and whipped him ; he would only snort and turn away. Nearer and nearer came the crowd of man- hunters behind her. At last, having given up all The Express Messenger. 21 town sheriff could Dn his prayer d her y, but )ecame . cedar ur she able to te with ler face by the mes she er lover, ast she as they er heart lind her. and his Nothing of these by the lis inno- ms love. ler horse coaxed, and turn of man- n up all hope of getting her horse beyond the ghastly dead, she leaped to the ground and continued on foot. The horse, having been trained to follow her as r faithful dog follows his master, leaped the corpse of his brother and galloped to his mistress. It required but a moment for her to remount, and when she reached the top of the narrow caflon she turned to look behind her. The little gulch was filled with a stream of horsemen, and at the head of the column rode her father, followed by the mounted guard from the penitentiary. From the mouth of the gulch a straggling and broken line of horsemen reached down to the stage road, and the stage road was lined with waggons and boys on burros, while out of the town and over the valley men and women swarmed like ants. " It's awful for you to have to die for me," said the messenger, as the two men leaned upon their elbows and looked at each other. His shirt was pasted to his shoulder. His shoe being filled up, the blood was now oozing out between the lacings. "It is not awful," said the dark man, rubbing the ends of his fingers over the wound in his breast. " It's a useful ending of a wasted life. I never dreamed that I should die so nearly satisfied. And such sport! Why, that fight between you and the — and Huerfano Bill, as you call him, was the best thing I ever saw, and the last wild plunge of the maddened horse ! What a climax ! I wonder where the soul plunges to at that last leap. Stuff! there is no soul and no place to plunge to — I've always said so. And yet," he went on, looking steadily at his 22 The Express Messenger. companion, "when I was near fainting a moment ago I thought the end had come, and instead of darkness there was dawn — an awful dawn — the dawn of a new life, and the glare and uncertainty of it frightened me. I can't remember ever having been frightened before. Did you ever see the sky so blue ? " he asked, as he leaned against a rock and turned his face toward the heavens. "And the hills so green, and the air so fresh and cool and sweet } " And again there was silence, and the wounded man appeared to be trying to listen to the life-blood that was trickling into his lung, and wondering how long it would take it to filter away. The messenger dozed. The black horse bit off a mouthful of bunch -grass, and, holding it still, raised his head and listened. The men sat up and reached for their arms. The sound of the approaching army came from the canon. "They've been reinforced," said the dark man. "But you're all right — I can square you in two minutes — and, as I've got to cash in anyway, it makes no difference. Look out — there's a woman," he said excitedly, as the warden's daughter emerged from the cafion and galloped toward them. " Hello, gal ! " said the dark man. " Where is he } " she called. " Here ! here ! " cried the messenger from behind the rocks, and a moment later she was bending o''er him. For a brief moment she suffered him to hold her to his breast, and then, pushing him away, she looked him full in the face, and asked in a tone that almost froze his blood, "Are you guilty or innocent? Tell me quickly." 13ut the messenger } ■i ■% The Express Messenger. 23 :i appeared to be utterly unable to answer or even to comprehend her meaning. She stood up and glanced toward the cailon. "He's all right, gal — you've made no mistake," said the stranger. " He saved my life," said the messenger, pointing to his companion. " Why don't you thank him ? " " How can I ? " she asked, turning to the stranger and offering her gloved hand. " Take this package to Mrs. Monaro in the white cottage on the river, down by the smelter — she's my wife ; you'll find her ; and if you'll take the trouble to be kind to her I shall die in your debt and remain so, so long as I'm dead. Now take this gun and protect that boy. They won't fire on you, and I don't care to kill anybody else, now that I am already overdue in another world." She took the gun mechanically, and turned to face the posse that was at that moment beginning to swarm from the canon. " Are you mad ? " shouted the warden. " Drop that gun ! " cried the sheriff, with his left arm in a sling. The messenger, utterly unable to understand what the row was all about, attempted to rise, and in his excitement stood on his broken ankle, and the quick pain caused him to fall in a faint. " Look after the boy," said the dark man, and the warden's daughter dropped the ugly weapon and lifted her lover's head from the ground. " Drop that gun ! " repeated the sheriff. A cowboy shied a rope at the dark man, but he dodged it. 24 The Express Messenger. "One minute," said he, opening his shirt and showing his death wound ; " you'll have no trouble arresting me." "Where's the murderer?" shouted an excited citizen. "There's the chief," said the dark man, pointing to the wounded sheriff. The sheriff scowled. " Is the express agent here ? " asked the principal speaker, and a fat man with a red face came forward. "This messenger is innocent. I mean to kill the first man who offers to lay a hand on him ; after that you must protect him. This letter, which I have taken the liberty to open, explains it all. The sack of gold he left in the tank, you'll find where I cached it in the river opposite the engine. The paper, I suppose, is all there by his side. He was afraid of being robbed, and was trying to reach the junction when he was assaulted by these idiots whom he mistook for robbers, and how well he fought, his own wounds and the dead man do^n in the gulch will show you." The messenger, having regained consciousness, sat up and looked wildly about. The agent, realizing at a glance what an awful mistake had been made, fell upon the bewildered messenger and wept like a woman. Every passing second added to the general confusion and excitement. Cries of " Hang them, hang them ! " came frequent and fast from the rapidly increasing crowd. The warden, who also understood, lifted his daughter, held her in his arms, and kissed away the tears that were filtering through her smiles. The Express Messenger. 25 gulch ess, sat jalizing made, like a general them, rapidly "I don't believe it," said the sheriff to his com- panion. " Because you're a chump," said the dark man. "What's it all about?" asked the messenger of the agent. " Where is the murderer ? " cried a new-comer, a brother of the dead deputy, and then, catching sight of the messenger, he ran straight toward him, holding out a cocked revolver as though it had been a sword with which he intended to run him through. When he was within four or five feet of the wounded man, the dark man stmck him a fearful blow with a forty- five. The man went down, the dark man coughed, and a great flood of blood gushed from his mouth ; he clutched at his throat and fell for\vard upon his face. When they turned him over he was dead. " My poor dead friend," the messenger almost moaned, dragging himself toward the prostrate form, " and I don't even know his name." " I do," said Sheriff Shone, who had just arrived upon the scene and pushed through the crowd. " It's Huerfano Bill, the bandit!" ted his d away es. frf""' .". '•' I' ,' The Locomotive that Lost Herself. Engine 13 had been designed by a geniiw wlio was called a crank. He was the inventor of some of the most useful tools and appliances in use in the shops. He was an enthusiast. If he had net been, his design would never have been accepted by the superintendent of motive power and rnachincry. He claimed that his new locomotive would .steam better, pull harder, and run faster than any wiginc on the K. P. She was so constructed that she could run further on a tank of water, the enthusiast said, than an ordinary locomotive would run on two ; and that was good, for water was scarce on the plains. She had patent lubricators and balanced valves, new inventions at that time, and being fresh painted and handsome, she was regarded as a good "catch" by the engineers of the Smoky Hill division. The genius who designed her had been sent East to the locomotive works, to superintend her construction ; and long before the engine was completed, the mechanics employed upon her had arrived at the conclusion that the Western engineer was as crazy as a jack snipe. The Locomotive that Lost Herself. 27 As the locomotive neared completion the enthusiasm of her designer increased. A quiet, undemonstrative enthusiasm it was, that seemed to possess the soul of the inventor and to fill his life with all that he needed. Upon her growing skeleton he worked himself weary, and then rested himself in quiet con- templation of his ideal engine ; and finally, when the wheels were placed beneath her frame, he began to see her as she should appear when completed. One morning when the workmen came, they found Hansen's bed in the engine tank. From that day forward he worked about her by day, and slept, if he slept at all, upon her at night. Oscar Hansen, a Dane, had yellow hair and a very poor stand of clay-coloured whiskers. Like writing and painting geniuses, he allowed his hair and beard to grow and blow as they would, and the result was that he was about as unhandsome a man as one would meet in a lifetime. All this was nothing to Hansen. He lived in his work, and believed that in time he would run away from Stephenson, Franklin, and all the rest. When the 13 arrived at Kansas City, Hansen was with her, and he remained with her day and night until she was taken out to be limbered up for her trial trip. He insisted upon handling her himself, and would not allow the locomotive engineer to touch the throttle until the master mechanic came to him personally and remonstrated. It was evident from the very first that the engine was not right, and the engineer told Hansen so at the close of the first day with her. Hansen became so angry that he 28 The Locomotive that Lost Herself. threatened to kill the engineer if he ever dared to repeat what he had said. Every day for nearly a week the new engine was raced around the yards, and never for a moment did Hansen leave her. His wild hair became wilder, his deep eyes sank deeper into his head, and his thin white face became almost horrible to see. At the end of a week it was decided to put the 13 on the Denver Express for her trial trip, and Hansen surprised the master mechanic by asking to be allowed to run her. " But you are not a locomotive engineer," urged the official, "and I couldn't think of allowing you to handle the engine. You may go with her, if you wish ; but the engineer must have full control of the locomotive." Hansen went sullenly out, and climbed up into the cab. When the conductor came with the orders, he glanced up, and asked : " Who's his whiskers .' " "That fellow with the tired look and troubled tresses," answered the engineer, "is the idiot who designed this machine." Hansen had, by insisting upon running the new locomotive himself, incurred the displeasure of every engineer on the road, and as this remark was meant for him to hear, he heard it. When the conductor left the engine, Hansen crossed over to the driver's side, and said : " If you don't make time to-day, I'll run her myself, and I'll send you where you won't want a fireman." The driver only laughed, for the sanity of the inventor had been a debatable question ever since his return with the new engine. f. The Locomotive that Lost Herself. 29 ;d to rly a ^ards, His leeper ilmost ^cided r trial nic by urged you to if you of the jp into orders, ers?" roubled ;ot who he new af every meant Dnductor driver's day, I'll ou won't y of the ver since The train to which the 13 was coupled was a heavy one, for Colorado was at that time just beginning to " boom." In the first run, of seven miles, they lost five minutes, but Hansen was too much taken up with watching his machine to take note of the time. Her boiler was foaming, as new boilers usually do ; her main pins were hot, and so was her engineer. The first stop was at a small town, and when the conductor gave the signal to go, the engineer was still on the ground pouring tallow on the pins. Hansen became frantic at what, to him, seemed unnecessary delay, and springing to the driver's side he pulled the throttle wide open with- out releasing the air-brakes. The engine lurched forward, and when the slack was gone, her wheels began to revolve at a frightful rate. The engineer sprang into the cab, and found Hansen working frantically in a vain effort to shut off steam, and concluded at a glance that the throttle had been left partly open, and that the high pressure of steam had forced it out. Now, when the engineer, fireman, and Hansen all seized the lever to force the throttle in, they sprung the stem, and the thing could not be closed. The engineer released the air with the hope that the train might be started, and in that way the engine could be cooled down without doing any great damage. But the wheels were now revolving at such a rate that the engine had no adhesive power, and the train stood still. Five, ten, fifteen seconds went by, and still the three men worked, each in another's way, trying to shut off steam. A solid stream of fire was rolling out of the stack, and 30 The Locomotive that Lost Herself. such sprays of sparks came from the drivers that they looked like living flames. Pushing Hansen and the fireman ou^ of his way, the engineer opened both injectors ; and what with the cold water going in and the fire going out, the mad engine cooled rapidly, and in a few moments ground harshly and came to a stop. It was found, upon examination, that the drivers had dug great holes in the steel rails, and that the tires on the back pair of driving-wheels, already well heated by the furnace, had loosened by expansion and slipped nearly off the wheels. In a little while the throttle was cooled and closed, and a fresh fire was made ; but when they gave the engine steam she refused to move. She was uncoupled, and still refused to go ; and then they saw that her tires had cooled and clasped the fire-box, and the fire-box, expanding, held them there and locked the wheels. When they had put out her fire, the wheels let loose, so that a yard engine could drag her back to the round-house. All the way her scarred wheels ground and ground against her frame, while Hansen sat in the tank with his thin yellow whiskers full of coal dust, and nobody but he knew that he had opened the throttle. During the weeks that followed, while the 13 was being repaired, having her tires turned down to remove the slivers of steel, and getting reset and repainted, Hansen never left her for a single hour. His condition became so pitiable that the engineers, who had at first looked upon him with contempt, now spoke kindly to him or gave him no attention The Locomotive that Lost Herself. 31 that way, with t, the mcnts found, great »n the ted by clipped ;hrottlc made ; used to to go ; ed and •anding, eels let 3ack to wheels Hansen full of he had 13 was Jown to esct and Ic hour. ngineers, ;ontempt, attention at all. He rarely washed now ; his yellow beard was dark with coal dust, and his death-hucd face was splotched with soot and black oil. By the time the 13 was ready for the road, Hansen was almost ready for an undertaker ; and when the master mechanic saw him, he gave orders that the inventor must not be allowed to go out on the engine, which was to take out the fast freight, a night run of ome importance. Hansen had hoped, even boasted, that the 13 should never be coupled into anything plainer than a mail car, and now when he learned that she was going out on a freight run he was frantic. Formerly he had insisted upon running the engine only ; now he wanted to run the road. When the fore- man told him, as kindly as he could, that no one would be allowed in the cab of the 13 except the engineer and the fireman, the inventor glared fiercely for a moment, then turned and entered the office of the master mechanic. He did not wait to be ushered in, but strode to the chief's desk, and informed the head of the motive-power department that engine 1 3 would not go out on freight ; that when she did go out she would pull a passenger train, and that he, Hansen, would be the engineer. The master mechanic was forced to be firm wi:'' the man, whom, up to now, he had avoided or humoured ; and he told him plainly that the orders given concerning the new engine would certainly be carried out, and that if he became too troublesome he would be locked up. Hansen raved like a mad- 1 man, and all the clerks in the office were unable to 32 The Locomotive that Lost Herself. seize and hold him. " She is my life ! " he shrieked. "I have put my soul into her, and I will never allow her to go out of my sight — you will be guilty of murder if you separate us." As the mad inventor fought he frothed at the mouth, and the perspiration that almost streamed from his forehead washed white furrows down his face. It was not until the special officer came with handcuffs that Hansen could be controlled; and as the 13 rolled slowly across the turn-table he was led away to the lock-up. He became perfectly quiet now, and when they reached the "Cooler," as it was called, the officer removed the handcuffs and turned to unlock the door. Hansen, taking advantage of this opportunity, turned quickly and bolted, and was many yards away before the officer, rattling away at the padlock, knew that his prisoner had escaped. The officer very naturally supposed that Hansen would return to the shops ; but he did not. He made straight for the freight yards, where the 13 stood steaming, all coupled up and ready to pull out on her night run over the plains. The engineer had finished oiling, and had gone into the little telegraph- office where the conductor was getting orders. The fireman, who was in the cab looking after the engine, saw Hansen come leaping over the strings of flat and coal cars, with his beard sweeping round his neck, and his yellow hair blown back from his bare head. As the inventor sprang upon the engine the fireman seized him, only to be hurled out over the coal tank by the desperate Dane. Having freed cngin loapc ■ m ^^ '^ picke* -9 happt ^ static fl loose 1 static! '$ and tl was the pd lookiij ^thc 311 I i The Locomotive that Lost Herself. 33 himself from the fireman, Hansen gave two sharp blasts — " off brakes " — and opened the throttle. The sudden jerk broke the train in two, four cars from the engine ; and before the astonished engineer could reach the head end the engine was in motion. The mad driver knew enough to open the sand lever, and with a few exhausts the short train was moving so fast that the trainmen were unable to reach it. Out over the switches, already set for the fast freight, and down the main line dashed the wild driver, while a flood of fire came from the stack and rained upon the roofs of cars and switch shanties along the line. Flagmen, coming out at crossings to cheer the fast freight with a white signal of "all right," saw the grim face of Hansen leaning from the cab ; saw his white teeth shining, and his yellow hair streaming back over his shoulders, as the engine dashed by. Farmers along the line saw a great shower of sparks falling in their fields, and in her wake the wild engine left a sea of burning stubble where red flames leaped from, shock to rick. When the fireman, dazed and stunned, had been picked up and revived, he told them what had happened, and a despatch was vent to the first station out to "ditch" the 13, which had broken loose from her train and was running wild. This station was the meeting point for the fast freight iand the incoming express, and if the wild engine ^was allowed to pass, she must surely collide with ^the passenger train. The operator, who was on duty %looking out for these two important trains, realized the situation at a glance, and oj ned the switch at D 4 "ti. 34 The Locomotive that Lost Herself. the further end of the siding to allow the 13 to go into the ditch beyond the depdt. Because it was a junction point, the station was located at the foot of a long slope, down which Hansen drove at a frightful rate. Whatever of speed he had lost by iof'nt^ fire and wasting steam, he now regained r *?• downward grade. So great was the speed of the train that when the engine struck the first switch she left the track and plunged into the depdt, carrying the four loaded cars with her. The fourth car contained giant powder for the miners in the mountains, and this now exploded with terrific force. The agent and his assistant had stationed themselves near the other switch to witness the performance of the wild engine when she should leave the rail, and so escaped death. Hansen's escape was almost miraculous. The engine, in turning over, threw him upon Ihe roof of the low station, the roof was blo\v aua/ by the explosion, and Hansen was carried . • nr-* the prairie. The special engine and crew l1;. % ib^lowed upon her blazing trail found the 13 bjr"„d in the burning station, and Hansen lying unconscious upon the star-lit plain. The blackened fields had been ploughed and prepared for another crop, the station was being rebuilt, and the company's claim-agent was busy settling with the far., rs along the line, before Hansen was able to vi'' out in the garden back of the company's hospilai. it seemed to him, he said, that he had been ill all his life, and that ?11 he knew was the short life he had lived in the The Locomotive that Lost Herself. 35 hospital. Back of that all was a blank, save that he had a faint notion that he had lived before, and that the world out of which he had come was made up of one great sorrow from which he had narrowly escaped. "Is that my name?" he asked of the attendant one day when his reason had returned. "Sure," said the nurse, "your name vas Oscar — don't you know your own name } " " Oh yes," said the patient, wearily ; " I had for- gotten. What's my other name 1 — Oscar what ? " The attendant was about to reply when the surgeon, entering, gave sign for the man to be quiet. " Rest- less," said the doctor, taking the patient's hand, and the sick man caught at the word, the meaning of which his wreck of a mind scarcely comprehended, and repeated : " Reslis — Oscar Reslis — that's a nice- sounding name." "Yes," said the surgeon, deciding to let it go at that ; " Oscar Reslis is a very pretty name." The physical condition of the patient improved rapidly enough now, but his mental condition con- tinued to puzzle the chief surgeon and his staff. He was quiet enough, and seemed anxious to be alone — away from the other patients and the attendants. He would sit for hours thinking, think- ing hard and long, upon the great problem of life, and trying to make out how he came to be. The attendants had been instructed to keep a close watch upon the sick man, and this, as his reasoning powers returned, Hansen detected. "Why do you follow me all the while ? " he asked of his German keeper 36 The Locomotive that Lost Herself. one day, when the latter had trailed him down in the garden. "To se so dot you done skedattle — flew der coop — see ? Dat vos it ! " "Tell me, Fritz," Hansen pleaded, "where did I live before I came here ? " "Oh, ho!" exclaimed the German; "you dink I vos von fool? Der doc tell me I shall not speak mit you about your past life. He say I must use say nix, une blay as I don't lisen — see?" " Then tell me why they brought me here." "Oh! I mus nit, I mus nit speak mit you about your sickness, der doc sais ; because, he say, it vill make you nut fly off. You see it is nit goot for you to know so much, because you been kronk in der cope — see ? Dat vos it. Doc sais you must not told man a vat is crazy dot he been crazy, for dot makes him sometimes still more crazy yet again already. Dot is it. So I vill not say anoder veard from you." Oscar thought a gre:vc deal over his conversation with Fritz, and as the days went by he began to realize that he was a prisoner; that he had been a prisoner once before, either in this world or the other ; that he had escaped, and he must escape again. All his time was now occupied in forming plans by which he might free himself from his captors, who had no right, according to his way of reasoning, to hold him. One night when Fritz was asleep, Oscar dressed himself, slid down the rain-spout, and reached the garden. By the help of some grape-vines that grew The Locomotive that Lost Herself. 37 there, he was able to scale the wall ; and once free, he ran away with all his might, not caring where his legs carried him so they bore him away from his prison. It happened that, as he reached the yard, a freight train was pulling out ; and seeing that it was leaving the town, he boarded it and rode away. Upon some flat cars in this train there were a number of narrow-gauge locomotives going out to a mountain road then being built in the new West, and in the fire-box of one of these engines Hansen hid. The train had been out three days, and was almost in sight of the Rocky Mountains, when Hansen was forced by hunger from his hiding-place. He was put oflf at an eating-station, and the boarding boss took care of him. He said his name was Oscar Reslis ; and when he was strong enough to work he was put into the kitchen as dish-washer. But being sober and industrious, he was soon promoted to be second cook. At the end of the year, when the cook got drunk and lost his place, Oscar was made chief cook at one of the best-known eating-houses on the K. P. He was a little queer in his actions, but they all attributed his eccentricities to his long fast in the fire-box of the dead engine, and treated him with greater consideration than he would otherwise have received. When they had hammered the kinks out of her warped and twisted frame, and smoothed the dents out of her boiler, the luckless locomotive was rebuilt, painted, and rolled out over the turn-table with the same unlucky number on her headlight. Nobody wanted her now. New and beautiful as she was, not W' H 38 The Locomotive that Lost Herself. an engineer asked to be allowed to run her. After she had been broken in again, and the travelling engineer had passed upon her fitness for the road, she was ordered out on local freight. She had no serious trouble for some months, but any number of minor accidents were charged up to her in the con- ductor's delay reports, and the work-book in the round-house was written full of her troubles. At the end of the year it was found that she had burned more coal, used more oil, had more repairs, cost more money, made less mileage, and injured more people than any engine on the Smoky Hill division. She was placed in the hands of one of the most experienced engineers, but she made the same bad record, if not a worse one ; and neither engineer nor master mechanic was able to put a hand upon her and say : " Here she is wrong." Her trouble could not be located, and most of the men gave it up, declaring that Hansen had " hoo-dooed " her. One day her throttle flew open and stuck, as it had upon her first trip, causing her to run away, kill her engineer, and injure a number of train- men. After that she was put upon a construction train, and made to drag outfit cars from station to station along the line. But even here she had to be followed up by a machine-shop to keep her on her wheels. In time she came to be the talk of the whole system. If a man had a special or a fast freight behind him, he would invariably ask the despatcher where the 13 was, and he looked for her at every curve until he had found and passed her. She was ■'t^ The Locomotive that Lost Herself. 39 always " due " to jump the track or lie down between stations in the face of the fast express. She became so notoriously unlucky that men were hardly held responsible for her capers. Wrecks that would have cost the driver of another engine ten days were not reported ; and even serious accidents her engineer was not called upon to explain. So long as she remained at the other end of the line, the master mechanic was satisfied. She was a "hoo-doo." Meanwhile Oscar Reslis had become an expert cook, and had many friends at the little Western town that was a flag station when he stopped there to break his long fast. His mind seemed clearer, but he was less cheerful. A settled melancholy seemed fixed upon him, which none of his associates was able to understand. He believed in the trans- migration of souls. Where he had lived, he said, he had been deeply wronged and persecuted. He had passed through a great sorrow, and to his acquaint- ances it seemed that he had been purified by pain. He lived such a simple, sinless life, that those about him believed in him and in the faith he held, and in time he had a number of converts to what they called the "Reslis religion." He was constantly preaching. "Strive hard, strive hard," he would say to those about him. " Remember that all the good you do in this life will count for you in the life to come. The more you suffer here the more you will enjoy there — be patient." One sultry summer day, when all the help were complaining of the heat in the kitchen, the patient 40 The Locomotive that Lost Herself. cook surprised them by beginning to sing, as he went about his work, a thing he had never done before. "I think I shall go away soon," he said, when the second cook asked the cause of his apparent happiness. "Where? Oh, that I do not know; but to a better place than this, I hope ! Not that this is a bad world ; but we must advance — go on and up, up and on, until we reach the perfect life." Suddenly there came through the open windows two shrill blasts of a locomotive whistle, and instantly Hansen's face grew joyously bright. " There she is ! There she is ! " he cried, bounding out of the kitchen, and clearing the back fence at a single leap. And now he beheld the old 13 just pulling out with three or four outfit cars and an old, rickety caboose behind her. She was so covered with alkali, dust, ?.nd grease, that her number could not be seen ; but he had heard her voice and knew her. The fireman was busy at the furnace, the engineer was looking back to see that the yardmen closed the switch behind him ; and so the cook climbed into the cab unobserved. When the fireman came out of the coal tank and found the man there, he concluded that the engineer had given him per- mission to ride ; and when the engineer looked over and saw the fireman fixing a seat for the "dead- head," he thought the two men must be friends, and, as few people ever came into the cab, he was rather pleased to find a man reckless enough to ride the 13. ' The Locomotive that Lost Herself. 41 he )ne The Dane's face told plainly how glad he was to find the lost idol of his heart. Dirty, disgraced — almost despised — drudging along in front of her wretched train of rickety, dust-covered cars, she was still beautiful to him. The engineer was doing the best he could with the old scrap heap, for there was a passenger train coming from the West, and the first siding was nearly ten miles away. It had been raining down the line the night before, and the parched plain was fresh and cool. Both the engineer and the fireman were much interested in the bareheaded passenger, who seemed about as happy as a man can get and live. He took note of every move made by the engineer, smiling when the engine blew off steam, and frowning when the driver handled the throttle or lever in a rough or careless manner. " Guess this is your first ride on a locomotive, eh ? " asked the driver, " My first ride ? " cried Hansen. " Don't you know me? I made this engine, and they took her from me, and locked me up in a prison ; but I shall never leave her again. I shall scour her jacket, polish her bell, repaint her, and she shall pull the Denver Express." "If I don't b'leve it's the crazy Dane," said the engineer. " Wher'd you git 'im ? " "I didn't git 'im at all," said the fireman. "Wher'd you git 'im.>" " Is that what they call me over there — back there where we used to live } " asked Hansen, almost pathetically. 42 The Locomotive that Lost Herself. The engineer made no reply ; the fireman shook the grates, and looked out over the plain, where the scant grass, taking courage from the recent rain, made a feeble effort to look green and cheerful. " Open her up ! " shouted Hansen. " Don't be afraid of her. We shall push right on to the end of the run — until we find a round-house— and some tools, and then we will rebuild her. How handsome she will look when she comes out! We will paint her black this time — all black — all but her bell ; and that shall shine like burnished gold. Black will become us now, for we have passed through great trials since our separation. How they have abused you, my noble steed ! " continued the man, glancing along the boiler and up at the stack. The engine began to roll and plunge fearfully now, and the driver, looking out, saw that the rain had been very heavy, and that the track was almost unsafe. But he dare not slow down because of his close meeting-point with the east-bound express. Instead of being frightened at the capers of the rolling, plunging engine, the Dane seemed delighted, and leaned far out on the fireman's side, and shouted and laughed as the world went by. Although the track was clear and straight, the driver kept a constant look-out, for he had no air, and the way the train was rolling it would be difficult for the trainmen to get to the brakes, and when they did get to them they were apt to be out of repair. Occasionally they crossed deep, narrow gullies on wooden bridges that shook as the engine struck them. These waterless streams in the West are The Locomotive that Lost Herself. 43 treacherous. It is not enough to say that they are dry one hour and bank-full the next ; for they will often fill to overflowing in a single minute. The water at times will roll down in a solid wall ten or twelve feet high. There had been a cloudburst here, and suddenly the driver saw the sagging rails hanging over a deep ravine. The bridge was gone, and there was no possible show for them. " Jump ! " he shouted, and the fireman leaped out into the prairie, and the engine plunged head first into the stream, now almost dry. The three or four outfit cars piled in on top of the engine, and filled up the gap, while the caboose, breaking her coupling, leaped over the wreck, and was thrown out on the plain beyond the washout. When the fireman had pulled himself together, and the conductor and brakemen had crawled from the wrecked caboose, bruised and bleeding, they went in search of the engineer and the crazy Dane. What they found and failed to find, is well known to thousands of railroad men. It has become a part of the history of the road and of the West. There in the bed of the narrow stream, they found the outfit cars all in a heap. The stream — only eight or ten inches of ,..ear water — was rippling through and around the wreck ; but the locomotive was gone, and so was her driver, and so was the Dane. The men stared at one another, and when the fireman told them that the crazy inventor was on the engine, they were seized with a strange terror, and they all turned and scrambled up the bank. Far down the plain they saw the smoke of a locomotive, and they thought that the crazy Dane must have caused the 44 The Locomotive that Lost Herself. 13 to leap over the washout. It must be so, for the engine had disappeared, and this discovery served only to increase their bewilderment. Presently the conductor thought of his running orders and of the east-bound express, which they were running to meet at the siding only a mile beyond the washout, and, securing a soiled flag from the old caboose, he ran with all his might to meet and flag the approaching train. The arrival of the express ey aed away the smoke they had seen, and made -in to the crew of the work- train that their engine had not escaped, but that she was somewhere in the quicksand of the little stream. It was some time before the crew and the passengers of the express could bring themselves to believe the story told by the bewildered freight crew. They went down into the stream, waded into the water, and found the sand firm enough to hold a man up, and some of the passengers said the men were crazy, and would not believe the tale they told. What wonder, then, if these men, who were there only a few minutes after the wreck, doubted this story, that men laugh to-day when the enterprising newsboy points out the place where the engine went down and disappeared in the sand ! The railway officials, however, did not doubt the story, and they came and dug and drifted, prospected, and ploughed around in the desert sands all night and all the next day. After the bridge had been rebuilt they went at it in earnest. For days and weeks and months they worked away, digging and sounding in the sand, and when thousands of dollars hac 10C( * intci "C i< a ft hav Sai The Locomotive that Lost Herself. 45 had been expended they gave it up. The lost locomotive has never been found.* * The following letters, recently received by the author, will be of interest to the reader :— " Office of the General Superiritendent. "Union Pacific Railway Company, "Denver, Colorado, March i, 1896. "Cy Warman, Esq., Washington, D, C. " The !■ t locomotive of which you inquire went down in Sand Creek, a few hours' run east of Denver ; and although thousands of dollars have been expended by the company, the engine has never been 'Wurd. " Respectfully yours, " W. A, Deuel, General Snpt., U. P. A>." "The Denver and Rio Grande Railroad Company, " (Treasury Department). "Denver, Colorado, March 21, 1896. " Mr. Cy Warman, Washington, D. C. " My Dear Cy, — I remember the story of the engine going down in Sand Creek ; and, so far as I know, it has never been recovered. " With best wishes, I am, hastily, sincerely yours, "J. W. GiLLULY, Treasurer 0/ the D. cs' R. G. RK." A Wild Night at Wood River. "Keep that kid quiet," said Bankers, in a hoarse whisper. " I'm doing the best I can," sait' his wife, trying to hush the little one who was sobbing and moaning in her lap. In the baby's milk waggon a bitter fight was going on between paregoric and pain, and the latter was dying hard. The wind drove the rain against the side of the car and made it rock to and fro. " Emma," said Mrs. Bankers to her friend, " take that bottle and hold it between you and a crack in the car, and when it lightens drop ten drops into the spoon. I suppose we must not strike a light." " You bet you don't strike any light here unless you are ready to give up your chignon," said Bankers, without taking his eyes from the crack through which he was peeping. Emma took the bottle, and at each flash of lightning dropped a drop of hush medicine into the spoon, and when she had put in ten drops they gave it to the baby. That made twenty drops ; it was dangerous, but it was sure death to all of them if the baby cried aloud. The rain came in great sheets and with such force A Wild Night at Wood River. 47 that it seemed that the car could hardly hold the rail. It was not a Pullman car ; just a common red stock car standing on a siding, with a few arm- fuls of straw upon the floor. Occasionally Banke»s turned to glance at the two women who were crouch- ing in one end of the car, and when the lightning lit up their faces they were fearful to behold. Now the rain, cold as sleet, came through the cracks in the car and stung the faces of those within. Mrs. Bankers had seen three winters at Wood River, but her friend, the young woman who had come out to Western Nebraska to teach school, was in every sense a tenderfoot, and the experience of this wild night had almost driven her mad. "There they are," whispered Bankers. Now the women put their eyes to a crack, and when a flash came they could see a reef of feathered heads that formed a half circle around the house like a feather boa about a woman's neck. Half the band dis- mounted and made a rush for the cottage. The door was broken, and the red devils swarmed in. Cne of them took a newspaper and lighted it at the open fireplace to make a torch, and by the light of it tl'. little party in the stock car could see the Sioux running, half crouching, from room to room, in search of the occupants. Finding the place deserted, and smarting under their disappointment, the Indians now set fire to the house, and by the light of it started to loot the railroad station, less than a hundred yards away. The station-agent had been warned, as the others had been, by a Pawnee scout, but had bravely .>-*^ 48 A Wild Night at Wood River. refused to leave his post. He had made no light, but sat in one end of the dark little room which served as ticket-office, telegraph-office, and sleeping- room, and as the Indians approached, opened fire. At the very first shot the leader of the murderous band leaped high into the air, came down on his feet, leaped up again and again, and finally fell in a heap, to rise no more. With a deafening yell the angry band made a rush for the door, and began to beat against it with tomahawks, clubs, and guns. Having emptied his rifle, the agent now took up a pair of 45-canbre revolvers, and the lead fairly rattled against the door, and no fewer than a half- dozen savages sank to the platform, causing the besiegers to fall back a space. From a distance they began to pour the lead into the building, but the agent, crouching behind the little iron safe, was still unhurt. An Indian brought a torch from the burning cottage and attempted to fire the station, but the rain and wind put out the fire. Two or three Sioux, noticing a string of cars upon the siding, began to search for stock or eatable freight. From car to car they ran, thrusting their rifles into the straw. " Uh 1 " said an old buck, as his rifle found something soft in one of the cars, and Bankers felt a hurt in his short ribs. Laying hold of the side of the car, the Indian began to pull and strain. By the merest chance he had taken hold of the car door, and now as it opened he thrust his hideous head inside. Bankers could have blown the top of the Sioux's head off, but he knew that to fire would be to attract a dozen redskins, against whom he could A Wild Night at Wood River. 49 not hope to hold out long. The women scarcely breathed. The baby, full of paregoric, slept as though it had already entered upon its final rest. The other two Indians had given up the search among the empty cars, and gone back to the station, where the agent, having reloaded all his guns, kept the gang hopping and dancing about the station platform. The old Sioux at the car door cocked his head and listened. He must have fancied he heard something breathe, for now he put his hands upon the sill and leaped into the car. He had scarcely straightened up when Bankers's rifle-barrei fell across his feathered head, and he dropped like a beef. The schoohna'am uttered a faint scream, and that was the U^t sound tliat came from her corner for som ime. The Sioux never moved a finger, and Bankers, having removed the warrior's firearms and ammunition, gave the gun ovci to his wife, and then covered the dead Sioi < with straw. Already the little frame cottage had burned to the ground, and the rain had nearly qucncl 1 the fire. Every attempt made by the b id to fire the station had ended in failure, and the Sioux were now preparing to storm the fort. It was hard for Bankers to keep quiet in the car while the jent sold his life so bravely and so dearly to ' Sioux, but there were his wife and baby and the helpless schoolma'am, who had been persuaded by the Bankerses to come to this wild region, and he felt it his duty to pro- tect them as best he could. Presently Bankers felt the stock car vibrate perceptibly, as though it were being rolled slowly along the rail. His first thought 50 A Wild Night at Wood River. was that the Indians were pushing the empty cars down near the station, and that they would set fire to the straw, and then there would be no possible escape. Now there was a roar as of an approaching train, and an instant later a great dark object hove in sight and rolled past the car. It was a loco- motive drawing a dozen box cars and running without a headlight. The shouts of the besiegers, the rattle of rifles, and the wild cry of the night, prevented the Sioux from feeling the vibration or hearing the sound of the approaching train. The agent, who had been severely wounded, now crawled to the key and called Ogallala. At the first attack he had wired for help, and now, he told the operator there, he could hold the place only a little while longer. The agent was still at the key when the engine, rolling up to the station, shook the building, and he knew, the moment he felt the quiver of it, that help was at hand. Instantly the doors of the box cars came open, and a company of Govern- ment scouts, all Pawnees except the officers, leaped to the platform just as the band of Sioux were making their last desperate charge upon the station. Before they could realize that reinforcements wore at hand, the Sioux were beset by the scouts, who always fought to kill. The battle was short and decisive, and when the Sioux fled they left more than half their number upon the field. Probably the most anxious man in the whole party was the conductor of the special train that had brought the scouts from Ogallala. He had ridden all the way on the locomotive, and the moment the A Wild Night at Wood River. 51 train stopped he had leaped to the ground, and gone through a shower of bullets to where the cottage which had been the home of the Bankerses had stood. The sight of the house in ashes made him sick at heart, but there was still hope ; they might have taken refuse in the station, and, facing about, the fearless conductor fought his way to the door. By this time the Sioux were giving all their atten- tion to the scouts, and the conductor forced his body through the shot-riddled door. The agent lay upon the floor in a pool of his own blood, but he was still alive. " Where are they ? " asked the conductor, glancing about the dark room. "Among the stock cars, if they are still alive," was the reply which came in a faint whisper. " I saw them leaving the house at dusk — go to them — I'm — I'm all right ; " and the conductor, having placed the wounded man upon his bed, made for the stock cars. " Bankers, where are you { ' he called ; and Bankers answered, only two cars away. Now the conductor lighted his white light and climbed into the car. The brave Mrs. Bankers greeted him with a smile that soon changed to tears, for in the light of the hand-lamp she had seen her baby's face, and it looked like the face of a dead child. " Emma," she called excitedly, but there was no answer. " Is she dead ? " cried the conductor, falling upon his knees and holding the light close to his sweetheart's face. " No, you chump! " said Bankers ; "she only fainted when I killed this Sioux ; " and he gave the dead Indian a kick and rolled him out of the car. 52 A Wild Night at Wood River. " But the baby ? " pleaded Mrs. Bankers. *' She's all right," said the husband. " Only a little too much paregoric." And so it proved. " Here, Em," said Bankers, shaking the young woman, who was regaining consciousness, " brace up ! You've got company." "Are we all safe ?" asked the schoolma'am, feeling for her back hair. *' Oh, my dear, brave frien J, you have saved us all ! " " Yes, I played ," said Bankers, " hiding here in the straw while the agent was being murdered." " But you saved the women," said the conductor, who was overjoyed at finding all alive. " Yes," said Bankers ; " that's something, after all." And all this is not a dream. It is only a scrap of the history of the early days of the Union Pacific. The brave station agent is an old man now, and one of his legs is shorter than the other — the one that was shot that night. The baby, having recovered from her severe tussle with colic and paregoric, is now one of the most charming women in a Western city. The conductor of the soldier train is, at this writing, a general superintendent of a well-known railway. The snows of forty winters have fallen upon his wife's hair. It is almost white, but her face is still young and handsome, and I remember that she blushed when telling this story to me, and recalling the fact that she had fainted in a stock car on that wild night at Wood River. Wakalona, The old engineer and I had dragged our chairs round to the south side of the hospital and were enjoying, as well as the weak and wounded could be expected to enjoy, the nniountain air and the morning. June was in the mountains, but the snow was still heavy on the high peaks. The yellow river, soiled by the Leadville smelters, and still freighted with floating mush-ice, splashed by on its way to Pueblo and the Tierra Caliente. The little grey, glad-faced surgeon came along presently and told Frank that he might go home on Saturday, and that made the old engineer, usually a little mite cranky and irritable, as happy as a boy about to be loosed from school. "Say, Frank," I began, "did you ever catch up with an Indian girl who could, by any stretch of imagination, be considered handsome } " "Yes," he said thoughtfully, placing well his foot on the top of the railing and frowning from mere force of habit. " We were laying at North Platte at the time, that being the end of the track, and there I knew a Pawnee maiden who was really good to 54 Wakalona. look upon. I never knew her name ; we called her 'Walk-alone' at first, because she seemed never to mix up with the other squaws ; but when Slide McAlaster, the head brakeman on the construction train, began to make love to her he named her Wakalona, which he thought a more fitting title, inasmuch as she had already been called by Colonel Cody the Princess of the Platte. "Wakalona's father, Red Fox, was one of the bravest of the Pawnee scouts, and his daughter was naturally something of a belle among her people. She was tall, tawny, graceful, willowy, and wild. It was a long while before Slide, big, blonde, and handsome as he was, could gain the confidence of this stately princess. It was months before she would allow him to walk with her, and even then the feathered head of a jealous buck could always be seen peeping from the high grass and keeping constant watch over the girl. Wakalona, like the other women, worked in the fields when there were any fields to be worked, and at other times made herself useful about her father's tent. Her mother was dead. She was the only child her father had, and he was very proud of her. In a battle between the Sioux and the Pawnees near Ogallala the Sioux had captured Wakalona and her father, and Buffalo Bill had rescued her, almost miraculously, from four of their foemen, three of whom they had slain. After that the Sioux had marked Red Fox and his daughter as their own, and many lures had been set to ensnare them. At North Platte Red Fox had planted a little field of corn, and it was here, when Wakalona. 55 the sun was low, that Slide used to woo the dark- eyed Princess of the Platte. I used to watch her working in the field, and when we whistled she would always pause in her labours and look up to make sure that it was the whistle of the 49, although she never looked up for the whistle of any other engine. I think, as she began to lose her heart to McAlaster, that she came to know the sound even of the bell and the rattle of the spring-hangers on the old work engine. Jim was McAlaster's real name ; we called him Slide because he could never set a brake, if he used both hands, without twisting it up so tight that the wheels would slide, so marvellously strong were his long sinewy arms. When we were coming into the Platte on a summer's evening Slide used to jump off the engine, where he always rode, open the switch, close it behind the caboose, and then stroll over into the little corn-field where Wakalona worked. " Now, she always knew he was coming, but, like her white sisters, she liked to play that she didn't, and when he would steal up behind her and catch her in his arms (if no one was looking), she would start and shudder as naturally as a country school- ma'am. "We went in the ditch one day. Slide had his ankle sprained and was obliged to ride in that evening in the caboose. I whistled, as usual, for the station, and in the twilight saw the Indian girl still working in the field and waiting for the sweet surprise for which she had learned to wait. As we pulled in over the switches I glanced out into the field again, 56 Wakalona. feeling sorr/ for Slide and for his sweetheart as well, but now uhe was nowhere to be seen. When we had made the big brakeman comfortable in the hospital tent, he signalled me ahead, and when I bent over him he pulled me down and whispered, 'Wakalona,' and I knew what he meant I found her father and told him that the brakeman had been hurt, and asked him to allow his daughter to see the sufferer in the surgeon's tent. Red Fox was much surprised. We had been an hour late coming in that evening ; it was now dark, and Wakalona had not been seen by any of her people since the setting of the sun. I told the warrior that I had seen her working in the field as we were nearing the station, and how, when I looked again, a moment later, she was gone. "With a start the brave chieftain threw up his hands, and then controlling himself with a great effort, he signed to me, and I followed him out into the field. The Indian put his face close to the ground, when I had shown him where she was standing when I saw her last, and when he straightened up he looked all about him and said, ' Sioux.' I brought a white light fror . the locomotive, and, by the light of it, the wily Inuian made out that two of the hated tribe had slipped up behind the helpless girl and seized her and carried her away. Presently he brought a blade of corn to me and upon it there was a tiny drop of blood, and yet he insisted that his daughter had not been killed. Later he assured me that she had not been carried, but had walked away taking a different direction from that Wakalona. 57 taken by the Sioux, Now I saw it all. She had heard our whistle, and while she waited for her lover the panther-like Sioux had stolen upon her. " What mental anguish must have been hers when she realized that, instead of the protecting arms of her fair god, the arms of murderers were around her! Love, like the locomotive, is a great civilizer. Wakalona had tasted the joy of love, and life had become dear to her. The past, for her, was veiled in dark mystery, the future was little better, but already she had begun to feel that beyond it all there must be a brighter and better world. Once she had asked McAlaster about the future, and he, touched by the earnestness of her nature, had told her in his own way a story his mother had told to him many a time — the story of the Christ. 'Think of a big awkward clown like me,' said Slide, 'trying to unravel the mysteries of the future — trying to convert this white-souled woman who, without know- ing it, has been the means of making me a better man.' " I've noticed all along, though, that love of a good woman always makes a man gentler, braver, and better. " When Red Fox had explained to me that Waka- lona had not been killed, but had wandered away, I urged him to call the scouts and search the plains for her ; but he shook his head. ' It is true that my child has not been killed,' he said sadly, 'but she is dead. It is true that she still walks the earth, but she is dead to me and to all her people ; ' and the great brave bowed his head in silent sorrow. 58 Wakalona. " Then I remembered having heard that an Indian who had lost his scalp was looked upon as one demented or dead, and I knew then what had happened to the Princess Wilalona. " How best to break the news to poor McAlaster was a question over which I pondered on my way back to the camp. He was strong and sensible. He had seen many a comrade pulled out of a wreck mangled almost beyond recognition. He had been in more than one Indian fight, but he had never lain helpless upon a stretcher and Hstened to a tale such as I might tell, and I wo'iVJ not tell it. I'd lie first, and so I did. And while I framed a story of how Wakalona had gone that very day to visit a neighbouring camp, the poor princess wandered over the prairie. All night she walked the trackless wilds, and when the stars paled laid down upon the damp earth to sleep. She knew that she was ex- jjected to die, that she ought to die, but she shunned death ; not from any dread of it, but for the love of life. No doubt she fully intended to die, but she would put the thought of it by for a little longer, and dream of the pale-faced brave. Ah, he might love her still, who could tell, for the white people were so strange. She slept, and doubtless dreamed of the little field, of her father, of the twilight time and of the sweet surprise of her lover's arms about her, and then she started up suddenly, putting her hand to her head, and the recollection of her misfortune made her heart sad, and soon she slept again. " When she awoke the sun was high in the heavens. She was hungry and thirsty. The blood had dried Wakalona. 59 in her midnight hair, and now she went down to the river to drink and bathe her fevered face. Then she sat by the river for a long time trying to make up her mind to die, but she could not. There was a certain amount of mystery about the river, and she liked to look upon its quiet face. Where did it come from, and where was it going > Then, in her wild way, she likened her life to the river. Where did she come from, and where was she going ? She couldn't make it out. Only, she remembered that her teacher, the brakeman, had said something about another world beyond the sky, but he was still in this world, and she was lotn to leave it ; and so she sat all through the long summer day with her hands locked over her knees, rocking to and fro, half crooning and half moaning — " • VVb jn the great red sun is half in the sky And half in the earth, then the dead must die.' " She knew that she was counted among the dead by her people, and if she returned to them she would be drowned in this river when the sun went down. "Yes ; it was clearly her duty now to die, and she would drown herself at the set of sun. Having reconciled herself to her fate she fell asleep, and when she awoke the sky was all studded with stars. She had slept over the death-time, ard now must wait another sunset. She went down to the river and bathed her face. Uh, the mystery uf the river ! Where did it come from, and where was it going ? Would it bear her back to her lost lover } No, it was flowing towards the morning, and would carry 6o Wakalona. her further away. She turned away, haunted by the conviction that she had no place in this world, for she had heard them sing in the death chant — " 'The shadows lie upon the shore, The dead shall walk the earth no more.' "And yet ?ihe could not put out of her heart the longing to live ; and, setting her face from those she loved, she wandered out over the star-lit plain. All night she tramped through the sagebrush with never a pause for rest or sleep, and when the red sun swung out of the earth, she tramped on and on. The sun poured its pitiless rays upon her wounded head, her soiled mantle trailed upon the dewy ci'rth, her tired feet were torn and bleeding, and yet to all these ills she gave no thought. Vaguely now she remembered that she had a fixed purpose, a certain duty to per- form, and that was to be the end of all. She must not lose sight of the river ; but even now when she looked for it, the river was not to be seen. Her lips were parched, her throat seemed to be burning. The wide waste o'er which she wandered lay quiver- ing in the white glare of the noonday sun. Away at the outer edge cf this shipless sea, the grey air trembled ; her brain whirled, she swooned and fell to the earth. "The cool night wind was about her when she came to herself again, but she could remember but dimly the ovents of the past ; and so, half-dazed, she wandered on. Late in the afternoon she came to a little station where there was a lone operator and a water tank. The station-agent gave her food and Wakalona. 61 offered her shelter, but she shook her head and asked him where the river lay. The spectacle of a woman wandering about half-crazed, halt-starved, and alone, was a sad one ; and the operator, feeling his own utter loneliness tried to perr.uade her to stay. Pointing to the west, she began to chant — " ' Wlien the great red sun is half in the sky And half in the earth, then the dead must die.' " Then she bared her bowed head, and he saw the little round red spot where the skin had been cut away, and understood. This revelation, he ^' over, caused the agent to redouble his efforts to save the hapless maiden from herself. "After much coaxing he succeeded in getting her intD his little rooai in the rear of the telegraph-ofifice, where she soon fell asleep. The sun went down and still she slept, and he knew she was safe, at least for another day. The darkness deepened on the desert waste, the evening wore away, the operator got 'Good night' from the despatcher at Omaha, and fell asleep in his chair. Presently he was awakened by a sound as of a door closing softly. He stole into the little back room, only to learn that his guest had gone. He slipped outside and listened, but save for the doleful cry of a lone wolf, the night *vas voiceless, and he returned to his narrow room. " Next day, when the sun was falling away in the west, the operator, sitting at his little table, noticed a shadow m the door, and looking up beheld the sad face of the Indian, gaunter and sorrier than before. Again he gave her food, and from his 0\ 62 Wakalona. medicine-chest, which in those days was furnished by the company to all agents and conductors, he brought medicated bandages, which he bound about her torn ankles, and ointment, which he put upon her wounded head. After that she continued to come to him every day, to accept a meagre meal, and at night to steal away and sleep upon the prairie with only the stars above her. At the end of a fortnight she was almost well again. Now the woman that was in her nature caused her to long for some one to whom she might tell her story, in whom she might confide ; and she told it, as well as she could, to the agent. He helped her to arrange her hair so as to hide the hateful scar at the top of her head, and persuaded her to return to her people. ' If the white man loved you once, he will love you all the more now, and he will save you from your people if they try to molest you,' was the agent's encouraging advice, and she determined to return. "Slide McAlaster's severely sprained ankle had become strong, and he was at work again. The name of Wakalona was never mentioned by the Indians, for to them she was dead. It was never mentioned by the whites when it could be avoided, for no one cared to tell the awful story to the brake- man ; and so he lived from day to day expecting her to come home. His was the only cheerful face in the camp during those two weeks. He was happy in the morning, hoping that the day would bring her back, and happy again at night, for there was one day less of waiting for her return. And she did come back. One night, when the rain was pouring do\^ wai Wakalona. 63 down, she opened the door of her father's tent and waited to be welcomed home. The old scout was pacing his tent, for he had not ceased to grieve for his daughter, but now that she had returned to him, as one from the grave, her coming served only to augment his misery. At sight of her he had taken a step or two toward the tent door, and then pausing to look upon her for the last time, his face grew grave as he pointed a long arm down the darkness. In a hoarse voice he uttered those ominous words : ' The shadows lie upon the shore — to the river begone.' With a despairing look, the princess turned back into the rain-swept night, and now a new danger confronted her. The guards had seen her at the tent door, by the dim light of a grease-lamp, and now they seized and bound her. Her father had left to her the one chance of flight, the guards had shown less pity. And while she sat bound and guarded in a darkly lighted tent her lover slept and dreamed of her coming, not a hundred yards away. The day dawned grudgingly, the dark- ness seemed reluctantly to leave the earth, the sun remained behind the dark clouds, from which the rain continued to fall in torrents. At noon the rain ceased, the sun came out, meadow larks carolled free in the blue above, but the hapless '*^kalona lay fettered in a rain-soaked tent. Thv i-jry of her capture was kept a profound secret, for me Indians knew that the United States army officers would interfere if they learned that the princess was to be put to death. In the darkness of their ignorance they believed that they were doing their duty. ( ■; 64 Wakalona. " On account of the rain we had not gone out that day, but late in the afternoon an order came from the despatcher for us to run light to Omaha to bring out a train of steel. As we pulled out over the switches I noticed a great crowd of Pawnees down by the river near the railroad bridge. As we ap- proached we could see that they were waving their hands and putting up weird signals. Now as the engine, still creeping along, working the water out of her cylinders, neared the bridge, McAlaster sud- denly cried, ' Wakalona ! ' and leaped to the ground. I stopped the engine, and, looking over, saw Wakalona seated in a canoe with her head bowed down almost to her knees. A stalwart Pawnee sat in one end of the canoe holding a single oar, while another Indian, equally well proportioned, sat near the girl, whose feet were fettered, and whose hands were bound behind her back, chant — Now the whole band began to " ' The shadows lie upon the shore, The dead shall walk the earth no more.' " The sun sat like a great red wheel that had sunk hub-deep in the sand, and when half the rim was below, and half above the earth, the second stanza of the death-chant arose from the river, as the boat was pushed out into the stream — " ' When the great red sun is half in the sky And half in the earth, then the dead must die.' " Now for the first time Wakalona lifted her eyes, and she beheld her lover leaping from the shore. A few long strokes brought him within reach of the Wakalona. 65 little boat, and he climbed aboard. The Indian at the oar stood up and faced him. The big brake- man swung his long right arm, caught the Pawnee under the ear, and over he went. Reaching down, he lifted the other Indian bodily, turned him half over, and with all his might drove him head first into the sand at the bottom of the river. "While this was going on the little bark was drifting rapidly toward the bridge. McAlaster cut the cord that bound the woman, seized the oar, and made the land just below the engine. Lifting the girl in his arms, he ran up the dump, placed her in the caboose, and we were off. As we reached the cast end of the bridge I looked back, and saw the baffled band swarming in from the west, but even as they ran the sun went down, the death hour had passed, and they turned back to their tents." A Locomotive as a War Chariot. "Smoky Hill was the end of the track at that time," said the old engineer, shifting his lame foot to an easy position. " We had built a round-house — a square one, with only two stalls and room at the back for three or four bunks and a work bench. To protect ourselves against the Sioux we had lined the house up to about five feet from the ground, and filled in behind the lining with sand. " Indians were thicker than grasshoppers in Kansas in the days of the building of the Kansas Pacific, and scarcely a day — never a week — went by without a fight. At first they appeared to be awed by the locomotives, but in a littlo while their superstitious fear had vanished, and they were constantly setting lures to capture the * big hoss,' as they called the engine. One day we were out at the front with a train of steel, some eight or ten miles west of the Hill. It had been snowing all day in little fits and spits, and near nightfall the clouds became thicker and darker, and before the sun had gone down the snow was falling fast. By the time the last rail had been unloaded it was pitch dark, and as the engine A Locomotive as a War Chariot. 67 was headed west, we were obliged to back up all the way to Smoky Hill. The conductor and the captain of the guard, composed of Government scouts, took a stand on the rearmost flat-car, and when I got a signal I opened the throttle and began to poke the blunt end of the construction train into the darkness. Ordinarily I hate running backward at night, but in a case of this kind it is a real relief to know that there are a dozen or more well-armed soldiers between you and whatever the darkness holds. Three or four men with white lights were stationed at intervals along the tops of the ten or twelve cars that made up the train. The house car, or caboose, was next the engine, and upon the top of this car stood the fore- man of the gang, and from him I was supposed to take my ' tokens.' " We had been in motion less than ten minutes when I saw the conductor's light (we were going with the storm) stand out, and following this movement all the lights along the train's top pointed out over the plain, and I began to slow down. Instantly a dozen shots were fired from the darkness. Muffled by the storm, the sound came as if a pack of fire- crackers were going off under a dinner pail, and we all knew what we had run into. ' Injuns ! ' shouted the fireman, leaping across the gangway, ' and they're on my side.' ' Keep your seat,' said I ; ' they're on my side, too.' "Now all the white lights, following another signal from the conductor, began to whirl furiously in a short circle. That was my notion precisely. If they had prepared to ditch us, we might_as well 68 A Locomotive as a War Chariot. go into the ditch as remain on the tops of the cars to be picked ofif by the Sioux, so I opened the throttle and began to back away again as fast as possible. The Indians had prepared to ditch our train. They had placed a great pile of cross ties upon the track, expecting that when we struck them our train would come to a dead stop. This small party which had fired upon us was the outer watch, the main band being huddled about the heap of ties where they expected us to halt, and where most of the amuse- ment would occur. The track was newly laid, and as billowy as a rough sea, but this was no time for careful running. The old work engine soon had the empty train going at a thirty-mile gait, and then we hit the tie pile. The men on the rear car, which was now in front, had anticipated a wreck, and retired in bad order to the centre of the train. The Indians, who had only a faint notion of the power and resistance of a locomotive, stood close together about the pile of ties. The falling snow had made the rail and timbers so wet and slippery, that when we hit the stack of wood the ties flew in all directions. Some of them were thrown to the tops of the carb, and others flew into the mob of redskins, knocking them into confusion. A fine buck, who must have been standing on the track, was picked up in the collision and landed upon the top of the second car, right at the conductor's feet. The fellow was con- siderably stunned by the fall, and, taking advantage of his condition, the scouts seized and bound him with a piece of bell-cord, taking care to remove an ugly knife from his raw-hide belt. The band was so Ir A Locomotive as a War Chariot. 69 surprised to see the train plough through the wreckage, that they forgot to fire until we had almost passed them, and a great flood of fire from the engine stack was falling among them. They then threw up their guns, those who were still on their feet, and let go at us, but none of the bullets affected our party. "When we reached the station the Pawnees who were among the scouts recognized our captive at once as IJear Foot, a noted and very wicked chief. When the Sioux came to himself and realized that he was a captive, he became furious. He surged and strained at the bell-rope, but in vain, and finally he gave up. " When we had eaten our supper we all went into the round-house, soldiers and all ; for we knew the Sioux would make a desperate effort to rescue their chief before the night was out. '* Now ap"]prcciating the importance of our capture, the captain in command had set four powerful Pawnee scouts to guard Bear Foot, the Sioux chief. It was no sure thing ti:at we would be able to stand the Indians off till morning, and as the storm had knocked the wires down, we had been unable to telegraph to Lawrence for reinforcements. The fact that their brave chief was himself a captive would increase the wrath of the red men without, and taking even a moderate view of the situation, we were in a hard hole. I for one would have gladly bartered our captive and the glory of the capture away, for the assurance of seeing the sun rise on the following morning, but I dared not hint such a thing to the captain, much less to the Pawnees. "The four scouts, with their prisoner, were placed yo A Locomotive as a War Chariot. in the coal tank of the locomotive, while the fireman and I occupied our places in the cab and kept the steam up to one hundred and forty pounds. If at any time it seemed to me the fight was going against us, and the Sioux stood a chance to effect an entrance, I was to pull out for Lawrence with the captive and fetch assistance, provided I did not meet a west-bound train and lose my locomotive. I rather liked this arrangement, risky as it was, for it was preferable to remaining in the round-house to be roasted alive. Then, again, I disliked fighting — that's what we fed and hauled these soldiers around for. They were so infernally lazy in times of peace, that I used almost to pray for trouble, that they might have an oppor- tunity at least once a week to earn their board and keep. Now that the opportunity seemed to be at hand, I had no wish to deprive them of the excite- ment and glory of being killed in real battle, and so sat nodding in the cab of old 49. " It was long after midnight when one of the men on duty heard a low scraping sound, like that made by a hog crawling under a gate. A moment later the noise w^as repeated, and when the same sound had been heard three or four times, the lieutenant in com- mand flashed a bull's-eye lamp in the direction of the door, and the light of it revealed three big braves standing close together, while a fourth was just creep- ing in under the door. Then, as if the idea had struck all of them at once, they threw their guns up and let go along down the ray of light, and the lieutenant fell severely wounded. The scouts returned the fire, and four Indians fell. A Locomotive as a War Chariot. 71 " The report of the rifles within the building had been answered, and immediately a shower of lead rained and rattled upon the wooden doors from with- out. One of the scouts picked the bull's-eye lamp up and placed it upon the work bench, training the light upon the double doors immediately in front of my engine. Our men knew how useless it would be to fire into the sand-stuffed sides of the building, and not caring to put themselves into a position where they could fire effectively above the wainscoting, they very wisely kept close to the ground and allowed the Sioux to empty tiieir guns into the sand. "Presently, hearing no sound from within, the attacking party ceased firinr^, and began to prowl about the building in search of a weak spot through which they might effect an entrance. The fate of the three early callers who had hogged it under the door, kept them from fooling about that trap for the re- mainder of the evening. In a little while the whole place was as still as the tomb, save for the soft flutter of steam from the safety-valve of the 49. Bear Foot knew what was going on. Even though he could see nothing, he knew that his faithful followers were working his release ; and now, when all was silent, he shouted from the coal tank to his braves to break the door and come in. Before the Pawnee scouts could pound him into a state of quietude he had imparted to his people the particulars of his where- about, and immediately the whole band threw them- selves against the front of the building. "The house fairly trembled, the Indians surged from without, and the great doors swayed to and fro, 72 A Locomotive as a War Chariot. threatening at any moment to give way and let the flood of bloodthirsty redskins in upon us. " ' Stand together ! ' cried the captain to his men. " ' Put on the blower and get her hot,' I called to the fireman, for I knew the frail structure could not withstand the strain much longer. As often as the fireman opened the furnace door to rake his fire, the glare of the fire-box lit up the whole interior and showed four dead Sioux near the door. One of them lay across the rail, and I found myself speculating as to whether the pilot of the 49 would throw him off, or whether I must run over him. Now it seemed that the whole band had thrown themselves against the building, and the yelling was deafening. Above it all I heard our captain shout : ' Get ready, Frank ! ' " ' I am ready,' said I. " ' All right,' said he, ' shoot it to 'em,' and I opened the sand valves and the throttle. I have often thought what a temptation it was for those soldiers to leap upon the engine and make their escape ; but although they all understood perfectly what was going on, not one of them took advantage of this 'last train out.' "Just as the 'Big Hoss' moved with all her ponderous and almost irresistible weight toward the front of the building, the double doors sagged toward me like the head gate of a great reservoir that is overcharged, and then I hit 'em. The big doors, being forced from their hinges, fell out upon the red- skins, and they were caught like rats in a trap. The pilot ploughed through them, maiming and killing a score of them, and on went the 49 over the safe A Locomotive as a War Chariot. 73 switches, which had already been set for her before the fight began. The confusion caused by the awful work of Big IToss, which they regarded as little less than the devil, was increased when the Indians who remained unhurt realized that the engine was making away with their chief, for he had told them how he was held a captive in the belly of the big horse. "All effort for the capture of the round-house was instantly abandoned, and the Sioux, as one man, turned and ran after the locomotive. The captain in command of the scouts, taking advantage of the confusion of his foe, and of the fact that his force was in the dark building, while the Sioux were out upon the whitened earth, quickly massed his men at the open door and began to pour a murderously wicked fire into the baffled Sioux, who, like foolish farm dogs, were chasing the 49 over the switches. "All the Indians who were crippled by the engine were promptly, and I thought very properly, killed by the Pawnee scouts, and the rest were driven away. " It was a desperately risky run from Smoky Hill to Lawrence, with no running orders, and due to collide with a west-bound special or an extra that might be going out to the rescue with a train load of material ; but the officials, fearing that something might arise which would cause us to want to come in, had very wisely abandoned all trains the moment the wires went down, and so we reached Lawrence just before day without a mishap. " My first thought was of our captive. Bear Foot, who had made track laying dangerous business for our people for the past three or four weeks, but upon 74 A Locomotive as a War Chariot. looking about I saw only four Pawnees, and concluded taat the fierce fellows had killed the chief and rolled him off. " ' Where's Bear Foot ? ' I demanded. "'Here,' said a Pawnee, who was quietly seated upon the manhole of the engine tank, and he pointed down. During the excitement in the round-house at Smoky Hill the Sioux had made a desperate effort to escape, and had been quietly dropped into the tank, where he had remained throughout the entire run. " Now, it's one thing to stay in a tank that is half filled with water when the engine is In her stall, and quite another thing to inhr.bit a place of that kind when a locomotive is making a fly run over a new track. After much time and labour had been lost fishing for the chief with a clinkcr-hook, one of the scouts got into the tank, which was now quite empty, and handed Bear Foot out. "When we had bailed him out and placed him alongside the depot where the sun would catch him early, the coroner came and sat on him and pro- nounced him a good Indian." A Ghost Train Illusion. When the Rio Grande Western was a narrow-gauge road it was very crooked. Even in the Utah desert there were many curves among the sand hills that have been piled up during the last few thousand years. A locomotive — one of a type known as "sewing- machines," because all their machinery was in sight — was trying to make a spur for the general manager's special, against v,-hich she had a time order. The time was growing alarmingly short, and the driver of the light engine knew that the man on the special, with the G. M. behind him, would be crowding the limit. These "sewing-machines" were famous riders. The springs were so light and so perfectly adjusted, that one of these locomotives would ride as easily to the engineer as a Pullman car does to a commercial traveller, with one seat for himself and another for his feet. As the little machine rocked round the corners, screaming at every curve, the engineer and fireman kept a sharp look-out ahead, at the same time counting the minutes and reckoning the miles that lay between them and the spur. Down the desert one of the swiftest engines on the 76 A Ghost Train Illusion. road was trembling away toward the sewing-machine, and at the end of each minute the two locomotives were a mile and a half nearer each other. To be allowed to " pull " the general manager is an honour earnestly striven for by engineers, and when once obtained it is carefully guarded. Whatever record a man makes at the head of such a train is sure to count for or against him, since he is then directly under the eye of the management. The chances arc always in favour of a good run, for the train despatcher, with his own reputation at stake, can be depended upon to keep the track clear. He will hold a passenger train ten minutes rather than hold the special five. Another point in favour of the special engineer is the fact that he is due at no particular point at any specified time, and having no time-card to hold him down, he may regulate the speed of the train to suit himself. He is always an experienced runner who knows the road — knows every low joint and high centre, every curve and sag on his division ; consequently the officials put no limit upon the speed of the train, but leave it all to the good judgment of the engineer. It was a clear, dry day in the early autumn, the very best tiijic of year for a fast run, and " Old Sam " had been gauging his speed for fifty miles back so as to hit Coyote spur on the dot, and break the record for fast running on the Alkali division. By the rules of the road, five minutes were allowed for the variation of watches, but the rule is not always respected, and as the man on the special was known to be a daring driver, the sewing-machine crew saw I i A Ghost Train Illusion, 77 that they were in a close place long before the smoke of the approaching locomotive was seen. Now they had barely five minutes left, and nothing for the variation, and the coveted siding four miles away. At last there remained but a single mile, and only a minute to do it in. The throttle was wide open, and the little engine was rolling so that the bell ran con- tinually. The fireman had put in his last fire, and was now straining his eyes to catch the smoke of the special. The engineer, with his left hand on the whistle-rope, clung to the side of the cab to keep from being thrown out of the right of way. The wheels under the sewing-machine were so small that the best she could do was forty-five miles, and now when she came down to the very last second, there was still a quarter of a mile between her and the meeting-point, but at that moment the flying wheels of the special engine crashed over the switch .id shut her out. The little sewing-machine, hid among the sand hills, was straining every nerve to reach the passing-point at which she was already overdue. The man on the special was just beginning to feel sure of his position, when he rounded a curve and saw the light engine emerging from a shallow cut, Of course, he shut off and tried to lessen the force oi the collision, but to stop was out of the question. The fireman on the light engine saw the special, and warned his companion, for they were curving to the left and the driver could not see, but the four men kUv-vv iV^t nothing short of a miracle could prevent a dreadful collision, and that in a few seconds' time they would all be piled up in a heap. Both drivers 78 A Ghcot Train Illusion. had called to their firemen to jump, and the firemen had turned to their windows. The special engineer was in the act of reversing, that he might take the good opinion of the official with him. The other driver only shoved the throttle lever in, braced him- self, and awaited the shock. A man who has never lived up to what he thought his last moment on earth, and survived to tell about it afterward, can never know how much business one can transact, in his mnid, during that moment in which he waits and listens for the swish of the scythe. But one does not always review his past life at such a moment ; often he wastes time thinking upon a mere trifle. Lafe Pence was in a wreck the next day after his election to Congress, and, although he had been a Democrat, and had become a Populist, he gave no thought to the past nor the future, but said to himself, as the sleeper plunged down an embarkment, " Now, what the devil was I elected for ? " The driver of the special engine had a boy, and this boy had climbed up on a picket fence to kiss his father good-bye that morning ■. their home in Salt Lake, but he slipped fell, ana hung there with a fence picket through t) t sjat f his first pair of trousers, and it was v; .,j funny that, now as the engineer recalled the c'.cumstance, he threw back his head and laughed as heartily rs he had ever laughed in his life. The fireman, casting a farewell glance at his companion, saw him laughing, and concluded, in his last moment, that the driver had suddenly become insane, but as he glanced ahead where death A Ghost Train Illusion, 79 was waiting, he was not sure that he was sane himself. The driver, having finished his laugh and still feeling no shock, looked ahead. The track was clear ! He unlatched the reverse lever and threw the engine in the forward motion, and the speed of the train, which had been but little checked, carried them away down among the sand hills. The driver looked at the fireman, and asked : " Did you see anything ? " " No," said the fireman. " Did you .-' " and the driver said " no," tried his water and opened the throttle, and the engine whirled away, while the fire- man returned to his place at the furnace door. The two men scarcely glanced at each other again until they stopped for water at Green River, but each in his own mind was recalling all the wild tales of ghost trains he had ever heard. Each was firm in the belief that he had seen a ghost, but he would never tell it — not for his job. The oflScials in the special train felt the resistance of the engine when the engineer shut off and reversed, and the general manager, turning t ■ the super- intendent, asked, with surprise : " When did you put in that siding ? " " What, back there? That's Coyote spur, and has been there for six months," was the reply. " I know very well," said the manager, " where Coyote spur is, for we waited there fifteen minutes for No. 8 going down the other day, but we just passed a siding on the north." The superintendent was inclined to be funny, but the colonel, stroking his long grey Pcffcrs, icmarked 8o A Ghost Train Illusion. that he had seen a locomotive standing at the point mentioned, and " as trains arc not in the habit of meeting and passing between stations, I take it that there must be a siding there." There was just a twinkle of mirth in the colonel's eyes, which, despite the finger marks left about them by the touch of time, are still bright with the -sparkle of youth, but the superintendent was utterly unable to understand the general manager. There was silence for a little while, but the general manager was by no means satisfied. He pressed the button, and when the black porter came in he asked : " Did you see an engine on a siding back a ways, George ? " " No, sah, I haven't saw no engine : d'ain't no sidia' 'ccpt Ci-ote spur, an' dat was clear." " Send the conductor to me," said the official, and when the conductor came in the manager asked to look at the rutming orders. "Run special to Grand Junction, avoiding all regular trains. Extra engine 57 has until 5.55 to make Coyote spur against you." " What time did you pass the spur ? " demanded the colonel. " Precisely at 5.55," said the conductor, now some- what alarmed at the manager's air. " Is there a siding between here and Coyote ? " asked the colonel, and the superintendent, being at a loss to make out what the manager was driving at, started to leave the car, but was called back. " There is not," was the conductor's reply. A Ghost Train Illusion. 8i all to 1 I " Perhaps," said the colonel, " there was not when we went down, but there is now, for I saw a locomo- tive standing there." The conductor laughed, as the superintendent had done, but the colonel offered to risk a case of cham- pagne that he had seen no ghost train, and the superintendent took the bet as the easiest way of settling an argument which was about to become embarrassing. When the special reached Green River the party went into the eating-house, where supper had been ordered, and, as was his habit, the colonel sat at the same table with the train and engine crew. " What did you shut off for just this side of Coyote spur, Sam .' " asked the colonel, looking the engineer in the eye, and instantly the eyes of the whole party were upon the driver's dusky face. The engineer was speechless. Not that the circumstances had escaped his mind, for, as a matter of fact, he had thought of little else, but he knew not how to answer. " Did you think that engine was on the main line ? " asked the general manager, noticing the em- barrassment of the engine crew. " What engine ?" asked the engineer, trying to look and speak naturally. " There was only one engine there besides your own," was the colonel's response. " Will you be good enough to answer my question } " "Well," thought the driver, "if I've got 'em the G. M.'s got 'em," and he answered : " I did think she was on the main stem." " What did you think, Harry ? " asked the U 82 A Ghost Train Illusion. superintendent of the fireman, who was staring at the engineer. The fireman only closed his eyes and shook his head slowly, as if he considered them all crazy, and his long lashes, dark with coal dust, lay upon his newly-washed face like the lashes of a chorus girl. "Did you see anything on your side?" asked the colonel, who was determined to unlock the lips of the fireman. " Not a thing," said Harry, " I don't believe in ghosts." " It will not be necessary for you to take out 65 [an accident report], but I wish you would tell nic what you saw and how it affected you," said the general manager to the engineer. " May I ask you first if you saw anything, colonel ? " said the driver. " I saw a locomotive standing on a spur or siding just east of Coyote." " When I see her first," said Sam, taking courage from the colonel's confession, " she was bang in front of us, coming out of a cut like a ball out of a cannon. I saw it was all up with us, but I naturally shut off— mechanically, so to speak. I think I hooked her over, but I didn't whistle, open the sand valve, or set the air--they wan't no use — no time ; but just then I thought of little Sammic as I saw him last, hangin' on the fence by the seat of his pants, an' it seemed to me that I never see anything quite so funny, and I laughed that hard that the tears came in my eyes and blinded me. Then the thought came to me that we were a long time coming together, so I looks ahead, A Ghost Train Illusion. 83 an' there wasn't a thing in sight. I asked Harry if he see anything, an' he lied an' asked if I see anything, an' I lied, too, an' opened up the throttle again. That's all I know about it. " There was a noticeable increase in the attention of the company, and Tim P'larrity, the flagman, leaning low toward the table, crossed himself and ventured the prediction that they would have a head-end collision before they reached the junction. " I never see a ghost train show up yet that didn't mean some- thing," he added, but the burst of laughter that followed closed his circuit, and he said no more. Now the agent came in with a number of messages for the superintendent, and as the official began reading the first of the lot, he began to smile. " Read it out," said the colonel. " Perhaps it will tell us something about the ghost." The superinten- dent read — " Engine 57 is off the track and nearly o(T the right of way 1000 yards east of Coyote spur, but still on her feet" That explained the ghost engine. At the instant when the engineer shut off, the " sewing-machine," just then rounding a sharp curve, jumped the track, lit square on her wheels, and went ploughing out over the hard adobe of the desert. She rolled and rocked for a few seconds, and then came to a stop with the engincmen still standing in the cab. The engine had been working hard, and if the throttle had remained open, she might have made the curve all right, but the sudden relaxation of all her tension caused a jar 84 A Ghost Train Illusion. that threw her off her feet, and it was a lucky jar for her crew. Since that time, however, old Sam has been in hard luck. He has already lost three legs. The last one, being caught under an engine, was chopped off by the conductor with an ordinary axe to prevent the engineer being roasted alive. Those who witnessed the operation say that Sam rested on one elbow and smoked a cigar while the conductor hacked away at his ankle. It was a wooden leg. for 1 in last off the sscd and \f at I The Story of Engine 107. Some fifteen years ago "Baldwins" received an order from a Western road for two locomotives of a peculiar type. They were for a narrow-gauge line which at that time connected the East and West, and by which the tourist travelled across the Rocky Mountains. They were to be compact, short, strong, and swift, capable of pulling like a mule on a heavy grade and running like a scared wolf in the valley. At that time the concern was turning out a locomotive complete every twenty-four hours. Look at the workmen as they begin to erect the two " Rockaways," as they were afterward called, pro- bably because they rolled and rocked when running at a high rate of speed through the crooked canons of Colorado. On the floor of the shop are two boilers, two sets of frames, cylinders, eccentrics — in short, all the parts of a locomotive in duplicate ; and from this heap the helpers bring one of each of the duplicate parts, and the machinists put them together until one locomotive is completed and rolled out to be painted. Out of what is left the second engine is made. There is no culling or sorting, and o.;\-t> IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) 7 ^ // V. t<'- 1.0 U^IH 12.5 |50 "^ l™^ ■^ 1^ III 2.2 1: lis 2.0 lim 1.4 III 1.6 I.I 1.25 6" ■ ► V] ^ 7 oliic Sciences Corporation 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. 14580 (716) 872-4503 &.1 f «^ 86 The Story of Engine 107. as the separate parts of each are made by one and the same pattern, there is no good reason why these two locomotives should not ride, run, and steam equally well. When the two engines were completed, painted, and numbered, they were loaded on a standard-gauge flat car and shipped to the road for which they were built. When they arrived and had taken stalls in the round-house at Pueblo, they became engines 107 and log, and attracted a great deal of attention from the enginemen of the division. " She's a scary-lookin' devil," said Baldy Hooten, as he stood in front of the 107 ; and she really did look a bit top heavy with her long legs, short body, and "feet" so close together that they could almost run on one rail. "Take her, you fellows that are lookin' for fly runs ; I do' want her." And with that Baldy walked out of the round-house and over to the " Place of the Triangle," and shook the man there for a cigar. When the two engines had been raced around the yards a few days and "limbered up," the 109 was coupled on the Pacific express one night and introduced to the curves and corners of the Grand Canon. The road then was not what it is now. The next time you go through there, if you sit on the rear platform, you will notice that the crumbling grade that marks the route of the old narrow gauge, crosses the present standard track one hundred times in fifty miles. It was so crooked, Baldy said, that 1 new runner was sure, at some of the corners, to shut off for his own headlight. However, the 109 he!d the rail and made a good record ; so good. The Story of Engine 107. 87 r, the good, in fact, that, notwithstanding it was Friday, the 107 was sent out on the following night. She left the house an hour before leaving time, and it was lucky she did, for she ran off the trcick at the water tank and was got back barely in time to take her train out. "No man can call me superstitious," said the engineer. " But they ain't no sense in temptin' Providence by takin' a new engine out on a Friday." " It'll be midnight before you reach the cafion," said the night foreman, "and there is no danger this side." "There's danger in bed ef it's down that way," was the sullen response of the driver, as he backed down and coupled on to the express. It was one of those clear moonlight nights that make every peak and pinnacle on the mountain ranges stand out as clear and distinct against the cold shy as they do in the daytime ; a moon that shames the headlight, and shows the twin threads of steel running away off yonder and meeting and going on together where the darkness begins. Being new, with a clean boiler, the 107 steamed like a burning house, and the fireman, not being affected by the fact of its still being Friday, found time to hang out the open window, and watch the silvery ripples that were romping on the cold, white bosom of the winding river along whose banks the road lay. Not a word had passed between the engineer and fireman since they started out, and now they were swinging round the curves at a good express gait. Tne new engine was rocking like a light boat on a rough sea, but otherwise she was riding as I 88 The Story of Engine 107. easily as a coach. !^t was 11.50 when they passed " good night," and two minutes later the fireman was startled by that dreadful word which almost every fireman has heard at some time or another : " Jump ! " It is as natural for an engineer to call to his fire- man to jump and save himself — for he is of no use on a locomotive about to be wrecked — as it is for the engineer to remain at his post. " Jump ! " shouted the driver ; and the fireman glancing ahead saw a confused mingling of horns, hoofs, and tails between him and the track. He jumped, and came down on a bunch of sage brush amid a shower of steers, and saw the 107 leave the track, plough along the side of the low bank, and finally stop without turning over. The train — the engineer having set the air — stopped with all the cars, save the mail car, still on the track. Thus, the 107 on her first trip made a bad record and got herself talked about. Of course she was put back on the run as soon as a few light injuries were repaired, for it was no unusual thing in those days, where the track was not fenced in, to plough up a herd of cattle on a run like this. In fact, a railroad track seems to be a favourite place for cattle to sleep and deaf people to walk. The 107 went along for a week or more, and her crew had begun to think well of her, when she disgraced herself by breaking both parallel rods — those bars of steel that tie the wheels together — and with the broken ends whipped her cab into splinters before the fireman could crawl over her high boiler-head and shut her off"; for the engineer had both legs broken, and from the ripped The Story of Engine 107. 89 I" and riddled deck was unable to reach the throttle, though the fireman said he tried, standing on the two stubs of his broken legs. When the " scary-lookin' devil," as Baldy Hooten had called her, had gone to the shops and her driver to the hospital, the trainmen and enginemen began to discuss her from a superstitious standpoint. Not one railroad employee in a dozen will admit that he is the least little bit superstitious, but watch them when they see a new moon, and if nine out of every ten don't go down in their clothes and "turn over silver," it's because they are " broke ; " and in the left breast-pocket of three out of every five switch men you meet, sandwiched in between a lead pencil and a toothbrush, you will find the fuzzy foot of a graveyard rabbit, killed in the dark of the moon. For the third time within three months from the day she left the Baldwin shops, the 107 was limbered up and put on to the regular night run from Pueblo to Leadville ; and on the second trip she left the track at a switch and turned over, killed the engineer and fireman, and crippled the mail-agent. The switch, upon examination, was found to be all right, and in fact no one seemed able to give any good reason why the engine should have left the rail ; only her old driver, turning over in his little iron bed, said " Friday," and went to sleep again. Of course, the railway officers simply laughed at the foolish talk of the men about the Rockaway being "unlucky" because she went out on Friday, but when she was rebuilt she was transferred and 90 The Story of Engine 107. put on a less important run, with not so many people behind her. "It's all poppycock," said Mclvor, oiling the engine, "this Friday talk is all child's talk;" then he stopped short, looked at the new moon, and made a wish. " Of course it is," said Paymaster O'Connor, who, noticing Mclvor's play at the moon, worked his fingers in his trousers pocket and made riot vith the silver there. The unlucky engine was taking out the pay train, consisting of two light cars. The first day was un- eventful, but at the close of the second day, while they were rolling down the Black Cailon trying to make Cimarron for the superintendent's special, they turned a corner and came suddenly upon a big rock in the middle of the track. Mclvor made a desperate attempt to stop, but before he could do so the 107 had her belly on the boulder and hung there, her wheels still revolving as though she were trying to claw the rock to pieces. "What is to be will be, if it neveh comes to pass," said Mclvor, as he climbed out of the cab. " I neveh did believe that I was bo'n to be killed on an engine." For a long time after that, the 107 stood out in the field at the company's shops near Denver, where all the old relics were side tracked, and the employees began to hope that sne might be allowed to remain there ; but the company, if for no other reason than to prevent the employees from becoming hopelessly superstitious, put her into the shops, rebuilt and The Story of Engine 107. 91 an I repainted her, so that when she came out again to be limbered up she looked better than ever before. When she had "found herself" again, as Mr. Kipling would say, she was sent back to the mountain divi- sion, the scene of her last escapade. Her coming was not regarded as a joyful event by the trainmen and enginemen of the fourth division, and the divi- sion master mechanic knew it, and for some time she stood in the round-house with the dust and ashes on her jacket, until her rods rusted and her bell began to corrode. Then, for the same reason that she had been brought out of the field at Denver, she was taken from the round-house and put in order. One of the regular engines on what in the early days had been called " The Death Run " having been disabled, the Rockaway was ordered out in her place. While every man on the road dreaded her and hated the sight of her, there was not one among them who would shun the responsibility of handling her if it fell to him ; so when Engineer Ryan and Fireman North were called to take the night run with the 107 they made nothing of it, but signed the book, said good-bye to their families, and went away. It may be that each lingered at the door a little longer than usual, and took an extra kiss or two from their wives and little ones, but that was all. They did not mention the fact to their wives that the engine on the call-book was the fatal 107. To do that would have been to increase the anxiety of the women folks without diminishing the danger of the trip. Ryan, though usually cheerful and entertaining 92 The Story of Engine 107. with his deh'ghtfuUy musical Irish accent, was silent as he went about oiling and inspecting the machinery, and North looked like a man going to his own funeral. The train came in on time, drawn by the 109, and she stood with calm dignity on the siding, while her wild, wayward, and disreputable sister, all gaudy in her new paint, with clanging bell and blowing steam, with polished headlight and new flags fluttering at her shoulders, glided backward, like a gay girl on roller skates, to take her place. She had a helper up the hill, one of those heavy-mounted climbers, and when they came to the steep grade, and the powerful mogul with steady step marked perfect time, the Rockaway chafed and fretted like a spoiled colt. At every curve her feet would fly from under her, and her wheels go round so fast that it seemed she would strip herself ; and when the driver shut ofl" and dropped sand to allow her to get her footing again, she blew off steam and wasted the water which is so precious on a heavy grade. Between stations she would foam and throw water out of her stack, and when shut off show dry blue steam in her gauges ; so when they stopped the driver had to hold her on the centre, with her valves closed and throttle wide open, for that keeps the boiler strained and holds the water up over the flues and crown sheet. In good time the mogul dragged her and her train to the top, 10,050 feet above the sea, and left her to fall down the western slope. Ryan smiled at " Noah " North, and he smiled back over the boiler-head as they whistled for ■ The Story of Engine 107. 93 Gunnison, but their smiles soon changed to sadness, for the despatcher came out with an order for them to continue over another division. This took them through the Black Cailon, which was then to train- men what the Black Sea is to sailors. A new road in a mountain country is always dangerous until the scenery gets settled, and the loosened rocks roll down and the cuts are properly sloped ; and this piece of track through the Black Cafion was then especially so, though not now. They were nearing the place where Mclvor had found the rock. The night was clear, the rail good, the grade easy, and they were turning the curves gracefully, while now and then the steam — for she was always hot — escaping from the dome of the Rockaway screamed in the cafion, and startled a lion or caused a band of elk or deer to scamper away up a side cafion. An excursion party, in heavy wraps, sat in an open observation car at the rear of the train, viewing the wonderful scenery, made weird by the stillness of the night. How wild the walls looked with their white faces where the moonlight fell, and dark recesses where the shadows were ! To the right, beyond the river, the falls of Chipeta leaped from the rocks five hundred feet above the roadbed and tumbled into the water below ; while to the left Curicanti's needle stood up among the stars. It was not the time of year for rocks to fall, for rocks only fall in the spring, and this was summer, but the unexpected is hardest to avoid ; and now, for some unaccountable reason, a great rock, whose 94 The Story of Engine 107. wake was afterward followed for more than a mile up the mountains, came down with the speed of a cannon ball, and striking the Rockaway just forward of the air-pump, cut her clear from her tank and shot her into the river with poor "Noah" North underneath her. The swift current brought the lucky Irish engineer out of the cab, however, and at the next bend of the river threw him out on a rock. The parting of the air hose set the automatic brakes, which, as the train was on a down grade, were already applied lightly, and — the track being unin- jured — the train stopped before the second car had passed the point where the engine left the rail. The murderous rock, standing in the middle of the deep stream, showed still three or four feet above the surface of the river. The roadmaster, another Irishman, whose name, I think, was Hickey, came from the smoking car, took in the situation at a glance, and being used to such wrecks, ran along the bank below to be at hand if either of the enginemen came to the surface. Hickey, overjoyed at finding Ryan, dazed and dripping, seated upon a rock, caught the wet driver in his arms — for they were very dear friends — and, turning the pale face up to the moon, asked anxiously : " Tom, are yez hurted ? I say, Tom, spake to me. Tom, tell me, are yez hurted i " Tom, upon hearing the voice of his friend, realized that he was really alive, and said coolly : " Hurted I now, why the devil should I be hurted ? " "That's so," said Hickey, whose wit was as handy The Story of Engine 107. 95 as was that of his friend. '' That's so, I wonder yez got wetted ! " They worked for two days and nights before the Rockaway could be lifted, then she came up slowly, and " Noah's " body floated to the surface and was taken back to Salida and buried. It would be absurd to .jay that the railroad company was in any way responsible for the accident, but it gave Mrs, North five hundred dollars to start in business for herself. Engine the 107 was not rebuilt for a long time, and was never again employed in passenger service. The foreman in one of the repair shops wrote to Philadelphia and learned that the 109 was completed on Thursday and the 107 on Friday. As I said a while ago, railroad employees are not superstitious — they will all tell you so — much less railway officers ; but it is a fact to-day that a new locomotive or a locomotive that has been rebuilt is never taken out on the Denver and Rio Grande on Friday. No order was ever issued forbidding it, but it came to be one of the unwritten rules of the road — a sort of Monroe doctrine that is always respected. And now after a dozen years — after all that has been related here, which includes only what the writer remembers — the tank and cylinders of the 107 are rusting in the scrap heap at Salida, while her boiler, stripped of its bright jacket, is made to boil water for a pump at Roubideau. But every Thursday night at midnight, the fire is drawn, on Friday the boiler is washed out, and at midnight she is fired up again. w Catching a Runaway Engine. The grade on La Veta Mountain is over two hundred feet to the mile, and when .i locomotive gets away it drops down the hill much as a bucket drops down a well when the rope breaks. Jakie Moyer and a new man who had been hired from an Eastern road, had helped the west-bound passenger train up the hill, and were ordered by the train despatcher to turn at the summit and run light to La Veta, which is at the foot of La Veta Mountain. These Eastern runners were called " prairie sailors " by the mountain-men, who took great pleasure in chasing the tender-foot drivers down the hill. Jakie was one of those dare-devils famous for fast runs, and to prevent his becoming " funny," the despatcher had ordered him out first. Jakie dropped down off the east leg of the " Y," took a copy of the order from the operator, and began to fix himself for a comfortable ride down the hill. The fireman banked his fire, and made himself com- fortable also, for these mountain-men have nothing to do on the down grade. If the run is twenty-two miles, they will do it in an hour, for which they are «v Catching a Runaway Engine. 97 allowed a half-day, the fireman receiving one dollar and twenty cents, and the engineer two dollars. Running on a mountain is more or less hazardous, but no more so than politics, biking, or bull-fighting. There is no dearth, however, of opportunity for the daring driver wno Is "laying" for a show to dis- tinguish himself ; but the opportunity usually comes when it is least expected. It was so in this instance. Jakie had b..rely fixed his feet comfortably among the oil-cans, when he was startled by the wild scream of a locomotive calling for brakes. One short, sharp blast, under these circumstances, signifies that the engineer wants to stop, but can't, and so publishes his embarrassment. Glancing back, Jakie saw the fireman shoot out at one window and the " prairie sailor" out at the other, leaving the locomotive free to chase Jakie's. Both engines were going at a lively gait — too lively to make jumping for Jakie less hazardous than dying at his post. This state- ment is made as a fact, and not to insinuate that Jakie was shy on " sand," for he was not. He was an old-timer on the hill, and had his own engine under complete control. He could stop her in three telegraph-poles, but the other engine would surely play leap-frog with him if he did ; so hew to stop them both was a problem which Jakie had to solve inside of five seconds. He told his fireman to jump, but the fireman, for the first time in his life, refused to take Jakie's signal. If he jumped on his side he would smash up against a rough rock- wall, and on the other side it was at least three-quarters of a mile to the bottom of the gulch ; so the fireman li 98 Catching a Runaway Engine. elected to die with the engineer, and have the whole matter settled in one issue of the Huerfano County Cactus. These arrangements were made by the engineer and fireman in much less time than it takes to tell the tale. It was not necessary for Jakie to slow down in order to allow the wild engine to come up with him ; she was coming up at every revolution of her wheels. The delicate task which Jakie had to perform was to get a good gait on, so that when the runaway struck him, both engines might still remain on the rail ; and that he proceeded to do. Round curves, reverse curves, through tunnels and hemi-tunnels, over high wooden bridges, and down deep cuts, Jakie slammed the 403 at a rate which the builders of the time-card had never dreamed of. The right of way behind the flying engines was literally strewn with headlights, white lights, oil-cans, coal, smoking tobacco, and pictures of play-actresses — in fact, a little of everything that properly belongs on a loco- motive. Now and then Jakie glanced back, only to see the rolling engine bearing down upon his unprotected tank. Nearer and nearer she came, and at last, as he headed into a short tangent, Jakie concluded that here was a good place to settle the matter. He had even gone so far in his deliberations as to grasp the reverse lever to slow down, hut it was not necessary. When the wild engine found the tangent and freed her flanges from the hard, grinding curves, she shot ahead as though she had been thrown from the mouth of a great cannon, and the next moment she had J akie's tank on her pilot. m^m Catching a Runaway Engine. 99 The force of the collision threw Jakie and his fireman both back into the coal-tank^ but aside from a few bruises they were unhurt. ClimbJng into the cab again, Jakie left the fireman in charge of the 403, and undertook to climb back over the tank and board the runaway. The task under ordinary circumstances would have been a difficult one, but at the rate they were now running it was almost impossible. As the flying engines left the short tangent and dashed into another group of curves they rolled frightfully, and made it almost impossible for Jakie to hang on to the hand-railing. But he was so accustomed to being slammed about that he managed to stick to the wreck, and finally reached the cab of the second engine. The curves, so long as the engines could make them, were to the advantage of the runaways ; and now, what with the resistance the/ made, and the second engine being put far down in the back motion, the loco- motives began to slow down, and were finally brought to a standstill. It was a great achievement, and Jakie was the hero^of tb** day. "Windy" Davis said afterward that Jakie atopped them because he was unable to get oflT, but the railway officials did not agree with " Windy." Mr. Sample, the general master mechanic, believed that Jakie had done a brave act, and he set about to see him rewarded for his bravery. This kind official — who looks like Lincoln, though not so homely — caused Jakie to receive a gold watch, and money to buy a ranch or waste in riotous living. I don't know how much money, but I have heard it 100 Catching a Runaway Engine. stated all the way from two hundred to one thousand dollars. At all events, it was good enough to prove Jakie a good emergency man ; and when you cross La Veta Mountain again, ask for Jakie Moyer— he's the boy ! mmmmmmm A Railway Mail Clerk. Railway mail clerks are not railway employees, although they are under the crders of the railway officials when on the road. They are, as a class, a bright lot of men. They bring more brains and acquired skill into their work than any class of Government employees in proportion to the amount of money they draw. They ride the fastest trains in the country, and ride ahead. On most roads their car is coupled to the locomotive, and they take what- ever is left when the grim reaper has finished with the enginemen. Statistics show that the mortality among railway mail clerks through railroad accidents is greater than was that among the troops in the civil war. These clerks are required to pass an ex- amination at a rating of more than ninety per cent. Department employees at Washington are given thirty days' vacation each year, but the railway mail clerk is called upon to face the dangers of midnight rides twelve months in the year. I knew one mail clerk intimately, and found him one of the most interesting characters I ever met The story of his eventful life would be interesting at 102 A Railway Mail Clerk. any time, and ought to be especially apropos here as an illustration of the character of the average railway mail clerk, and of the dangers through which they pass. The farms in Illinois upon which we were reared were not far apart, but "Doc," who lived with his uncle, left home before he was twenty-one, and went West I had been to town to get the plough sharpened, and on my way home I saw " Doc" climb- ing across a cloddy field behind a harrow, and he hailed me. When he came out he hung his chin over the top of the fence, and said : "I'm goin' West." "When?" " To-night." "No!" •• Yes. Will you jine me ? " "What'U it cost?" I asked. "Forty-nine dollars^ second class, from St. Louis to Denver." " Have you got the money? " Doc shook his head. " Did you ever see that much money ? " " Well, not at one look, but I've got it all figured out." " How much Juive you got ? " " Haven't got any ; but I got a job at Whiticer's stable in Carr Street, an' if you'll go I'll see that you never want. We can sleep in the haymow and board around." " How'll we jet to St. Louis ? " I asked. " Ride when we're tired o' walkin', an' walk when we can't ride," was his reply. A Railway Mail Clerk. 103 " I'm in the silk an' you're in the tassel," he added thoughtfully. "Life is all before us, but you can't get anywhere on a farm. Look at the jays around here. What do they know ? They simply stand round on one foot like a gander, till the beard breaks through the freckles, and then they push the old folks off and take the plough, and in a little while get pushed off themselves. Life on a farm is one continual round of work and want. Will you jine me?" The thought of getting up at morning and not knowing where I was going to sleep at night fright- ened me, and I told Doc so, and so we parted. A few years later, when the west-bound train stopped at a little blc "''• and dreary mountain town where I, having gone West, had elected to drop anchor, I looked out from the car window and saw Doc sitting close up to the crupper of an old sorrel horse that was hitched to an express waggon. I went over to him at once, for I was lonesome. A mountain town is not a thing one is apt to love at first sight Desolate. That is better than four columns of agate to describe the place. The dry March winds came out of the canon and swept the sand of the mesa up into eddies that swished and swirled in around your collar and cut your face. The sunlight was so dazzling that it bewildered one and seemed unreal, and the cold winds were constantly contradicting its warmth. " Are you homesick. Doc ? " I asked, as I rode up town with him, for he was there to haul people and their baggage up to the hotel. i«H9 104 A Railway Mail Clerk. "Nop," he said, "it's the dry wind ; it's busted my lip so that I look like I'm goin' to cry when I'm tryin' to laugh. I'm goin' back home this fall," he added, after a pause, " to get my money — I'm twenty- one now — but I'm comin' back out here ; this country is all right." Doc, who had earned his title by doctoring his uncle's horses, had inherited a little fortune of eighteen hundred dollars, and when the summer had come and gone, he went back home in a Pullman car, for he had saved fifty dollars out of his salary of sixty dollars and board every month. Five years later, in the dawning of the morning, as I was climbing out of an upper berth at another mountain town, a man caught hold of my coat-tail, and I found that the " man under my bed " was Doc Pippin. He said he was living in Denver ; so was I, and in a few days he came in to see me. He came often and told the best stories I had ever heard. He was thin and pale> and I noticed that he coughed and pounded his left lung when he did so. These stories were not told to me for publication, but I know he will not care, for he is careless now. Doc went to Chicago after receiving his money, and became acquainted with a well-known detective. I think he said it was Billy Pinkerton. It was like the Pinkertons to detect in this almost beardless boy a remarkably intelligent person. Pippin was offered employment ; he accepted it, and was sent at once to a small town in Illinois to find out a band of thieves who were stealing hogs and robbing shops. I A Railway Mail Clerk. 105 If Doc had tried he could never have become a good dresser. Even clothes that were made for him didn't fit, and he wore his hat crosswise, like the leading man at a French funeral. His appearance upon this occasion was in his favour, and he was not long in forming the acquaintance of '.he toughest lot of loafers in the town. They liked Doc, as every one did who knew him, but it was a long time before they would trust him. Doc's money gave out, and he tried to borrow, and the gang gave him the laugh. "Git out an' turn a trick— work," said one of the men. " What can I do ? Show me and then watch me," said Doc. " See that jay ridin' out o' town ? " said the tough, nodding down the road where a lone horseman was going away with the sunset on his back. "Yes." " Well, he's goin' out to his place in the country — goes every Sat'day night an' comes back Monday ; hold 'im up." Doc knew the man, as he knew nearly every man in the place, by the description given him at Chicago, and by the middle of the following week this wealthy citizen had been notified from headquarters that he would be held up on the next Saturday night. Doc was at his post, and as the lone horseman came down the road, the highwayman stepped out from the shadows of a jack oak and covered his man. That night the gang drank up the best part of twenty-eight dollars and fifty cents, and voted Doc a dead game " toucher." io6 A Railway Mail Clerk. The verdancy of the gang he had to deal with made Doc's work comparatively easy. He invariably drank gin and water, and by a simple trick that a child ought to have detected — the trick of drinking the water and leaving the gin — he always kept sober. When the proceeds of Doc's raid had been ex- pended, together with the seven dollars received for the "jay's" watch, the gang determined to rob a hardware store. The job had been undertaken once, but had failed. The time, at Doc's suggestion, was fixed for election-night. A great many farmers, he said, would be in to vote and trade, and the people being either drunk or tired would sleep soundly when once asleep ; and the gang voted that Doc was a great thinker. The time arrived, the store was entered, and when they were all m. Doc ducked down behind the counter and reached the rear end of the store. Now a big bull's-eye was turned upon the gang, who arose from their work to look down the barrels of a half-dozen shot-guns. One of the gang, seeing Doc with the sheriff's party, made a play for his pistol, but the sheriff shoved his shot-gun yet nearer the robber's face, and said softly, " Be quiet," and he was calm. The next day the father of one of the gang, who was himself a hard man, made an attempt to kill the detective ; and, having done his work, Doc departed. Friends of the accused hired a lawyer who made a beautiful picture of these innocent lads who had lived all their lives in this quiet country town, and who had never been guilty of a wrong A Railway Mail Clerk. 107 until they were encouraged and trapped into it by the wicked young detective. Alas for the criminals ! One of the gang gave up to the sherifif, and by the finding of stolen goods and the property of a man who had been murdered, they were all, save the one who had weal: :ned, sent to Joliet, where they are still receiving their mail. Doc's remarkable success in this case encouraged the agency to send him to Southern Illinois, where he was successful in working out a mystery that had baffled the best men they had. But he refused another assignment, to the agency's surprise, and returning to the West again, entered the service of Uncle Sam as a railway postal clerk. Finding a letter in the mail marked to me, he took his blue pencil and wrote on the back of the envelope : '• Hello— Doc— R. M. S." ; and I knew then that he was in the railway mail service. It was some time after the receipt of this brief message that the meeting in the sleeping car, already referred to, occurred, and it was during his many visits to me at Denver that he related the detective stories herein re-told. "How is it," I asked one day, "that you are assistant superintendent of mail service here ni *he West, when you are under thirty and new, compara- tively, at the business ? " "Hard luck," said Doc, smiling sadly, coughing and thumping his '•■.est. Then it was that he began to tell me some of his experience in the postal car, but he did not tell it all. He was as modest as he was honest, and would io8 A Railway Mail Clerk. not tell to me, his friend, the real tales of heroism in which he was himself the hero. He told enough, however, to interest me and cause mc to find out more from a mutual friend, and to verify the infor- mation by some of the reports and correspondence which I was afterward permitted to see. I found that his loyalty, bravery, and devoti' ii to duty had been warmly commended in autograph letters from the highest oflfiicials in the mail service. It was, indeed, hard luck that brought him promo- tion and an easy place, which he could not have gained save through the kindness of higher officials. He had been in any number of wrecks, for many of the Western roads were new at that time, and rail- roading was not safe as it is now. Once there was a head-end collision, in which the wreck took fire. Doc was dreadfully bruised, but he had all his limbs, and as the flames crept closer and closer to his car he busied himself carrying the mail matter to a place of safety. When his work had been completed, and the flames lit up the cafion, they showed Doc lying upon his mail bags apparently dead. The trainmen found him and soon restored him to consciousness, for he had only fainted from overwork and the pain of his many wounds. It was nearly a year before he was able to take his run again, and this time his routes lay over the Santa F6 system. One night when the train came roaring down the canon, the engine jumped the track, the mail car went to pieces against the locomotive, the coaches piled upon the pieces, and the wreck began to burn. A Railway Mail Clerk. 109 When the trainmen and passengers came forward to look for "the fellows up ahead," they saw large and small envelopes sailing out of the burning debris, and they knew at once that the mail-agent must be fast in the wreck. The whistle valve had been forced open, and now the wild, ceaseless cry of the wounded engine drowned all other sounds, and made it impos- sible for the men to hear the cries of the impri- soned postal clerk. All this he knew, and while the hungry flames were eating their way to where he lay, he pulled the register bag to him and began to shy the valuable mail out into the sagebrush. When the steam was exhausted, and the cry of the engine had hushed, there came no sound from the enginemen, for their voices were hushed in death. Above the sound of the cracking flames they could hear Doc calling to them from his place below the wreck, and the brave train crew worked desperately right in the very face of the fire to rescue the unfor- tunate. Gradually the voice of the prisoner grew fainter and fainter, and before the rescuers reached him it hushed entirely. At last, just as they were about to give him up, as he was now apparently dead, they succeeded in dragging Doc from the wreck, and to the joy of all he soon revived. He was yet alive, but had breathed so much of the flames that his left lung was almost ruined, and he was never able to resume his place on the road. It was this unfortunate wreck, and the story of his heroism, t'iiit gave him the important position of no A Railway Mail Clerk. assistant clerk of the western division of the United States mail service when he was not yet thirty years old. It was the burn in his breast that made him cough and beat his left lung, that pinched his face and made his eyes look larger than they were. He went on silently — almost cheerfully — doing what he could ; but we who watched knew that the hidden scar he had there was wearing his life away. Not long ago I returned to Denver, and meeting the chief clerk in the street, asked him about Doc. I had been wandering over the face of the earth for nearly two years, and was "behind the times," as good country folk say, and now as my friend looked at me, his face took on a sadder shade, and he answered slowly — " We buried Doc six months ago.*' The Mysterious Message. Any one could see by the air of industry that per- vaded the place, that something unusual was going on. Everybody was busy. Three or four switch- engines — noisy little tugs of the rail — were puffing and snorting amid the sea of cars that covered the freight yards. The station-agent moved with a quick, nervous step among the clerks, encouraging them by his example to show signs of life. Down at the round-house the day foreman, in a newly washed suit of overclothes, hurried to and fro with crumpled copies of telegrams from the train-master. The boss wiper, with his gang, was clearing the circle in front of the house, of dirty waste and lumps of coal. One of the men was sweeping the turn-table with a new broom. Now a yard engine came by with a freshly painted mail car, and another followed it with a mile or so of empties, reminding you of a little black ant at one end of a fish worm. The superintendent had gone into the despatcher's office to talk with the train-master about a meeting point for No, 8 and the president's special. This was the new president, who, with the chairman of 1 1 2 The Mysterious Message. the Board of Directors, was making his first tour of inspection. Everj' official of any importance knew that he must meet the new chief and be introduced. Every official knew that a great deal depended upon the impression rhade upon this occasion. He must have his department in good :,hape without showing any unusual effort. Every one must be busy without appearing to try to be. The section boss saw that each man was at his shovel, and waved a "slow" signal himself to show the officials that he did not trust such an im- portant office to his illiterate men. This slow signal would indicate, also, that they had been doing some- thing to the track. The road-master had gone out that morning occupying a camp stool on the rear platform of No. 8. All these things combined to show to the uiost casual observer that something was up. In the face of every officer of the road at this particular pc»int there was a look of anxiety, as though he might be repeating — " He'll cut me off or let me stay, Just as he happens to feel to-day." The division superintendent, who had just gone into the despatcher's office, was an exception to the rule that all subordinate officials are afraid of a new management. He knew his business and knew he could go with the retiring manager to another road. He simply went about his work without any un- necessary noise. The train-master was of a different caste. He was as nervous as a maiden lady in her The Mysterious Message. 113 JOtlC the new he oad. un- ;rent her first bicycle suit. Having sent the "trick'' man away, he was handling the trains himself, to make sure that everything was O. K.'d. " I sent a girl over here yesterday — an operator," said the superintendent, after they had fixed the meeting-point, "and you sent her away. I have instructed her to call here again this morning, and I hope you will be good enough to put her to work. Her father was the engineer who was killed when the fast mail went in the ditch on the east end, and she is the only support her mother has." The train-master mumbled something about the company running unnecessary risks for charity's sake, when the superintendent cut him off with the infor- mation that there was no charity about it. It was just an act of simple justice and decency, and he hoped the train-master would not only give the girl something to do, but that he would take especial care of her and l^eep her out of trouble. The man at the key said he would endeavour to find a place for her, but he positively refused to be responsible for her. "Then, sir," said the superintendent, "I shall cease to be responsible for you." And there followed a scene, in the midst of which a pale girl slipped into the room and sank upon a seat outside the railing, unobserved by either of the angry officials. The superintendent, after pacing the room a time or two, paused at one of the windows overlooking the yards. The president's special had for the moment been forgotten by the despatcher, who now turned to the key to send the order for the meeting. Still smarting from the effect of the tilt with his I 9^1 114 The Mysterious Message. chief, his mind was disturbed. The pale girl who had seated herself without the railing was the applicant for work whom the train-master had turned down the day before. The office was now as still as death, save for the clicking of the keys and the slow, measured ticking of the great clock above the despatcher's desk — the clock that marked time for all the clocks on the entire system. Presently the despatcher jerked the key open and began to call Westcreek, and when he got them, said — "Train No. 8, Conductor Smith, will take siding for special west eng. 88 at Eastcreek." Now he began calling the operator at Lookout siding, and when he answered, the despatcher ihot him an order that almost burned the wire — "Special west eng. 88 will meet train No. 8 at Westcreek." The pale girl sprang to her feet. The despatcher turned and saw her, and when he realized that she must have overheard the quarrel between the super- intendent and himself, his anger rose against the innocent young woman ; and the other official, seeing their embarrassment, quit the room by a side door. "Mr. Goodlough, you've made a great mistake," said the girl. " Have I } " shouted the train-master ; " and do you expec' , salary for correcting me ? " " Look at your sheet. You've " " What ? " yelled the man, " do you mean to " " For heaven's sake, man," pleaded the girl, " see what you've done — look at the clock — there'll be a The Mysterious Message. 115 you see be a collision in less than ten minutes! You'll be a murderer if you fail to save those trains," "You're about as crazy as they get," said the de- spatcher ; and really she looked like a mad woman, with her big eyes burning in her pale face. Of a sudden she turned, darted out of the office, and ran down the stair as an actress quits a burning hotel. "She'd be a bird in a telegraph-office," muttered the train-master, going back to his desk. " Ah, well ! I'm sorry for her, and glad she's gone. I presume she's lost her mind grieving after her father ; but what could have put that fool notion in her head ? Can it be " and then he stopped short, staring at the train-sheet in front of him, and one would have thought, to look at him, that his eyes had caught the wild light that was in the eyes of his visitor, and that the malady he seemed to see in her mind had been suddenly transmitted to his. Now he glanced quickly from the sheet to the clock. " Twenty-seven," he said, and he knew by heart that No. 8 was due at Westcreek at twenty-eight, and he reached a trembling hand for the key, and began calling the operator. Ten, twenty, thirty seconds went by, and no answer came. Forty, fifty, fifty-five seconds, and he fancied he could see the operator standing out in front of the little station with a pen behind his ear and ink on his shirt sleeve. For another five seconds he called, and as the minute wasted it seemed to him that his blood was boiling and his brain on fire. Then he thought of calling Eastcreek to hold the special. The operator, who happened to be at Ii6 The Mysterious Message. the key about to report, answered quickly, and the despatcher asked, " Where's the special ? " " Gone," said the wire, and the train-master pitched forward fainting among the ink-stands and instru- ments. ' The operator at Westcreek stood in front of the little station, smiling at the road-master on No. 8, and the operator at Eastcreek sat looking through the window at the rear end of the president's private car, puckering up in the distance ; and the three drivers, ignorant of the awful mistake, were now dashing, at the rate of a mile a minute, into the open door of death. The superintendent, who had looked into the ghost- like face of the girl as she passed him on the stair, thought he read there of a wrong done, and returned at once to the despatcher's office, determined to have the matter out with his rebellious train-master. He had entered the office unobserved by the operator and stood directly behind him, and heard him ask Eastcreek where the special was, and heard the answer — "Gone." Of this he made nothing, until the despatcher threw out his arms and fell forward upon his desk ; then the superintendent knew that something had gone wrong. A glance at the record of the despatcher's work showed it all. It was nine twenty-nine. The great clock told him that No. 8 had already passed Westcreek, the special had passed Eastcreek ; and now there was nothing to do but wait for the collision which, in the narrow, crooked canon, was sure to come. The Mysterious Message. 117 Tenderly he lifted the limp despatcher from the table and laid him upon the floor. He poured water in his hand and bathed the face of the unfortunate official, but it failed to revive him, and then he called up the hospital, and one of the surgeons came with an ambulance and carried the sick man away. The superintendent, who was himself an operator, called Eastcreek and told him to let nothing pass that point, west-bound, until further notice from the despatcher's office. Then he sat, for what seemed to him a very long while, listening for either Eastcreek or Westcreek to call to report the collision. A half-hour went by and the wire was still silent. "Surely," mused the superintendent, "they can't have all been killed ; there must be some one left to tell the tale." He walked to the window and looked out over the coach yards, and saw the pale girl pacing the platform, waiting for a train to carry her back to her home. Her heart was heavy with dread of the collision, and at thought of returning to her widowed mother with the news of her failure to secure work. The superintendent tapped upon the window with a switch-key, and, when she looked up, beckoned her to him. She shook her head, for she did not wish to face the train-master, now that he had probably found out his awful mistake ; but when the official scowled and jerked his head round in the direction of the stairway that led to the despatcher's office, she went to him. " Take that seat," said the superintendent, pointing Ii8 The Mysterious Message. to an empty chair at the despatcher's desk. She did as he had told her, and waited tremblingly for the wire to give her something to do. Mr. Creamer, the first trick man, who had been sent away, having heard of the sudden illness of the train-master, now came hurriedly into the office. The superintendent waved his hand in the direction of the desk where the girl sat. "Keep your seat," said the despatcher as she was about to rise, and after glancing over the work, turned a blanched face to the superintendent. " Where's Tom > " he asked after a pause. " Gone to the hospital, and I'm afraid he's gone crazy as well." Then there was a moment of silence, in which the two men gazed helplessly into each othe' s faces, and listened constantly for a call from Lastcreek or Westcreek. The keys clicked merrily, and the girl, whose cheeks were now burning red, gathered in the reports from the various stations of the coming and going of many trains. "Sit down," said the superintendent, and the two men took seats near the operator, while the great clock, ticking off the seconds, marched up through the morning. Now they began to discuss softly the probable result of the collision. The special, having a down-hill pull, would be running rapidly as specials usually do. She would be making forty posts, and when her light locomotive came up against the heavy mogul which was helping No. 8, and making twenty, it would be as though she had gone against the side of the gafion at sixty miles an hour. It ■I I The Mysterious Message. 119 was awful even to think of it. Now there came a message from the general manager, urging the superintendent to get the new president over the road as rapidly as possible, as he was anxious to spend Christmas with his family at Boston. The superintendent read the message, and smiling sadly, as men sometimes do to keep from crying, shook his head slowly and laid the paper down. " Poor devil ! " he said, after a pause — " just got a good job and now he gets killed," and then the operator at Eastcreek touched the key, and said : " No. 8 twenty minutes late ; " and fresh colour came to the white faces in the despatcher's office. When the operator at Westcreek, with the pen behind his ear and ink on his shirt sleeve, quitted the platform and re-entered the office, he heard a hurry-up call for him which came in a quick, nervous way and told him that he was wanted. He answered at once and got this in return : " Hold No. 8 — lap order." The last two words assured him that com- pliance with this order was necessary to prevent a collision. " No. 8 is gone," he replied. " Hold her — T. J. G." came back to him in an instant. The man is crazy, thought the operator, but he would try. As he rushed from the office a light engine was just pulling out of the siding to take water. This locomotive belonged to the crew of a work train, but the train had been left in the siding. The operator sprang into the cab, and shouted to the engineer to pull out and catch No. 8 ; " lap order," he added, and that was enough, '^he driver, without 120 The Mysterious Message. waiting for his fireman who was some yards behind, tugging at a stiff switch in an effort to close it, pulled the throttle open and bounded away up the steep grade behind the passengar train. The operator, who was leaning in the window, heard the driver yell, and glancing round got a signal to get into the tank and shovel coal into the furnace. It made little difference, under the circumstances, where he put the fuel, so long as he got it inside the fire-box, for the rolling, shaking machine levelled it off, and the rapid exhaust burned it out or lifted it in red-hot balls through the quivering stack. Now they could see the rear end of No. 8 just whipping a corner. The road-master saw the approaching engine and, as she came nearer, guessed that she was running wild — riderless — or that her rider had lost control of her. It might be that the engineer did not see them. Theirs was a heavy train — they were losing time. He remembered that they had been two minutes late at Westcreek. He called the rear flagman, who was "railroading" with a dead-head conductor in the smoking-room of the sleeper. The flagman took in the situation at a glance. His business was to flag, regardless of circumstances and vague possi- bilities, and before the road-master could stay him, the fearless flagman swung himself round and dropped from the train. By the time he had regained his feet and found his flag, the light engine, uttering a wild shriek, dashed by him. The engineer, to avoid running by a red flag, turned his face to the fireman's side and refused to see the danger signal. Now he was near enough to whistle the The Mysterious Message. 121 other engines "down," and the enginemen pulling the passenger train shut off, and when the driver of the light engine saw a chimney of white steam shoot up from each of the forward locomotives, he knew they had quit, and slowed his own machine accord- ingly. When they had come up to the train, the operator ran to the rear of No. 8, shouted, "lap order, back up," and hurried over to the head end. The road-master reached for the rope and signalled the engineers to back up, but they wanted to know why, and to assure themselves that the light engine was out of the way. When the operator boarded the mogul, the driver of that monster machine opened the whistle and gave three wild shrieks that told the regular man, whose engine was next the train, that they ought to back up. As the train began to move back the second man saw the driver of the helper glancing anxiously up the track, and understood by the look upon his face that something was coming. The conductor, who had been in the middle of the train, naturally felt that he was being ignored, and not caring to back up without knowing why, began to apply the automatic air-brakes. The drivers felt it instantly, and the danger of it, and opened their throttles and whistles and began to jam the train back regardless of brakes, and the conductor, taking something of the alarm that was in the cry of the locomotives, released the air. The driver of the light engine had reversed at once upon dropping the operator, picked up the flag- man, and was now backing away for Westcreek at a frightful pace. His fireman, still at the switch, let 122 The Mysterious Message. him in on the siding ; No. 8 dropped in after him, and just as the operator and conductor had forced the stubborn rails back to the main h'ne, the president's train crashed over the switch. Not a soul on board the special knew how near they had been to death. Their orders read to meet Nc 8 at Westcreek, and there she was, in to clear, just as the daring driver of the special engine had expected to find her. The conductor of No. 8, with his two engineers, the road -master and operator, wasted five minutes reading, checking, comparing, and examining the orders they had received. They were all signed " T. J, G." by the train-master himself. The thing was plain : he had given a lap order but had discovered his mistake in time, by the good fortune that had left the light engine at Westcreek, to prevent an awful disaster. He was a good fellow and they were all glad he had saved himself, although the incident might work to his embarrassment when he came up for promotion. Incidentally, they were glad that they were alive. To appreciate the mysterious part of the tale, the reader should understand the value of time — not of hours and minutes, but of seconds — in handling trains on a single track railroad. It will be re- membered that Goodlough discovered his mistake at 9.27. No. 8 was due to pass Westcreek at 9.28 and at 9.29 the superintendent had seen the train- master collapse. It will be remembered, also, that No. 8 was two minutes late, but the man who had The Mysterious Message. 123 sent the lap order did not know it, and his nerve would not last until he could find it out. The order to hold No. 8 — the order which prevente' the collision and doubtless saved many lives — was sent at 9.31. It was signed with the initials of the train- master, but at a time when that gentleman was dead to the world, and had been so for two whole minutes. No man was in a better position to know these facts than the superintendent, who was the only man in the despatcher's office at the moment when the "mysterious message" flashed over the wire, and whose business it was to investigate the whole matter. As the investigation proceeded, the superintendent became intensely interested in the mystery. For a while he kept the matter to himself, but these things will out, and in less than a month's time the "mys- terious message" became the leading topic in shops, cabs, way-cars, and boarding-houses. To say that the clocks were at variance would not satisfy a rail- road man, for they had taken time at 9 a.m., only a half-hour before the message went out. The operator at Westcreek declared that at the end of the twenty-four hours following the receipt of the "mysterious message," his clock had not varied one second. Not a few of the employees refused to become excited or even interested in the matter. Such things were constantly occurring, they argued. Woman had wept for their husbands hours before receiving news of their death. A mother, a thousand miles away, had seen her son killed in a wreck in the Black Cafion, giving not only the day and hour, but the exact moment in which it occurred, describing 124 The Mysterious Message. accurately his appearance after death. A clerk in the treasurer's office said it was simple. The train- master had so longed to send this very message — doubtless, word for word — but could not gel the operator, that the force of his mind had, in some way (which was not quite cleiti, e^en to the clerk), transmitted the message to the wire, so that when the operator at Westcrcek touched the key it came to him — not over the wire, perhaps, but direct from the brain of the sender to that of the receiver. It was the great effort, he argued, of transmitting his thought to the operator which caused the train-master to collapse, and not his alarm at the impending collision. In time, the story of the "mysterious message" came to the ears of the president at Boston, and as his life had been saved by the sending of this wire, which amounted to almost a miracle, he set himself at once to the task of solving the mystery. He belonged to a certain society whose members delight to delve in things occult, and they were not long in accounting for all that had occurred. It fell out later that the treasurer's clerk was also a member of the Boston society to which the president belonged. The day's work in a despatcher's office is divided into three tricks. The first trick man works from 8 a.m. until 4 p.m., the second from that hour to the end of the day, and the third man works the " death trick" — in which nearly all the ugly wrecks occur — from midnight till morning. " You may go now," said Mr. Creamer to the girl. The Mysterious Message. 125 when the second man came in and took his trick at 4 o'clock. "Shall I — come — back in the morning.^" asked the girl, with some embarrassment. " Yes," was the answer, after a moment's thought. By a sort of unwritten rule, the first trick man had stepped to the post of train-master when that industrious, but over zealous, officer had fallen ; but, having no official notice of his appointment by the superintendent, he felt that he had no right to pro- mote the men under him. The best he could do was to keep his trick, and look after the train- master's work beside. He had, of course — being a despatcher — the right to sign his own initials to all orders, prefixing the word "Acting" when signing as train-master. So it came about that the familiar "T. J. G„" the initials of the unfortunate Thomas Jefferson Goodlough, now derailed, disgraced, and possibly deranged, were seen no more at the end of telegrams. " Whose initials shall I put to this order } " asked the girl, sending her first message on the morning of the second day. " Your own," said Mr. Creamer, and the receiving operator at Livingston wondered who the new despatcher could be. Every night, after midnight, the operators along the line would ground wir''. cutting off the officials, and discuss the new de- spatcher. Not a few of them felt that they were entitled to promotion, and were in favour of sending a grievance committee in at once. "Who is the new guy?" asked the operator at Lookout one 126 The Mysterious Message. afternoon, when he supposed the second trick man was at the other end of the line. " Go ahead, ' guy,' " said Miss Morgan, for she had not yet been relieved. " Working the first trick } " said the operator, finishing his query and making it plain. There was a dash of Irish in Minnie Morgan, and she answered without hesitation : " Miles Mulcahy." " Solid with the new push } " "Sure," was the girl's answer, and then she shut him oflf. It was not long, however, until the trainmen carried the news out over the road that Miles Mulcahy was a woman, but not until the new de- spatcher had gained something of a reputation as an expert handler of trains. Many an operator who had indorsed the new despatcher upon divers occa- sions was now sorry he had done so. A woman operator was bad enough, but a woman despatcher was sure, they argued, to make trouble. A girl at twenty giving orders to grey-haired con- ductors and storm-faced engineers was a thing that ought not to be. Some of the swift senders tried to rush her, but it didn't go. The great clock continued to measure off the days, trains arrived and departed on time, the " mysterious message " was still a mystery, and the girl stayed at her post. The superintendent was quietly proud of his protigce^ and Mr. Creamer was enthusiastic. She knew the road, he had declared to his chief, as the red man knows the forest, and the time-card as Father Maloney knew the catechism. "She's just a bird. ^ The Mysterious Message. 127 that's all," he observed to the smiling superintendent ; " a reg'ler crockerjack, and you can't tie her." The January sun, swinging far and low in the south, sent a stingy ray aslant the window and touched the covers on the sick man's couch. He rubbed his eyes, looked about, and whispered : " Where am I ? " but he was not acting. The bare white walls, the iron bedstead, the little table, and the one wooden chair told him that he was in the hospital. A vase of fresh-cut roses stood upon the table, and he knew that he had a friend somewhere. He remembered afterwards that the smell of roses was the first thing that was quite clear to him. " Have I been ill ? " he asked of the attendant who now entered the room, for, being an official and able to pay extra, Goodlough had not been placed in the open ward. His malady, too, had bf n of a nature that required close attention. At times he had been a raving maniac, screaming and calling for help to rescue the president from a burning car. "Yes," said the nurse, coming cautiously to the sick-bed, " you have been very ill. You're all right now, but you must not talk." In a little while the sick man fell asleep again, for the fever had left him very weak. When he awoke on the following morning his mind was much stronger. His eyes wandered directly to the little table, and there was the vase with fresh flowers, and tears came to the eyes of the sufferer. He wondered, as the days went by, that none of his old friends came to see him. Va lely he began to mm • 128 The Mysterious Message. recall the past and all that had happened. He wondered how many were killed, but he dared not ask. The few people that he saw seemed so cheer- ful, and the chief surgeon w.as always so genial, that he began to hope that things had turned out better than he expected. And there were the flowers, too ; somebody sent them, ard somebody cared for him still. At the end 0,' air '- 't week the superintendent came in to see him, , „, too, was as cheerful and happy as a man could well be. " It is good of you to come and see me," said the sick man. " I don't deserve it." " You do deserve it," was the reply, " and I have been here many times, but the doctor thought you would be better off alone. Now that you are so strong, though, he says we can all come and see you as often as we will," " Will Creamer come ? I always liked Dan, and his absence has hurt me, but he has not forgotten our past friendship," and the : pciker's eyes filled with tears as they rested on t*-. .^sc. " He's here now," said the "i.^ r wu ident, touched deeply by the tears and tenderne^: i tlie sick man. " Every morning for nearly a month lie has called here to ask after you. I shall send him to you at once, and now you must brace up — good ' '■." The meeting between Creamer and his sick friend was too much for the patient, and the chief surgeon, who had come in with the visitor, was obliged to send him away almost imrn •. 'atcly. It was nearly a week u>( e nry more visitors were admitted to the sick-room. Only the flowers IB??" flPO*^*"^ BB0 mem at The Mysterious Message. 129 came every morning. They were not many, but always fresh. " I'm strong enough to know now, Dan," said the patient, when Creamer had been left alone with him, "and I want you to tell me all about it." " About what, Tom ? " " About the collision — how many were killed ? " Dan assured him that there had been no collision on the road for over a year. "And you," he ex- plained, "have been here just a month to-day — this is the twentieth of January." " Don't lie to me, Dan — anybody could do that ; but from you I ask the truth, and I think I have a right to expect it. I sent a lap order the day I fell ill. I became confused over the repetition of No. 8 and engine 88, Eastcreek and Westcreek, and I gave a lap order. A girl in the office tried to save me, but I laughed at her. I thought her crazy, and when at last I noticed my mistake I tried to call Westcrc_'k to hold 8, but could not get him. I called and called, up to the last second, but he did not answer, and it seemed to me that I must go mad. Suddenly it occurred to me that I might get Eastcreek, and hold the special, but the answer came quick and awful : ' Gone,' and then I knew no more until I smelled the smell of those fresh roses you sent me, and came to life again." " Now, I'll tell you the truth, Tom, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, as the judge would say," began his visitor. "You did give a lap order, but you saved yourself. Westcreek did answer and got K t 130 The Mysterious Message. your order to hold No. 8, and he held her, and there was no collision." "Dan, I never sent that message — I wanted to. God knows I would gladly have given my life to have saved those poor fellows on the engines ; and the new president ? Was he killed ? Ah ! Dan, why don't you tell me the truth } " and the miserable man held out his hand beseechingly. " I have told the whole truth," said Creamer ; "there was no collision." But Goodlough shook his head, his eyes filled with tears, and he turned his pale pinched face to the wall. The superintendent, whose "long suit," as the road-master expressed it, was "hoss sense," had maintained all along that the transmission of the "mysterious message" was still a mystery. Those occult scientists might sit up nights and work out answers satisfactory to themselves, declared the superintendent, but they would never go at his end of the line. He was not a highly educated man, save in what pertained to the handling of men and machines, trains, and traffic He strove to do the best he could for the company without injuring the community in which he lived. He was popular, and so the new manager kept him. "There must be another solution of this ' mysterious message,' " he declared to the president, "and I shall find it before the end_^of the year." The statement of Goodlough to the effect that he had not sent the message which saved the two trains, made no change in the mind of the superintendent. 'F ^mm The Mysterious Message. 131 to whom it was related by Mr. Creamer. At the expiration of forty days the medical staff declared Goodlough sound in body and mind, and the old train-master called upon the superintendent for his decision. He had begun as a messenger-boy in the train-master's office on an eastern road, when he could barely reach the top of the high desk. He had been with this company so long that he felt a proprietary interest in the road. He would be glad to return to his old post, but men were usually dis- missed for giving a lap order. "It will not be necessary for us to review this matter," began the superintendent, when Goodlough had seated himself in the private office of his old chief. " Under ordinary circumstances I should feel it my duty to discharge you, but in consideration of your excellent record and other extenuating circum- stances, the confusing nature of the numbers of the locomotives and trains, and the names of stations, I have concluded that I shall serve the company best by allowing you to return to your former place. In doing this I wish you to understand that the matter of personal friendship, which has grown strong in the years that we have spent together, makes no difference in my decision. The sixty days, which I must now give you, is meant more as punishment for your refusal to listen to a well-meant warning which might have saved you, than for your carelessness in giving a wrong order. It is more your misfortune than your fault, however, that you have lost these forty days, therefore your suspension will date from the twentieth of December." ^smmp. ■p wmmm mf 132 The Mysterious Message. Goodlough thanked the superintendent warmly for his consideration, and went out to begin the hard task of waiting twenty days ; for to him, every day spent away from his work was wasted. The old train-master found it impossible to keep away from the office, and, finding a warm welcome from Creamer, spent the greater part of his twenty days where he could hear the rattle of the instru- ments, and the slow, measured ticking of the great clock. He was interested in, and then amazed at, the work of the young woman who was now handling the trains on the first trick. At first he felt half angry with her for being able to do what he had once made a mess of, but she was so sweetly modest, and so utterly unconscious of herself and so faithful to her work, that he soon found himself wishing she were a man. He said so to Creamer, once, and she heard him. Long before his time was up he had begun to wonder where he could put her, for he had no thought of letting her go. But she was a lucky soul, and it seemed that the same power that sent the ravens to Elijah looked after her. Just about the time Goodlough was to resume his office a con- necting road wanted a train-master, and the place was offered to Mr. Creamer. He accepted it, of course, Mr. Goodlough was ordered to report for duty, and having no one he considered competent at hand, allowed Miss Morgan to remain where he had found her. It was understood by all that this arrangement was only temporary, but Goodlough soon learned that he would lose an able assistant when he parted m The Mysterious Message. 133 with Miss Morgan, and so was a good while in making a change which all precedent made necessary. The second trick man was entitled to the first, the third man was in line for the second, and if he kept Miss Morgan she must do the "death trick." The two men were notified by letter of their pro- motion, and then the train-master braced himself to tell the young lady that she would be transferred to the company's telegraph-office, unless she chose to take the third trick, which he felt ashamed to ask her to do. It was only right and fair, she said, and she would be glad to take the third trick. All she wanted was an equal show with the men and no favours. If he could overlook her sex, and forgive her having been born a woman, she would be content to take whatever he had to offer her. "Ye gods," said the train-master to himself, "she makes me ashamed. She's as brave as she is gentle, and as brilliant as she is beautiful." He wondered, now, knowing her, that he had failed to see that she was a very superior woman when he sent her away without the promise, even, of employment. When the two despatchers who had received notice of promotion came into the train-master's office, they did not appear over joyous. The man who had thus honoured them saw that something was wrong, and inquired the cause of it. " It's just this way," said Killeen, the second trick man. " If you are setting Miss Morgan back because she is incompetent to handle the heavy business on the first trick, we have nothing to say ; but if the change is being made because she is a woman, or !7^ ■HPWB mMHHI!!" *WP rnrnt^ HPa^PWl 134 The Mysterious Message. as a matter of justice to Mr. Ricker and myself, we most respectfully decline a promotion that will work a hardship to this most deserving girl." "The change was ordered as a matter of justice to you, and in keeping with the policy of the manage- ment. However, if you gentlemen are disposed to do the gallant, the young lady can remain where she is. She is thoroughly competent to manage the business, and I can see no reason why she should not have an even break with the rest of us." So the split trick man who had done the talking, and the "death trick" man who had nodded assent, went away feeling that they had done the proper thing, and the train-master congratulated himself upon the result. « » ^ « * * Minnie Morgan was a woman to win a man's heart if he had such a thing to lose, and so, as the spring deepened, Goodlough, who had been too busy all his life to go out into the world and win a heart, dis- covered, when it was too late, that he was slowly but surely losing his own. Up to now he had been too much occupied with his work to think of love, but, as is usual with such men, when the fever came it was high and unremitting. Miss Morgan, on her side, had pitied Goodlough at first, and then, when he recovered and came back to work, she had learned to respect and soon to admire him. It might have ended there, so far as she was concerned, if he had not fallen in love with her and showed it a dozen times a day, or every time he attempted to hide it ; and soon they both loved, and each resolved to keep I The Mysterious Message. 135 i the secret from the other, but while Cupid held his hands over their eyes the world looked on and laughed. Soon the summer came with moonlight excursions to the mountains and boat rides on the star-lit lakes. They parted late at night only to meet again in the morning. The days, that were all too short, flashed by as mile-posts pass the window of an express train. In time the summer went out of the skies, the frost came and killed the flowers, but the summer stayed in their hearts and kept them glad. • •••«• It was winter without. The snow lay in deep drifts upon the pilots of locomotives that came down from the hills, and hid the tops of incoming freight trains. Miss Morgan stood at the window overlooking the yards. An old storm-stained work engine stood in front of the station, toil-worn and weary — leaking like a sieve — and the water, dripping through her fire-box, had frozen and hung icicles upon her very grates. Her driver, looking as rusty as his engine, was coming up the stair to tell the despatcher that he was not yet in and would not be for ten minutes, and the despatcher erased the arrival and put him in ten minutes later, so that the engineer might not get ten days for fast running. He was a hero, this man, begrimed as he was with soot and grease, for this was the engine, and he the engineer, who had outrun the Atlantic express a year ago and saved that train, as well as the president's special. The train-master came in with a sad face and a heavy heart. He remembered that it was just a year ago to-day that he had turned a pale-faced young 136 The Mysterious Message. woman away, not because there was no room for her, but (he blushed to admit it) because she was a woman. And now that same woman was doing a man's work. More, she could enslave him with a glance or bind him with a single strand of her silken hair. He knew this and knew that she knew it, and resolved not to let another day dawn before he had told her everything. Miss Morgan was sad, too, for she had lost a secret — not of her love, for that was no secret ; but she had just revealed to the superintendent the true story of the " mysterious message." For a long time he had guessed that she knew something about it, but had refrained from calling her up for fear of forcing her to utter a falsehood. He had himself nearly told an untruth, at the very beginning of the examination, when he declared that he had every reason to believe that she held the secret. At first she was inclined to be obstinate, but when he appealed to her sense of honour and urged her to clear up a mystery, which was really no mystery, according to his belief, and thus prevent the employees from growing superstitious and relying too much upon an unseen power to take care of trains, she saw the wisdom and justice of his argument, and gave way. The superintendent was happy. He had promised to have an answer for the president by the end of the year, and this was the last week but one. Miss Morgan's story was all the more timely because the president would arrive on the morrow, and the superintendent was anxious to convince him that ' The Mysterious Message. 137 the average occult expert, who makes a specialty of "seeing things nights," knew about as much of the future, or of things unknown, as the codfish out in the Atlantic, « « * « « « There was a sound of ringing bells, and the low squeak of iron sleigh-shoes upon the white carpet of the earth, for Goodlough, after hours, was tighten- ing the reins over a handsome team. Miss Morgan was by his side, cuddling close in her furs to avoid the flying snow and the cold twilight. When the horses had grown quiet, so as not to require all his time and strength, the train-master turned to his fair companion, and reminded her that this was the nineteenth day of December. "Yes," she said. "It was a year ago to-day that I first saw you —and " " Turned me down," said the girl, darting a quick glance at the train-master, which was followed by a pretty blush. "But I know you now," he went on, feeling him- self at a disadvantage, "and I have but one regret, and that is " "That I am a womu..." " Never," lie declared earnestly. " It is that I did not know you sooner." "But you have said so. I heard you tell Mr. Creamer that you were sorry I was not a man." " Then I was thinking only of your work — now I am thinking only of you. I liked your work, but I — I love you." / 13S The Mysterious Message. Now for the first time he looked her full in the face. It was a great deal for him to say, for, unlike most men, he had not said the same before. He felt relieved, somehow, having it out, and looked as if he were glad he had said it. Miss Morgan, in addition to looking radiantly lovely, looked straight ahead. "Minnie" (he began very deliberately now), "I did turn you down a year ago, and I know now that it meant a great deal to you, but if you turn mc down to-day it rr ns a million times more to me. It means a lif joy or one of sorrow ; all happiness— even the laintest hope of it — ay, life itself." She was still silent, but he had begun instinctively to feel himself secure. He was almost happy. He felt like joking with her. He wanted to ask if her wire were down, but he dared not risk so much — she was too serious. Liquor makes some men sad, others it makes silly, and so it is with the intoxica- tion of love. Goodlough was almost foolishly glad, and yet she had given him no word of encourage- ment. Presently his left arm stole away, and he asked her seriously for her love, her companionship for life ; and she hid her face, but not in her furs. *«»«♦♦ The morning broke clear and beautiful, and the crisp air was full of the sounds of clanging bells and the screams of switch engines. Express waggons came down laden with boxes and packages — bundles of sunshine — that would find their way to hundreds of homes, and gladden the hearts of thousands of The Mysterious Message. 139 people. Everybody was busy, for the president of the road was to arrive to-day. When Goodlough left his private office and wandered into the big room where the despatchcrs worked, he heard Miss Morgan calling Westcreek, and when Westcreek answered, heard her say — "Train No. 8, Conductor Smith, will take siding for special west engine 88, at Eastcreek." She was making a meeting-point for the president's special which, by a strange coincidence, was coming over the division again on the 20th of December. A year ago to the hour — almost to the minute — uo had endeavoured to do what she was now doing, and had failed. She had tried to help him, he would help her now, if she went wrong ; and he listened until the operator at Lookout siding answered, and she said — "Special west engine 88 will meet train No 8 at Eastcreek." " Bravo ! " cried the train-master. " That's exactly what I was trying to do a year ago, only I said ' Westcreek ' at the last." " How's everj'thing ? " " On time," said Miss Morgan, still working the key. After glancing about for a few minutes, Good- lough returned to his office, and sent out a bulletin, promoting the operator at Lookout to be train despatcher on the third trick. The same order put the two old despatchers a step nearer the presidency of the road. The bulletin named the second trick man to be day despatcher "to succeed Miss Morgan, assigned to other duties." ' ii 140 The Mysterious Message. He had barely finished this pleasant task, when the superintendent came in with the president, whom Goodlough had never met. When they were all seated, the superintendent asked the train-master to relate what he knew about the so-called " mysterious message." "I know absolutely nothing," declared Goodlough, earnestly, for the subject was naturally embarrassing to him. "You told Mr. Creamer, I believe, that you were positive that you did not send the order to West- creek to hold No. 8, although your initials went with it," said the superintendent, with the air of a lawyer cross-examining a witness. " I did." " And you do not know who sent the message ? " " I do not." "Well, I do," said the superintendent, with a broad smile, "and I'll let you gentlemen into the secret. The 'mysterious message' is no longer a mystery. When Miss Morgan saw, or rather heard, your mistake, she endeavoured to convince you that you were in error, but failed. Despairing, bhe left the building. She was almost wild with grief and alarm. I saw her face as she hurried down the stair, and it was the face of a mad woman. I read it wrong, and returned at once to you to learn the cause of her distress. I heard you call Eastcreek and ask for the special — your last message that day — and heard the answer : ' Gone,' and saw you fall. But the frail woman, whom you had turned away, did not fail. While you fell fainting among The Mysterious Message. 141 the ink-stands and instruments she rushed into the hotel over the way, and, finding no one in the Western Union Office, took the key and began calling Westcreek. She could not see the clock as you did, and she called, and called ; and when at last the operator answered she told him to hold No. 8. * No. 8 is gone,' said the operator. ' Hold her,' said the wire back at him, and fearing the operator might question the message, she sent your initials at the end of the order. It was her persistency in ordering the operator to hold an express train that had already gone by, that ir;ipired the agent with the idea of following the train. You know the rest." " Who is this woman ? " asked the president, and the superintendent told him the story of the girl — of her father's death ; how she had been called to the despatcher's desk in a dire emergency and kept there from day to day until the train-master had recovered and resumed his office. And then, when one of the despatchers had gone to another road, she had been kept as day despatcher, and all this time she had kept the secret of how she had saved the two trains and possibly the president's life. Every one seemed to regard her as a sort of heroine, but nobody knew exactly why. "Brve girl!" cried the president, rising and beginning to pace the floor, for he was deeply affi^cted by the story of how a young woman, who, but a day before had been refused employment by the company, had contrived to save the company's property and the lives of men whom she had not known. "She shall have the company's cheque for 142 The Mysterious Message. a thousand," the president added. " You will furnish her with transportation," he continued, addressing the superintendent, "and have her report to me at the Boston Office the first of the year. We need a trustworthy operator in the general office — the pay is good and the hours easy." "Miss Morgan reports to the train-master," said the superintendent, smiling and waving a hand toward Goodlough, who sat pale and silent, like a man who had just received a hard fall. The suggestion of our heroine's going to Boston brought him to his feet. " Miss Morgan will not be in the company's employ after to-day," he said, looking steadily at the president. " Has she been dismissed } " " She has been promoted, and is to take her new place on New Year's Day." " Have you anything better for her than what I can offer ? " asked the president, for he did not relish the thought of a train-master questioning the wisdom and justice of his order. "Are you a married man }" asked the t.ain-master. " I am ; but what has that to do with the matter } " " In that case, I think I have something better for her than you can offer." " May I ask what office she is to take ? " inquired the president, glancing from the train-master to the superintendent, who was still smiling. " She is to be Mrs. Goodlough," said the train- master, with a stern, calm face. "Accept my congratulations," said the president, holding out his hand. "This is the second time, The Mysterious Message. 143 then, she has saved your life," he continued as Good- lough took his hand ; " and I hope you will allow her to accept my personal cheque for another thousand, for she saved mine as well." Goodlough was greatly affected by the news of Miss Morgan's heroism, and the conduct of the president and the superintendent of the road. He kept clear of the despatcher's office that day, for he dared not trust himself in her presence. After the departure of the president, he had visited his chief and heard the story of Miss Morgan's achievements over again. So she had kept the secret for a whole year, and revealed it only at the earnest request of the superintendent, who, since the family's misfortune, had been almost a father to her. ' c had helped her establish her mother at this place, crc they were now living • oi tfortably. That evcninpf, when Minnie's mother had retired to her room, and the lovers were left alone together in the little lamp-iit parlour, they looked at each other in silence for a moment. "What distresses you.'" isked Miss Morgan. "And you?" inquired lac train-master. " Order No. y6," was her reply. " I've lost my place." "And found a friend, jver — ay, a husband a. id happiness, I hope." " And what have you found } " " The sender of the ' mysterious message,' " said Goodlough, advancing to where his sweetheart sat. " Did he tell you ? " f 144 The Mysterious Message. "Yes; and he told the president, and you are to be rewarded handsomely by the company whose property you saved, and the president is not sorry he's alive. And I ? How shall I repay you for all that you have done for me ? " "By pardoning me for forging your name to the message, and becoming cheerful, and shortening your office hours, and — well, if anything more occurs to me, I'll tell you later." " Then you did send the message ? " "Yes." "And how about the flowers that came to the hospital every day — the red roses whose breath called me back to life .'' " "Yes," she said, and the little hand stole into his and nestled there. And then they talked on for just a little while. She forgot that she was out of employment, and he forgot the lap order of a year ago. The lamp burned low. He lighted a match to look at his watch, and it was neither yesterday nor to-morrow, but just between, and then, as all telegraphers do at the end of the day, she gave him " good-night," and he went away. Scraptomania. Every man who has railroaded for a single day oii the Rio Grande has heard of John Jones — " Scrappy " Jones they called him. If there is such a disease as scraptomania, then John Jones had it, good and hard. He began at the bottom as helper in the machine shops, and industriously fought his way up the ladder until he became a full-fledged locomotive engineer. There is scarcely a flag station on the entire system that has not at some time or another been his battle- field. The most interesting feature :n the history of Jones is the fact that he never sought a fight, or fought for the " fun of it," as most fighting characters do. I knew him intimately, worked with him many a day, and it seemed to me that he had fights thrust upon him in nearly every instance. When he was " hostler " at Salida I was his assistant. One day when we were dangling our feet from a high bench in the round- house, I asked him how it was that he had so many fights. " You are better tempered and happier than I am. I have had one fight since I began railroad- ing ; how many have you had ?" L 146 Scraptomania. " 'Bout a hundred," said Jones, and his homely face was sad. He told me, then and there, that fighting was his besetting sin. He had worked and prayed that he might be spared the necessity of thrashing men, but it seemed a part of his mission on earth. When the noon whistle sounded, we slid off the high bench and went into the washroom to prepare for luncheon. Before we left the house we were obliged to use the turn-table. " Hey there, back up ! We want to use the turn-table ! " Jones called cheerfully enough to a passenger engineer who was oiling his locomotive which, contrary to all rules and customs, was left standing on the table. Now, Jones had thrashed nearly every engineer he had fired for during his apprenticeship, and they all hated him, so this middle division man only gave him a sour look and went on oiling. " Say," said Jones, rolling his thumb and twirling his watch-chain about it, " are you going to back up ? " "Yes, when I get ready," was the reply ; and Jones made straight for the engine. As he climbed up on one side the driver mounted from the other, and, snatching up a hand hammer, raised it above Jones's head and warned him to keep off his engine. I held my breath as Jones continued to climb and the engineer stood ready to brain him. When the hostler, who appeared not to have heard the warning, had gained the deck, he twisted the hammer from the grasp of the engineer, threw it back into the coal tank, backed the engine from the table, set the air-brakes, and leaped to the ground. He had missed a fight here simply because the engineer weakened, and yet Jones was wholly in Scraptomania. 147 i the right. Once when he was firing a passenger engine they stopped at Cleora, only two miles from the end of the run ; the engineer abused Jones, and Jones thumped him. The driver told the conductor that he would not run the engine in with that fireman, whereupon Jones gave the driver another licking, drove him into the cab, and compelled him to go to the end of the division. There was an investigation in the office of Master Mechanic Kelker, at Pueblo, the engineer began to abuse the fireman, and he was notified by the latter that such a course was liable to lead to trouble. Presently the engineer called Jones a liar, and instantly he fell sprawling across the master mechanic's desk. This caused the fireman's discharge. But the provocation had been great, and the official gave Jones a rather complimentary letter to the general master mechanic at Denver. Jones went up and told the whole story, not even attempt- ing to justify his own actions, and he was re-employed upon another run. In those days engineers and firemen worked far apart, and as Jones had licked about half the engineers on the middle division, he was simply despised by the men on the right-hand side. There was a young Irishman who was a magnificent man, physically, and possessed of no end of sand, and to this handsome fellow was given the task of thrashing Scrappy Jones. They met one day out at the steel works, and the Irishman had no trouble in working Jones up to the proper pitch. Jones told the story of this fight to me. " He looked like a giant," he said, "when he faced me, but I was mad. Before T knew he was within reach 148 Scrapto mania. he hit me square between the eyes, and it seemed to me that it was raining fire. I fell sprawling on my back, but got up as quickly as I could, and he knocked me down again. I got up again, with the air full of sparks. He knocked me down again. More fire. I continued to go down and get up. It didn't hurt so very much, only it blinded me, and that annoyed me, for I was anxious to see how he did it, for I had never found it utterly impossible to get at a man before. As often as I straightened up he hit me plump between the eyes, and down I went. I had been down six times, but my wind was better than that of my opponent, and that very fact seemed to discourage him. He was breathing like a snow plough, and when I went down for the seventh time he started to climb my frame, and that was his Waterloo. I saw him coming, dimly, as through a veil all dotted with stars. I doubled up like a jack- knife, and when I straightened my legs out I drove my feet into the stomach of my antagonist. He went over on his back, and I went over on top of him and closed the incident. He had me whipped. I was completely done out, and three more falls would have ended me, but he got scared, and wanted to end the fight." The next man selected to discipline Jones was a yard-master, named Jim Williams. When Williams saw the fighter for the first time he laughed at him. " Are you the artist that has licked all the engineers on the middle division ? " asked Jim, with a quizzical smile. Jones showed plainly that he was embarrassed. Scraptomania. 149 He always looked so when he knew that a man was trying to pick a quarrel with him. He answered that he had done the best he could for those who had come up against him, and Jim laughed some more. Three or four seconds were now wasted in preliminary talk, and then the two climbed into an empty box and shut the door. The men on the outside only listened to catch a word that would give them some idea as to how the fight was going, but there was no talk. At times one would fancy that a football team was performing inside. Now there came heaves and grunts as if two men were trying to put up a heavy stove, and then you might guess that a dray had backed up to the opposite door and they were throw- ing in a few sacks of potatoes. Presently there was a " rush " and they threw in the dray, horse and all. This was followed by perfect quiet, save for the heavy breathing of the horse. A few moments later the door was opened and the two men came out, bleeding through their smiles, and still the result of the fight was a secret, and it has, so far as I know, remained so to this day. Jones's fights became so notorious that the travel- ling engineer waited upon him to say that the master mechanic had ordered that the belligerent engineer be discharged at the conclusion of his next fight. Jones promised to reform. About a month later the travelling engineer climbed into the cab of the engine which Jones was running, helping trains from Colorado Springs up over the Divide. The young driver showed much feeling upon meeting the T. E., and at once assured the official that he appreciated ISO Scraptomania. the leniency of the management ; that they had all been vjry forgiving, and now he hoped that he might leave the service with the good wishes of the officials. " Why, you are not going to quit, are you, John ? The old man has complimented you repeatedly upon the excellent work you have been doing here on the hill." " Then I take it that the old man isn't on," said Jones. " That's like you, Frank, to try to save my neck ; but it's no use." Suddenly it dawned upon the mind of the travelling superintendent of motive power that Jones had been fighting. If he wanted to be sure, all he had to do was to ask Jones, and he would get the whole truth, so he asked him whom he had fought with. " The hill crew," was the brief reply. "All of them." " Yep — began on the head brakeman and cleaned out the caboose, including the captain," said Jones, with no show of pride. The official jumped off the engine and swung into the caboose of an east-bound freight train, and that was the last Jones heard of the order to discharge him, for the conductor was too proud to report the fact that a little man weighing less than one hundred and forty pounds had c'.e ined out the crew with his naked hands. The story of this fight and how it came about was related to the writer by the travelling engineer himself " We've got a cranky engineer," the old brakeman had said to the new brakeman, who boasted that he was off the stormy division of the " Q," and that Scraptomania. 151 he had not yet met an engineer who could tame him. " The only way you can handle him is to go at him dead hard from the jump ; cuss him good and plenty, and, if necessary, thump him, and he'll be your friend." " Cussin' 's like walkin' to me," said the " Q " man, "and when it comes to a scrap, that's me. Prince Albert," and he went up to the head end. When he had arrived at a point immediately under the cab window, he began a torrent of blankety blanking that made the engineer dart his head out of the window to see what was the matter. The moment that Jones realized that the fellow was cursing him, he leaped right out through the cab window and lit on top of the brakeman, and by the time the rear man came up the head man was yelling for help. He told Jones at once that the rear brakeman had informed him that the engineer was a tough mug, who had to be cursed or he would be ugly, and Jones promptly apologized to the head brakeman and thrashed the other fellow. Now the conductor, who had allowed all this to come about with his knowledge and silent consent, observed that Jones was a brute, and he got what the other two men had received, and from that day the hill crew dwelt together in peace and brotherly love. Once when Jones was still a fireman he was trans- ferred to the mountain division, so as to be forgotten for a time by the engineers of the middle of the road. When he reached the top of the hill for the first time he noticed that the rear end of the tank was covered with wet cinders, and, like the industrious fireman 152 Scraptomania. that he was, he got up and began to sweep them off in the long snow-shed at Marshall Pass. The superintendent's private car was standing near by, but Jones did not notice it in the smoky shed, and the first swipe of his broom smt a flood of cinders over the superintendent, who happened at that moment to be passing. " Blank, blank you ! " shouted the official, and, as he looked up, he saw the fireman leap from the top of the tank, and he had to step back to avoid a crush. ** Do you know who I an» ? " asked the official. " No ; and I don't care so loner as you've got grey hair." " I'm the superintendent." " Well, you, don't you me again, said Jones, and he got back on his engine, and the superin- tendent, who was himself a high-spirited man, re- marked afterwards that he liked that fellow's spunk, and, in fact, he showed in after years that he did like it, for he would have Jones when none of the other division superintendents would. The last time I saw Jones he told me that he had quit railroading. He had bought, with the money he had saved up, the old farm in Kentucky where he was born, had married the little girl who had been his playmate in childhood, and I presume she and I were about the only close friends he had whom he had never thrashed. I A Thousand-Mile Ride on the Engine of a '' Flyer." A THOUSAND miles in a night— in one sleep, as the Indians say — was what I wanted to do ; and I wanted to do it on a locomotive. I searched some days in vain for an opportunity. Then I was intro- duced to Mr. H. Walter VVVub, third Vice-President of the New York Central Railroad, told him my trouble, and promptly received permission to ride the engine that pulled the "Exposition Flyer." The artist who was to accompany me as promptly received permission to occupy the attending train. When, on the afternoon of September the 26th, I went down to take my run out, one hundred and one passengers were waiting in the Grand Central Station with tickets for Chicago by the " Flyer." It was 2.45, fifteen minutes before leaving time. At 2.55 they were all aboard. A little ahead of my turn, I showed the gate-keeper an order signed by the superintendent of motive power, wliich gave the engineer authority to carry me on the locomotive, and passed to the train. I found a little wiry 154 A Thousand-Mile Ride engineer standing right in under the boiler of the 898, oiling her link motion. A one-hundred-pound engineer and a one-hundred- ton locomotive ! A little bird chasing an eagle across the sky! Each seemed to exaggerate the other. How different was tliis mammoth machine from the mountain climbers I had been used to — built so near the ground that to get under them the engineer must lie flat down and crawl. As the great clock in the despatcher'b office pointed to 2.55 the driver began to glance at his watch. Then he climbed up into the cab, exchanged oil-cans, climbed down, and walked around the locomotive, dropping £. little oil here and there — giving her a last finishing touch. Then he put his foot first against the main, then the parallel rods, to see if they moved easily on the pins. Already I had introduced myself to the engineer, and was now on the engine making friends with the fireman. At 2.59 we were all in the cab. The pointer stood at one hundred and eighty pounds ; the fireman leaned out of the window just behind me, looking toward the rear of the train. Glancing over at the engineer, I noticed that he was looking ahead, and that his left hand was on the throttle. Just as I looked back, the conductor threw up his right hand, the fireman shouted " All right ! " the throttle flew open, and the first great exhaust seemed to lift the roof from the shed. The drivers are so large — six feet six — that with each exhaust the train moves forward nearly five feet, and with each revolution we are nineteen and one-half feet nearer our journey's end, Ml '4 on the Engine of a ** Flyer." 155 Whatever of anxiety I might have felt an hour ago is gone ; and as the proud machine sweeps over switches, through tunnels, under bridges, and through suburban New York, and finally around to the shores of the Hudson, all thought of danger has vanished, and I know that I sha'.l enjoy the ride. Nearly a thousand miles of rails reach out before us, but to me the way seems short. I hear the click of the latch as the engineer cuts the reverse-lever back, shorten- ing the valve stroke and increasing the speed. As often as he does this he opens the throttle a little wider, until the pressure in the steam-chest is almost equal to the pressure in the boiler. Every time he touches the throttle the swift steed shoots forward as a smart roadster responds to the touch of the whip. When the lever i? forward and the stroke is long, the sieam flows in at one end of the cylinder, and pushes the piston head to the other end. When this exhausts, another flow of steam enters the other end of the cylinder to push the piston back. The result of this is a continuous flow of steam through the valves, and a useless waste of water and fuel. When the stroke is short, the valve moves quickly. With an open throttle the steam darts from the steam- chest, where the pressure is high, to the cylinder ; another quick movement of the valve closes the port, and the expanding steam does the rest. The long, heavy stroke is necessary only in start- ing trains and on heavy grades. Ab'"^^-nce, we are told, makes the heart grow fonder. The pain of parting is all forgotten in the joy of meeting ; and now as we begin to swing round the 156 A Thousand-Mile Ride smooth curves, all the old-time love for the locomotive comes back to me. The world will never know how dear to the engineer is the engine. Julian Ralph says, " A woman, a deer, and a locomotive." The engineer would say, "A woman, a locomotive, and a deer." Again I hear the click of the latch, and a glance at the ground tells me that we are making forty miles an hour. The scene is impressive. The many threads of steel stretching away in the twilight ; the river on one side, on the other a rock wall, and above the wall the vines and trees ; the gentle hills beyond the Hudson where the leaves are turning with the touch of time — the end of summer at the death of day ! Now the people along the line begin to look for us : every one seems to expect us, except two Italian women who are walking near the wall. They hear the whistle, look back, and see the great engine bearing down upon them at a fearful rate. I glance at the engineer, whose grim face wears a frown, and whose left hand moves nervously to the air-valve, then back to the throttle. Panic-stricken, the women start to run, but in a moment we dash by them. The wind of the train twists their clothes about them, pulls their bonnets off, while the-r frightened faces arc whipped by their loosened hair. A step on one of the sleepers strikes the basket on the arm of one of the women, and a stream of red apples rolls along the gutter, drawn by the draught of the train. Now the smoke clears from the stack, the engine begins to swing and sway as the speed increases to forty-five or fifty miles an on the Engine of a " Flyer." 157 hour. Here and there an east-bound train brushes by us, and now the local which left New York ten minutes ahead of us is forced to take our smoke. The men in the signal towers, which succeed one another at every mile of the road, look for the " Flyer," and each, I fancy, breathes easier when he has seen the swift train sweep by beneath him. Everything appears to exaggerate our speed, which is now nearly a mile a minute. An ox-team toiling up a little hill serves to show how fast we go. As we sweep by a long freight train, west-bound, it is hard to tell whether it is running or standing still. In fact, we cannot tell until we come up to the locomotive and hear one loud exhaust, and we are gone. When the whistle sounds, the fireman looks ahead, and if the signals are right, he shouts to the engineer. If the road is curving to the left, it is not always easy for the engineer to see the signal displayed. The fireman even tries the water. Fifteen years ago that would have cost him his job. "You keep her hot ; I'll keep her cool," the engineer would have said at that time. And yet he should be glad to have some one help him watch the water, for nothing brings such lasting scandal to a runner as the burn- ing of an engine. He may run by his orders, but if he drops his crown-sheet he is disgr^ef^ for life. We are now fifty minutes out; I <■. throttle is closed. A half-mile ahead is the \,.vter trough. When the engine reaches it, the fireman drops a spout, and in thirty seconds the big track trough is dry. When the tank is filled the throttle is opened, 158 A Thousand-Mile Ride the fireman returns to his place at the furnace door, and in a few minutes we are sailing along the line as fast as before. The black smoke curling grace- fully above the splendid train reminds me of what Meredith said of his sweetheart — " Her flowing tresses blown behind, Iler shoulders in the merry wind." We have lost a minute or a minute and a half taking water, and now we are nearing a bad bridge — a bridge under repair, and over which the engineer has been instructed, by a bulletin posted in the round-house at New York, to pass at ten miles an hour. We are three minutes late, when again we get them swinging round the curves beyond the bridge ; for it must be remembered that the Central's track along the Hudson is far from straight, though the road bed is so nearly perfect that passengers in the coaches do not feel the curves. Every one seems to know that we are three minutes late. The old man with the long-handled wrench, tightening up the bolts in the rails, reproaches the engineer with a sort of " What's-de-matter-wid-yez ? " expression, as we pass by. The man in the next tower is uneasy till we are gone. We are a hundred miles from New York now, and although I carry a time-card, I am unable to read the names on the stations. Holding my watch in my left hand, I tap the case with my right ; the engineer shakes his head slowly, and holds up three fingers : we are three minutes late. I cross over, take a seat behind the driver, and, speaking loud at on the Engine of a " Flyer." 159 the back of his neck, express the hope that we shall reach Albany on time. He says nothing. I cross back to the other side, and as often as he whistles I ring the bell. A "minute later he turns to the fireman and shouts : " Look out for her, Jack ! " at the same time pulling the throttle wide open. Jack knew his business, and proceeded to look out for her. Taking the clinker-hook, he levelled off the fire, shook the grates, and closed the furnace door. The black smoke rolled thick and fast from her stack, then cleared away, showing that she was cutting her fire beautifully. Swinging the door open, the skilled fireman threw in three or four shovels of coal, closed it, and leaned out of the window, watching the stack. The trained fireman can tell by the colour of the smoke how the fire burns. The few pounds of steam lost in fixing the fire, and by reason of the throttle being thrown wide open, are soon regained. The pointer goes round to 190, and the white steam begins to flutter from the relief- valve at the top of the dome. She must be cooled a little now, or she will pop, and waste her energy. An extra flow of cold water quenches her burning thirst, and .she quiets down. How like a woman Vvhcr. her heart is hurt! She must be soothed and petted, or she will burst into tears and sob herself away. Now we turn into a long tangent, and are clipping off a mile a minute. Our iron steed trembles, shakes, and vibrates a little, but aside from the fact that there is some dust, the cab is not an uncomfortable i6o A Thousand-Mile Ride place. The exhausts, that began in the Grand Central Station like the explosion of a shot-gun, come so fast, so close together, that they sound like the drumming of a pheasant's wings. The sun sinks behind the big blue mountains, the shadows creep across the valley, and up to our window comes the faint perfume of the fields — the last scent of summer in the soft September winds. Here and there we can see the lamps lighted in the happy homes by the Hudson, while the many coloured signal-lamps light up our way. Not long ago I stood for the first time on the deck of a steamer bounding over the billowy bar at the mouth of the Columbia River, and was filled with a reckless joy. Looking down at the little woman who hung to the railing near me, I beheld a face radiant with rapture. "How is it?" I asked. "It's worth drowning for," was her answer ; and so I reckon now. Taking into consideration all the risk, and the fact that I must remain on this narrow seat for twenty hours, yet I am forced to confess that so grand a trip is but poorly paid for. If I am at all uneasy it is only when turning the slightly reversed curves where the way changes from a two to a four track road, or back. Plain curves are all well enough. But it does not seem quite right to shoot her into those kinks at a mile a minute. Yet after I have seen her take two or three of these, I rather enjoy it. She sways to the right, to the left ; then, with a smart shake of her head when she finds the tangent, she speeds away like the wind. 4 on the Engine of a " Flyer." i6i Every man in the employ of a great railroad company plays an important part. These smooth curves, perfectly pitched, are the work of an expert trackman. The outer rail must be elevated accord- ing to the curve, and with full knowledge of the speed of the trains that are to use the track. I have seen a train on a heavy grade, drawn by two strong locomotives, when nearly stalled on a sharp curve, lift a sleeper from the middle of the train and turn it over. It was because the curve was too sharp, and the elevation too great, for so slow a train. The engineer looks across the cab and smiles, apd I know that he has taken my hint about reaching Albany on time good-naturedly ; we understand each other. In his smile he asks : " How do you like it ? " and I answer by raising my right hand with all save the first finger partly closed, and with a slight turn of the wrist give him that signal so well known to train and enginemen, which means "All right ; let her go ! " We were due at Albany at 5.45, and at 5.40 the fireman stepped over and shouted in my ear : " That big building at the end of the stretch there is the capitol of the State ; " and the " Exposition Flyer " rolled into Albany on time. An extra sleeper, well filled with the good people of the capital, was switched to our train. Saying good-bye to the old crew, I swung into the cab of the 907. The engineer shook hands warmly, said he expected me, introduced me to his fireman, showed me a comfortable seat directly behind him, and opened the throttle. This locomotive was nearly new, black and beautiful. -M 1 62 A Thousand-Mile Ride I noticed that we pulled out a few minutes late. There is a heavy grade out of Albany, and though we had a helper pushing us over the hill, it seemed as if we should never get them going ; and when we did, we were six minutes behind our card time. The fireman, with whom I sympathized, worked hard, but he was handicapped. The hard pounding up the hill had torn holes in his fire. His furnace door worked badly — it would not stay open ; and to make a mis- stroke with a single shovel of coal on such a train is not without its bad effect. The gauge-lamp bothered him. Twice he had to climb to the top of the big boiler and relight it. The additional car, too, told on the locomotive, and it seemed impossible, though the crew worked faithfully, to get a mile a minute out of her. When the engineer shut off to slow for a station, running without steam, she swept over the steel track as smoothly as a woman rides on roller skates, making little more noise than a coach. She was the smoothest rider and the poorest "steamer" of the lot ; but it does not follow that with all things working well she would not steam, nor was her crew at fault. But so important are the moments on a train like this, that the least mishap is as fatal as for a trotting horse to slip in the start. A number of little things, including a bad stop at a waterspout, put us into Syracuse six minutes late ; and the gentle and gentlemanly engineer, for whom I was really sorry, showed plainly his embarrassment. A jolly-looking young man was the engineer of the 896. This crew was a little remote, I thought, at first. But when they had seen my credentials on the Engine of a " Flyer." 163 'i they thawed out ; and although we left eleven minutes late, the ride to Buffalo was a delightful one. Just as we were pulling out, one of the black boys from the "diner" came to the engine with a splendid luncheon, sent over by Conductor Rockwell. We were soon going. Holding the plate on my lap, I began to devour the eatables ; but as the train began to roll about, I was obliged to throw the luncheon out of the window, almost losing the plate as I did so. But I held to a half-gallon pail which was nearly full of steaming coffee. I asked my friends to join me, but they shook their heads. The engine rolled more and more, as did the coffee ; and the boys laughed as I stood tiptoe, taking one long drink after another. I passed the pail to the fireman, who was about to dash it away ; but, catching scent of the coffee, paused, and passed the pail up to the engineer, who took a good drink. The fireman then took a good drink too, and would have emptied the pail ; but I touched him on the shoulder, and he passed it to me. I took another drink, all hands smiled, and we settled down to business. I had been riding on the fireman's side for half an hour when the jolly driver motioned me over, and I took a seat behind him. This locomotive was not very new, but she was a splendid "steamer." The fireman appeared to play with her all the while. The track was straighter here, but not so good. This made no difference with the bold young man at the throttle. " How old are you ? " said I. " Twenty-five." 1 64 A Thousand-Mile Ride " How long have you been running ? " "Twenty-two years," he said. I don't know whether ho smiled or not, for I saw only the back of his head. These men on the "Flyer" seldom take their eyes from the rail. I expressed anew a wish that we might be able to make up the lost time. " I think we shall," he said, and he pulled the throttle lever back toward the tank. It was nearly midnight now, and the frost on the rail caused the swift steed to slip. When we had reached the speed of a mile a minute, and gone from that to sixty-five miles an hour, I thought she would surely be satisfied ; but every (ew minutes her feet flew from under her, and the wheels revolved at a rate that would carry her through the air a hundred miles an hour. The engineer stood up now, with one hand on the throttle, the other on the sand lever ; for it is not quite safe to allow these powerful engines to slip and revolve at such a rate. "We've got twenty-eight miles uphill now," said the engineer, as he unlatched the lever and gave her another notch. The only effect was a louder exhaust, and a greater strain on the machinery. It seemed the harder he hit her, the better she steamed ; and we went up the hill at almost a fifty-mile gait. "Now it is downhill to Buffeilo," said the driver; and, as the speed increased to sixty-five, seventy, and then seventy-five miles an hour, the sensation was delightful. "We've got thirty-six miles now, and thirty minutes to make it in," said the man at the throttle. on the Engine of a " Flyer." 165 "And you've got your nerve also," said I, in a whisper. Orchards, fields, and farms sweep by, and the very earth seems to tremble beneath our feet. The engine fairly lifts herself from the rail, and seems to fly through space. We stoppc 1 at Buffalo at 11.39, j^^'^t one minute ahead of time, and this remarkable run was made over the poorest piece of track on the main line of the New York Central and Hudson River Rail- road. Eight hours and forty minutes, and we are four hundred and forty-four miles from New York. The men wli 1 manned the 898 and the 907 are sound asleep, and this last crew will be so within an hour. The flagman and brakeman meet for the first time since they left New York, come forward to ask how I like it, then drift into the station, "jolly up" the girl at the lunch counter, pay for their luncheon, "stand" her "ofif" for a couple of cigars, and go out into the night. These are the jolly sailors of the rail. Perhaps they have worked together for a dozen years, in sun and sleet, skating over the icy tops of box cars, and standing on the bridge at midnight. For this they have been promoted to the smoothest run on the road. The conductor swings his hand-grip, and whistles as he strolls into the station and registers. "Train 41, on time." The wary watchman in the despatcher's office, who can close his eyes and see every train on his division at any moment, lights his pipe, and puts his feet upon the table, glad to know that the most important train on the line has reached its destination. 1 66 A Thousand-]\IiIc Ride Mr. H. Walter Webb, at the club, the play-house, or at home, glances at his watch, and as he has received no notice of delay, knows that his pet train — the "Exposition Flyer" — has been delivered safely to the Lake Shore. While this was being accom- plished, the one hundred and one passengers laughed, chatted, ate dinner, and went to bed. It might be of interest to pause a little in our journey here, and give some account of how a great railroad is operated — each man going about his business, and doing what he has to do with so little noise. The superintendent of motive power and machinery has full charge of the rolling-stock — the road's equip- ment. The officers immediately under him are the division master mechanics, who are assisted by a travelling engineer, who goes about seeing that the men as well as the locomotives do their work. He is usually promoted from an engineer, and is a valuable officer, seeing that engineers do not abuse their engines or waste the supplies. Often, upon the recommendation of the travelling engineer, firemen are promoted. Every man reports to his immediate superior — the fireman to the engineer, the engineer to the divi- sion master mechanic, he to the superintendent of motive power. These officers and men are in the motive power department ; they are in the operating department also. At the head of the operating department is the division superintendent. This officer appoints the on the Engine of a " riycr." 167 train-masters, yard-masters, and station-agents. It is usually with his indorsement that brakemen arc promoted to be freicjht conductors, and freight con- ductors to passenger runs. The engineer, especially when on the road, is responsible to the division superintendent. Next in importance is the traffic department. If the road has a general traffic manager, the work will be in the hands of a general freight and a general passenger-agent. Neither the section boss, the local agent, nor the conductor can issue trans- portation complimentarily. There are also the engineering, the auditing, track, and medical departments. There is a super- intendent of bridges and buildings. There is the general store-keeper, in charge of all building material and supplies. Every pound of waste, every gallon of oil, every nut or bolt, is charged to the locomotive for which it is requested ; and at the end of the month the master mechanic knows what each engine has cost the company ; how many miles she has made to the ton of coal, the pint of oil, and the pound of waste. So, you see, there arc other records an engineer must make besides a record for fabt running. The conductor is the captain of the train, and as long as he is consistent his talk "goes." In addi- tion to his duties as collector of revenue, he muse, especially on a single-track road, read and check up the register, to see that all trains due, and having rights over his train, are in. If we except the despatcher, the conductor is the best judge of orders 1 68 A Thou sand- Mile Ride in the service. By the use of two carbon -sheets, the operator receiving an order for a train will make three copies : one to file in the telegraph -office, one for the conductor, and one for the engineer. The conductor will examine the order, and, if it is correct and proper, sign his name and the name of the engineer. He should go to the head end and read the order to the eiigincmen. If the brakemen hear it, so much the better. It would be a good j^lan if all these men were furnished with a copy of the order. The conductor now returns to the train. The engineer does the running ; but if he should run contrary to orders, the conductor may pull the automatic air-valve and stop the train. The writer of a recent article says : " It may be possible to make such mechanical improvements as will permit a rate of one hundred miles an hour ; but where are the men who will run these trains of the future when they are built .-' " This reminds me of a conversation which took place in my he.-^ring thirteen years ago, in the shadovv^ of the Rocky Mountains. The men talk- ing were a train crew, waiting on a side track for the Leadvillf express, which had just begun to operate between the carbonate camp and Colorado's capital. " They are going to build a line over Marshall Pass to Salt Lake," said the conductor; "but I'll husk punkins 'fore I'll run a train there." " You think you would," said the long, lank brake- man, taking the stem of a black clay pipe from between his teeth. " I want t' tell you that if they on the Engine of a " Flyer." 169 build a road to Pike's Peak, they'll be men just fool 'nough to go there and railroad." In less than three years these very men were running over the mountain, and in less than ten years we saw a railroad to Pike's Peak. It makes no difference to these fearless fellows where the road runs— up a tree or down a well— so long as there are two rails. Bring on your thunder birds ; never yet in the history of railroading has an engineer asked for more time. When the running tim.e between New York and Chicago is fifteen hours, the enginemen will work harder for promotion than they do now. We have now not only the men to run these trains, but we have the motive power. With a track as nearly perfect as engine 999, for example, herself is, she will make her one hundred miles an hour. This locomotive is the plain single- cylinder, eight-wheel type of engine, which has been a favourite with enginemen for the past fifteen years. Manifestly, Mr. Buchanan has very little faith in the newer compound locomotives which have been claiming the attention of managers of late. The Rio Grande Western, one of the swiftest little lines in the West, has been making a thorough test of the compound engine. It finds that with an ordinary train they show no .saving of fuel, but with a heavy train they perform beautifully. When the next new ocean-steamer is placed upon the Atlantic, she will probably shorten the time from Queenstown to New York to five days. That would be six days to Chicago, and seven days from Queenstown to the summit of Pike's Peak. There 170 A Thousand-Mile Ride is no excuse for squandering^ five clays in a journey from New York to San Francisco. This would make a comfortable time-card : — New York to Chicago ... Chicago to Denver Denver to Ogden Ogden to San Francisco 19 hours. 23 hours. 19 hours. 23 hours. Total, eighty-four hours, or three days and a half, from New York to the Pacific Coast. The same time can be made going ea.st ; for actual running time is reckoned, no allowance being made for differ- ence in time. A sleeping car attached to the Union Pacific fast mail leaves Omaha every evening at 6.30, and arrives in Denver at 7.30 the next morn- ing — five hundred and sixty-five miles. This run is made across the plains, where the traffic does not justify the expenditure of a very considerable amount of money on track. There is never a night that this train does not reach the speed of a mile a minute. Every day this fast mail-train makes the run from Chicago to Denver in a little over twenty- four hours. Either the Rio Grande or the Santa Fc, in con- nection with the Rio Grande Western, can take you from the Queen City of the Plains to Ogden in nineteen hours. The Southern Pacific has a very good track and splendid equipment, and they should be a.shamed to take t'liiiy-rix hours of a short life to run a little over nine hundred miles. They can make the run in twonty-three hours, and do it easily. What we want is hotter track. The locomotive of to-day will do for some time. on the Engine of a "Flyer." 171 We want, also, a high regard for the lives of passengers on the part of railroad officials and employees. Much as I would like to, I am unable to offer a reasonable excuse for some of the collisions which have cost so many lives. It was not to be expected that the railroads could handle the multi- tudes to and from the World's Fair without injuring a number of people, and without some loss of life. But if every section of a train had been kept ten minutes behind the section it followed, there could have been no rear-end collisions such as we have heard of recently. Every train should have pro- ceeded upon the theory that it was followed closely by a special, and the flagman should have been instructed to flag without ceasing. Better be in Chicago ten minutes late than in eternity ten years ahead of time. A locomotive should never cross the turn-table without a box of sand, and the driver should see aiat the pipes are open. Enough sand to fill the sailor-hat of a summer girl will often save a whole train. Of course there will always be wrecks as long as mortal men tend the switches and hold the throttles, for it is human to err ; but the mind should be on the work at all times. No man should be compelled, or even allowed, to remain on duty more than twelve hours, or eighteen at the most. After twenty-four hours the eyes become tired ; after thirty-six hours the brain i.s benumbed. i ha»-c been on a locomotive forty hours, and all desire to sleep had left me ; but I felt that I was 172 A Thousand-AH1c T^idc dreaming with my eyes wide open. The fireman had to speak twice to get my attention. I was not asleep, but my mind was away, and when called to note a signal it returned reluctantly. The brain seems to feel the injustice of such abuse, and simply quits— walks out. Of course, it can be compelled to work, but it will not ivork cheerfully or well. Just as any other striker may be forced to submit to a decrease in wages or an increase of hours, so it may work, but will "soldier" enough to put its employer on the losing side. After such a strain I have gone to bed at eight in the evening, and have rolled and tossed and beat about until midnight, unable to sleep. Once I dozed for a few minutes, and then sat up in bed, pulled my watch from under my pillow, held it to the open window where the full moon fell upon its face, and said, so loud that I was awakened by my own voice : "Nine hfty-five; No. 10 is due here at lO.i." Half asleep, I had dreamed that I was on the side track at Chester, waiting for the east-bound express. How forcibly the time-card rules are photographed upon the brain ! Even in my slcej^ I was " in to clear" six minutes before tl . opposing train was due. It so happened that t'^e right rain from Leadville was due in Salida at ^ .t that time. I could hear it roaring down throi jli Brown's Canon, and then I heard the long, wild wail o^" the whistle echoing along the sides of the Sangre de Cristo range. I saw the head brakeman open the switch, dropped out on the main line, saw the signal from the rear* m $ on the Engine of a " Flyer." 173 end when the switch was closed, and drifted away down the valley of the Gunnison — to the vale of sleep. A yard engine screamed for brakes — that short, sharp shriek that tells of danger and hints of death. I looked out of the window, and saw the great white quivering head-light bearing down upon me. Twice in reality I have stood in the shadow of death, and I know that at such timei the mind sweeps over a quarter of a century in a second or two. We wen: on the side track ; our train was standing. Some one had left the switch open, and the express was heading in upon us. There was nothing to do but to leap for life. As I threw my feet out of the window to jump, the cold air awakened me, and I saw before me, not a head-light, but the big bright moon that was just about disappearing behind the mountains. And this is the way I slept until 6.30, when the caller came. I signed the book, and at 7.30 was on the road again. Where there are no regular runs, and the men run " first in, first out," it is almost impossible to always have just work enough to go round. T'le men are as much to blame as the management for the over- work of engineers. They are paid on these mountain roads four dollars per day. Days arc not measured by hours, but by miles. Forty-four mountain, or eighty-five valley, miles is a day on freight. On passenger service one hundred and five valley miles is a day's work. The point between valley and mountain mileage is passed when the grade exceeds two hundred feet to the mile. Men have made sixty 174 A Thousand-Mile Ride days in a month on these mountains, and they have earned the two hundred and forty dollars ; but they should not have been allowed to do it. One young man, Hyatt by name, used to threaten to put himself into a receiver's hands when he made less than forty days a month. Fifty days was fair business, but sixty suited him better. He kept it up for three years, collapsed, and had to be hurried out of the country. I don't know that he ever wholly recovered. He was a fine fellow physically, sober and strong, or he would have collapsed sooner. I am afraid the older engineers are a little selfish. When the management proposes to employ more men, or promote some fireman, there is usually a protest from the older runners. In the general instructions printed in the New York Central time-card, we find the following : " The use of intoxicating drink on the road, or about the premises of the corporation, is strictly forbidden. No one will be employed, or continued in employment, who is known to be in the habit of drinking intoxi- cating liquor." They might have added "on or off duty," just to make it plain and strong. A man who was drunk last night is not fit to run a train or engine to-day. Men who never drink should be encouraged, and promoted ahead of those who do. I have always opposed the idea of promoting men strictly in accordance with the length of time they have served in any capacity. If all firemen knew that they would be promoted when they hatl fired a certain number of years, there would be nothing to strive for. They would be about as ambitious as a on the Engine of a " Flyer." 175 herd of steers who are to be kept until they are three years old, and then shipped. The best engineman has been a fireman ; the best conductors are made of brakemen ; the best officials are promoted from the ranks. Mr. John M. Toucey, General Manager of the New York Central, was once a trainman. President Newell, of the Lake Shore, used to carry a chain in an engineering corps on the Illinois Central. President Clark, of the Mobile and Ohio, was a section man ; afterwards a fireman. Another man who drove grade stakes is President Blockstand, of the Alton. Allen Manvill, the late president of "the longest road on earth," was a storehouse clerk. President Van Home (Sir William now), of the Canadian Pacific, kept time on the Illinois Central. A man named Towne, who used to twist brake-wheels on the Burlington, is now Vice-President Towne, of the Southern Pacific. President Smith, of the Louisville and Nashville, was a telegraph operator. Marvin Hughitt, of the Chicago and North Western, began as a telegraph messenger- boy. President Clark, of the Union Pacific, used to check freight and push a truck on the " Omaha platform." The Illinois Central, I believe, has turned out more great men than any other road. President Jeffrey, of the Denver and Rio Grande, began in the Central shops, at forty-five cents a day. General Superintendent Sample, of the same Company, began at Baldwins at Sj^i-SO a week. • ***♦» But this has been a long detour, and my wait at Buffahi was really a very short one. The 896 gave 176 A Thousand-Mile Ride place to the 293, and in a few minutes we were under way again. The locomotives used by the New York Central were designed by Mr. Buchanan, Superintendent of Motive Power. They consume a tank of coal over each division, and drink up thirty-six hundred gallons of water an hour, or nearly a gallon a second. A number ten monitor injector forces the water from the tank into the boiler. When I stepped from the Central's magnificent hundred-ton locomotive to the Lake Shore's little McQueen, with her fivc-foot-ten wheel, the latter looked like a toy. I had not heard so much of the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern, over whose line we were now to travel, and was agreeably surprised to find such splendid track. The 293 put a mile a minute behind her with a grace and ease really remarkable. The lamps have all been blown out in the farm- houses, and the world has gone to sleep. The big white moon, that came up from the Atlantic as we were leaving the metropolis, is dropping down in the west. The Lake Shore is remarkable for its short divisions and long tangents. " That's the east-bound ' Flyer,' " said the fireman, as a bright head-light showed up in front of us ; and in a minute she dashed by. I had just begun to get used to the bell when we stopped at Erie, on time. A flat-topped Brooks locomotive, No. 559, with a big, roomy cab, a youthful driver, a six-foot wheel, and an enthusiastic fireman who knew his busi- ness (as they must on this run), backed up to our the crec fol wi \vi she to wil bio on the Engine of a " Flyer." 177 train. " You'll have this class of engine all the way to Chicago," said the engineer. " They were built for these trains." They are but little heavier than the McQueen, but splendid "steamers," good riders, and run like a coyote. The fireman found time to show me the home of the dear dead Garfield, and made me shudder when he pointed to the Ashtabula bridge, where so many lives were lost some years ago. I was glad to think that wooden bridges and poor roadways were things of the past. We are making a mile a minute. What would the driver do if he saw before him a burning bridge, or the red lights of a standing train } His left hand is on the throttle ; he would close it. Almost in the same second his right hand would grasp the sand- lever, and with his left he would apply the brakes. With both hands, in about the third second, he would reverse the engine. Perhaps he has heard that old story that to reverse a locomotive is to in- crease her speed — that a bird will fly faster with folded wings : he may pretend to believe it ; but he will reverse her just the same. If she has room she will stop. Even without the aid of the air-brake she will stop the train, if the rail holds out. I ought to say that, the instant he reverses the engine, he will kick the cylinder cocks open — otherwise he may blow off a steam-chest or a cylinder head. The engineer will risk his life to save his train. Of this the travelling public may rest assured. Even though he may be, or may have been, the greatest coward living, a man who has run a locomotive for a number of years will do, in the face of a great N 178 A Thousand-Mile Ride danger, just what I have described. To say that he does this mechanically is not to accuse him of cowardice. It is harder to enlist than to march to the music and keep up with the crowd when the battle is on. He does not, mechanically, say good- bye to loved ones, and step into the cab knowing that he must face danger, even death. The mother seeing her child fall in front of a cable car, without stopping to reason what is best to do, or taking thought of the risk, springs to the rescue. The engineer, seeing an open switch, reasons no more, but does that which human instinct tells him to do. It was my business, for a number of years, to read and write about railroad people ; and if an engineer ever left the cab without first making an effort to save his train, I have failed to hear of it. Having met and passed the east-bound " Flyer," we have absolute right of track to Chicago. All north or east bound trains have rights of track over trains of the same or inferior class going in the opposite direction. The terms passenger or freight are descriptive, and do not refer to class. All trains are designated as regular or extra. The regular trains are those on the time-cards ; the extras are run by special telegraphic orders, and always carry white flags or white lights on the locomotive. A.n extra train composed of passenger cars is isually called a " special ; " of freight cars an " extra , " and they must always be kept off the time of regula' trains of whatever class. "And this is Cleveland," said I, as I looked from the roomy cab of another Brooks, "the home of the th( six lim gre rid( del beH on the Engine of a " Flyer." 179 . they trains Grand Old Chief?" I had hoped, by showing that I knew Mr. Arthur, to put myself in touch with the driver ; but a prophet is never appreciated at home, and the only reply was a good-natured grunt and a sarcastic smile. It is hard pounding out of Cleveland, and I wonder that a yard-engine does not give us a little start. It is almost morning now. Just the time for a wreck. More collisions, I believe, occur betw. ^^\^. O^A^t; IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) /. o ^' <. ' ^ ^ ^^ 6^ <^ 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, NY. 14580 (716) 872-4503 ^. x9 \ vV i8o A Thousand-Mile Ride ago, swung up from the Atlantic, and shone on the H(3osier hills, " where the frost was on the punkin, and the fodder in the shock." The train-master, from Toledo, came over to ride with me, and showed me where the daring train-robbers held the train up in an open prairie, on a straight track. We held our watches on the 94, and found that she made ten miles in eight minutes, and eleven miles in eight and one half minutes. Old and lame as she is, she manages to limp over eight thousand miles a month, at an average rate of a mile a minute. The 94 reminded me of a jack rabbit. When he gets up he is so stiff and lame that a well-trained greyhound is ashamed to chase him. He will wabble about, stumble and fall, put down three and carry one, until the dog is ready to eat him. Then he lays his ears down along his spine, and skims over the sage-brush with the speed of the wind. At Elkhart the 160 backed on to our train. The conductor came running forward with a manifold order, and, handing a copy to the engineer, they both began to read. " Put up green signals," said the driver ; and the fireman planted a small green flag on either side of the front end of the locomotive, and we were off for Chicago. These flags did not affect us or our train ; they only showed that some- thing was following us with the same rights that we enjoyed. A.s often as we passed a train or switch- engine, the engineer sounded two long and two short blasts of the whistle, and the other engineers answered with two short, sharp whistles, saying that they understood the signals. t 1 i on the Engine of a " Flyer." i8i The 1 60 was an easy rider, and as she slipped down the smooth steel tru-k, the run over the last division was no whit less glorious than was our midnight ride on the Central. The cheerful driver appeared to ref^ard his day's work as a pleasant morning ride down to Chicago, one hundred and one miles, in two hours. When we were acquainted, and he had seen my old worn license as a locomotive engineer, he called me over to his side. Finding myself, for the first time in my life, at the throttle of a locomotive making a mile a minute, I was almost dizzy with delight. Fields and farms flew by, and the mile-posts began to get together like telegraph-poles. A prairie hawk flying down the track became bewildered, and barely saved his life by a quick swerve as the front end of the locomotive was about to strike him ; his wing brushed the signal-lamp on my side. Little brown birds, flying in front of us, dashed against the cab windows, fluttered from the running board, and dropped to the ground dead. While she was making her mile in fifty to fifty- five seconds, the train inspector came over the tank, bearing a tray which held a steaming breakfast for the " dead-head," in the cab. " Put it on the boiler- head ! " shouted the engineer ; and then I learned what the flat top was intended for. Placing the tray on top of the boiler, I stood up in the corner of the cab and ate my breakfast, and enjoyed it at the rate of a mile a minute and a dollar a meal. Looking back along the side of this remarkable train, I was surprised to note that the heavy 1 82 A Thousand-Mile Ride Wagner cars, owing to hydraulic buffer equipment, swayed not to exceed two inches out of a straight line when we were making seventy-five miles an hour. I have never travelled in the cars of this swift train ; but, judging from the way the locomo- tives ride, the coaches must be as easy as a sleigh. We placed the coffee cup outside the tray on the jacket, which is almost as smooth as glass, and it rode there for a half-hour, when the inspector took it off Nobody ever heard of a person drowning on air, and yet I believe it is possible. When we were running at the rate of seventy-five or eighty miles an hour, I closed my mouth and leaned out of the window. The force of the air was so great that it actually strangled me ; I tried it again and again, with the same result. The air drove into my nostrils with such force that I invariably opened my mouth to breathe ; and then the air drove down my throat, and compelled me to draw back into the cab. Now, when we breathe water into the nostrils, we always throw open the mouth, only to take in more water and strangle the worse. If, when you had put your head out of a locomotive cab moving at seventy-five or eighty miles an hour, a strong hand seized it and held it there, you would, I believe, actually drown. In California they do not say the oldest mission, the largest orchard, the biggest tree "in the State" or "in the Union," but "in the world." I shall say this is the swiftest and safest long-distance train on earth. That it is the swiftest, the time-card on the Engine of a " Flyer." 183 proves. It is the safest, for the reason that, from the moment the "Exposition Flyer" leaves New York, every man in the employ of the New York Central and the Lake Shore railroads, including Dr. Depew and Mr. John Newell, look out for her until she whistles into Chicago. If the "Flyer" loses over five minutes, the fact as well as the cause of the delay is wired at once to Mr. Edgar Van Etten, the general superintendent. Every- thing is out of the way, and switches set for her ten minutes before she is due. Ordinarily, when a l^assenger train is late, her danger is correspondingly increased. Not so with the " Exposition Flyer ; " she has the right to the rail until she is able to use it, or until she becomes twelve hours late. When she is one minute late, all who are watching and waiting for her know it,*and their anxiety increases until she is heard from. No train on the road runs closer to her time-card than the " Flyer." Nearly all the ugly wrecks are rear-end collisions ; but there is no danger from that source to this train. Nothing short of a thunderbolt can catch her. But, behold, here In full view arc the glistening domes of the White City and the mammoth, high- mounted Ferris wheel ! The last of nearly a thousand miles of steel has slipped from under our faithful steed, and at precisely ten o'clock a.m. we stop at the Chicago station— on time. It has taken twenty hours, eight engines, and sixteen enginemen to bring us through, and it has been a glorious trip — the best of my life. The Death Run. Along in the early eighties, when the Denver and Rio Grande was a narrow-gauge road, and the main line lay across the great divide at Marshall Pass, there was a wreck in the Black Cafion, and of that wreck I write. So rough and impenetrable was this canon that the men sent out to blaze the trail were unable to get through. Engineers, with their instruments, were let down from the top of the cafion wall, hundreds of feet, by long ropes ; and to this day, if you look up when the train ^jocs round " Dead Man's Curve," you will see a frayed-out rope whip- ping the grey rocks, five hundred feet above the river and the rail. By the breaking of this rope a human life was lost : the first of many lives that have been lost in this wild caiion. In the rush and hurry to complete the road, little attention was given to sloping the cuts or making it safe for the men who ride ahead. So, when spring came, and the snow began to melt on the mountains and moisten the earth, great pieces of " scenery " would loose their hold upon the steep The Death Run. i8s hill, and sweep down the side of the cafion, carrying rails, road-bed, in fact everything but the right of way, across the river, where the land-slide was often landed high and dry on the opposite shore. So often was the " scenery " shifted during the first twelve months that the night run through the Black Cafion, so wildly beautiful by day, so grand and awful by night, came to be called the " Death Run." It was engineer Peasley's run out that night ; but he had just returned from the stony little grave- yard that had been staked out on the banks of the Gunnison, where they had buried his baby. He was a delicate-looking man, and when he came into the round-house that afternoon to register off, he wore his soft hat far down ovci- his inflamed eyes, as if he would hide from the world any trace of that sacred grief. Kipp, his fireman, saw him, and was sorry, for he knew how dearly the driver had loved the little one now lost to him. Sliding from the pilot, where he had been scouring the number- plate, Kipp went to the book and registered off also. And so it happened that, when No. 7 left Gun- nison at 9.15 Jack Welsh held the seat, and fireman McConnell handled the scoop. The sharp exhausts from the straight stack sent up a solid stream of fire, as they hurried out through the yards, that fell like hail among the crippled cars on the '• rep " track. The brisk bark of the bounding engine dwindled down to a faint pant, and was drowned in the roar of the wheels, as the long train hurrijd away down 1 86 The Death Run. the valley, and was swallowed up in the Black Cafion. The run was regarded as a difficult one ; but the extra crew were equal to it, and at every station up to 1 1.30 the operator wired the despatcher, the despatcher the tr'' in-master, and he the super- intendent : " No. 7 on time." Although he had no regular run, McConnell was really an old fireman. He had but recently returned to the road after a year's absence. At the earnest solicitation of his good mother, he had left the rail to return to his father's farm near Salina, Kansas. He was a good and dutiful son, and he loved his mother as only such a son can love ; but he could not help the longing within him to return to the road. That summer the Missouri Pacific opened a new line right through his father's farm, and every day he heard the snort of the iron horse, saw the trains go to and fro, saw the enginemen throwing kisses to the girls on the farm, and he wanted to return to the Rockies. More than once every day he looked away to the west, where he knew the trains were going up and down ; where the snow lay in great drifts on one side of the track, and the flowers bloomed by the other. Who can say how the heart of the engineman longs for the engine ^ " He loves the locomotive As the flowers love the lea, As the song-birds love the sunlight, As the sailor loves the sea." When the harvest had been cut and the golden grain garnered, the restless youth bade his parents The Death Run. 187 adieu, and set his face toward the sunset. He had been a faithful fireman, and found no trouble in re-establishiiig himself in the service of the " Scenic" Line. The Death Run was a long one : one hundred and thirty-five miles over mountains and through cafions. They had crossed Cero summit, and were now roaring along the cafion, by the banks of the beautiful river. The night grew warmer as they drifted down toward the valley of the Grande. The engineer sat silently in his place, trying the water, whistling for stations, and watching the way. The fireman, having little to do now, lounged in the open window and looked out on the rippling river where the moonlight lay. It was almost midnight when the operator at Roubideau was awakened by the wild wail of the west- bound express. As the long train rattled over the bridge beyond the little station, the operator reached for the key and made the wire say : " No 7. on time." Beyond the bridge there was a bit of a tangent, a few hundred yards ; and when they turned into it, the fireman got down from his comfortable seat to fix the fire. The driver released the brakes at the bridge, and the train was now increasing her speed at every turn of the wheels. Looking ahead, the engineer saw the open mouth of Roubideau tunnel, which, being on the shadow side of the hill, looked like a great hole in the night. Nearer the engine he saw a number of dark objects scattered about. In another second he discerned what these were, and realized an awful 1 88 The Death Run. danger. As he reversed the engine and apph'ed the air, he shouted to the fireman to jump. He might have jumped himself, for he saw the danger first ; but no such thought came to him. In another second the pilot was ploughing through a herd of cattle that were sleeping on the track. If they had all been standing, he would have opened the throttle and sent them flying into the river, with less risk to his train. But they were lying down ; and as they rolled under the wheels, they lifted the great engine from the rails and threw her down the dump at the very edge of the river. So well had the faithful engineer performed his work that the train was stopped without wrecking a car. Many of the passengers were not awakened. The trainmen came forward and found the engineer. He was able to speak to them ; he knew what had happened, and knew that he had but a few minutes to live. These brave, rough men of the rail never hide anything from each other, and when he asked for his fireman, they told him the fireman was dead. As he lay there in the moonlight, with his head rest- ing in the conductor's lap, while the brakeman brought a cup from the mail car and gave him a drink of water, he told them where he wanted to be buried — back East somewhere ; spoke of his insurance policy ; left a loving message for his wife ; and then, as if he had nothing more to say or do, closed his eyes, folded his hands over his brave heart, and without a murmur — apparently without pain — died. It was many hours before they found the fireman. When the crash came, he was standing in front of the furnace door. The tank doubled forward and forced ^m The Death Run. 189 him up against the boiler-hcad, where, if he had not been killed instantly, he must !iave been slowly roasted. He lay in the wreck so ' \^ that, when they got him out, there was a deep and ugly groov>, across his face, where he had lain against the narrow edge of the throttle lever. Save this deep furrow, there were no marks upon his face. But that one mark remained, even after the body was embalmed. The writer was, at that time, employed by the same company, and was sent out to the wreck to take charge of the body of the fireman, bring it to Denver, and then take it back to the farm at Salina. The travelling engineer went out with a special engine and the superintendent's private car, and I went with him. It is not a pleasant task to deliver the dead to bereaved relatives ; but it is the least that can be done, and some one must do it. The engine left the track precisely at midnight, Friday night, and it was not until the afternoon of the following Tuesday that I reached Salina„ There had been six children in this happy family, three boys and three girls. The eldest son was a locomotive engineer, but he had left the road for good, and was now with the family at the Kansas farm. " How does he look ? " asked the engineer, when we had taken seats in the farm carriage. " Can mother sec him > " " He looks very well," said I ; and then, remem- bering that ugly furrow in his face, " but would it not be better for all of you to remember him just as he left home ? " 190 The Death Run. " I shall leave that all to you," he said, while the hot tears fairly rained down upon the lap-robo that covered our knees. When we reached the McConncll place, and I went into the house where the family were all assembled in the large, plain parlour, there was no need of an intro- duction. They all knew me, and knew why I had come, and when they crowded about me, all weeping so bitterly, I felt that I could not hold out much longer myself. I did better than I had expected, however, until I attempted to talk, when the tears came up in my throat and choked me. So, with a little brother on one knee, a little sister on the other, while the two young ladies were sobbing by the window, and the brave young engineer was trying between his tears to calm his mother, I gave way, and wept with the rest. When wc had all gained the littlerelief that always comes with a shower of tears, the mother began to talk to me, and ask questions. To begin with, she asked me if I could tell her exactly when her boy was killed. " Last Friday night," I said. " What time ? " she asked, glancing at her two daughters, who had turned from the window, and were trying to dry their eyes. "Almost exactly at midnight," was my reply. "Ah ! " she said, bursting into tears again, " I knew it ! I knew it I " " He was killed instantly," said I ; "he never knew what happened." I said this with the hope of their deriving a shade ;t • The Death Run. 191 of comfort from the fact that the dear brave boy was not roasted alive, as so many enginemen are. " Not quite instantly," said the weeping mother. " He called me twice : * Mother ! Mother ! ' and I saw him standing before me with a great deep furrow across his face." Then she placed the t^^^ of her hand against her face to show me where the v ir was ; and when I saw her mark the very angle J ihe ugly groove, I felt a strange tingling sens.'.tion at ihe roots of my hair. " Has any one v/ritten you the particulars of the wreck ? " I said. " No," she answered ; " we have had but two tele- grams : one from the superintendent, telling of his death, and the one f»om you when you left Denver." What she said so affected me that I excused myself and walked out to the barn, where I could think. I WIS not long in arriving at the conclusion that when the 7 left the track, in that infinitesimal fragment of time, the boy saw that he was in the shadow of death, and his first and only thought was of his mother. His whole soul went out to her so swiftly and so surely that she not only heard him call her, but saw him, just as he was. At the barn I found the dead boy's father, who had insisted upon his son's going in with me, upon our arrival at the house, while he "put up" the team. I thought his the saddest face I had ever seen, as he moved about in his tearless and silent sorrow. " How did it happen } " asked the farmer, when he had finished his chores, and we were walking back toward the house together. 192 The Death Run. " Hit a bunch of cattle," said I. " In the night ? " " Yes," was my answer ; "just about midnight." " What night ? " " Last Friday." "Stop!" said the farmer, touching my arm. "I want to tell you something that happened here last Friday night — and I remember that it was just about midnight." Then he told me how his wife had screamed and wakened him, and how she had wept bitterly, and insisted that Johnny had been killed. He had been struck by somebody or something, she insisted, and she could see a great deep, ugly scar on his face. I don't know why I did not ; but I remember dis- tinctly that I did not tell them — not even the engineer, who was accustomed to seeing such things — that the scar was there, on Jack's face, just as his mother had seen it that Friday night. We did not open the coffin at the church, nor at the grave. I remained with the family at the farmhouse that night, and with them, on the following day, went to the little church in town, where the good priest talked a great deal longer than was necessary, I thought, for he had it not in his power to do John McConnell any good by talking. In a pleasant place, on a gentle slope that tipped to the west, his grave was made ; and while we were weeping there, another grave, in anotb"!- place, was being filled, hiding from the eyes of the world the body of the brave engineer. Flying through Flames. ■J Forest fires had been raging in the mountains for more than a month. The passengers were peering from the car-windows, watching the red lights leap from tree to tree, leaving the erstwhile green-garbed hills a bleak awd blackened waste. The travelling passenger-agent had held the maiden from Normal out on the rear platform all the way up the mountain, soothing her fears, and showing her the sights and scenes along the line. " Over there," he said, " is the sunny San Luis Valley, and those high hills — that snowy range — when seen in the golden glow of sunset was called by the Spaniards Sangte de Crista, the ' Vod of Christ. Further to the south and a little west is the great silver camp of Creede, where it is always afternoon. " Looking far down the vale you can see the moon- kissed crest of the Spanish range, below whose lofty peaks the archaic clifif-dwellers had their homes. Here to the north, where you see the fire flying from the throbbing throat of a locomotive, is the line that leads to Leadville, whose wondrous wealth is known to all the English-speaking people ; yes, even as far O 194 Flying through Flames. south as Texas they have come to talk of Leadville and the mines. " Now we have reached the crest of the continent, where " "Oh yes, I have seen it!" chimed in the maiden. " It's by Ernest IngersoU, is it not ? " " No," he replied ; " this one is by the Builder of the universe, and, as I was about to say, the water flows this way to the Atlantic, and that way to the Pacific Ocean." " Why, how very, very funny ! " said the " school- marm ; " but the railroad man has never been able to see where the laugh came in. He was making no attempt to be funny ; and, turning the tourist over to the porter, after assuring her, for the one-hundredth time, that accidents were never heard of on Marshall Pass, he said good-night. The conductor came out from the smoky station, lifted his white light a time or two, the big bell sounded, and t'le long train began to find and wind its way over the smooth steel track that should lead from the hoary heights to the verdant vale. And the gentle curves made cradles of the cars, and the happy maiden in high Five dreamed she was at home in her hammock, while the man of the road went peacefully to sleep in upper Six, feeling that he had .shown all the wonders of the West to at least one passenger in that train-load of people. The engineer reached for the rope, and the long low " toooo toooo-too toot " went out upon the mid- night air ; and the women folk whispered a little prayer for the weary watcher in the engine cab, Flying through Flames. 195 placed their precious lives in his left hand, and went to sleep again. The long train creaked and cracked on the sharp corners, and, as the last echo of the steam-whistle died away in the distant hills, slid swiftly from the short tangent, and was swallowed up by a snowshed. At that moment the fire leaped from a clump of pinions, and the sun-dried snowshed flashed aflame like a bunch of grass in a prairie fire. It had required the united efforts of three loco- motives to haul the ';rain up the hill, and the engineer knew that to stop was to perish in the fire, aj he was utterly unable to back out of the burning building. That is why it appeared to the passengers that all at once every tie that bound this human-burdened train to the track parted, and the mad train began to fall down the mountain. Away they went like the wind. On they went through the fiery furnace like a frightened spirit flying from the hearth of hell. The enginemen were almost suffocated in the cab, while the paint was peeled from the Pullman cars as a light snow is swallowed by the burning sun on a sandy desert. At last the light is gone ; they dash out into the night— out into the pure mountain air ; the brakes are applied, the speed is slackened, the women are still frightened ; but the conductor assures them that the danger is past. Now they can look back and see the burning sheds falling. The " schoolmarm " shudders as she climbs back to her berth, and an hour later they are all asleep. At Gunnison they get another locomotive, 196 Flying through Flames. a fresh crew, and the train winds on toward the Pacific slope. , , , The engine is stabled in her stall at the round- house The driver walks about her. pats her on the neck, and talks to her as he would to a human being : " Well, old girl, we got through, didn't we ? But it was a close call." A Novel Battle. Snow-bucking with a pilot-plough is dangerous business. However, there is very little of it to do in these days. Now a road that is able to accumulate a snowdrift is able to own a rotary plough or snow- excavator. These machines are as large as a coach and as heavy as a locomotive. The front end is funnel-shaped ; and instead of throwing the snow away it swallows it, and then spurts it out in a great stream like water from a hose at a fire. Inside the house, or car, there is a boiler as large as a locomotive boiler, with two big cylinders to furnish power to re- volve a wheel in the funnel-shaped front end. This wheel is like the wheel of a windmill, except that the fans or blades are made of steel and are quite sharp. As the plough is driven through the drifted snow by a locomotive — sometimes by two or three of them — the rapidly revolving wheel slices the snow from the hard bank, draws it into the steel chest, where the same rotary motion drives it out through a sheet-iron spout. Once, at Alpine Pass, on a summer branch of the Union Pacific, I saw one of these machines working 198 A Novel Battle. in six feet of snow that had been there six months, and was so hard that men walked over it without snowshoes. It was about the middle of May ; the weather was almost warm at midday, but freezing at night. A number of railroad and newspaper men had gone up there, eleven thousand feet above the sea, to witness a battle between two rival excavators. The trial was an exciting one, and lasted three days. Master Mechanic Egan, whose guest I was, was director-general, and a very impartial director, I thought. The two machines were very similar in appearance ; but instead of a wheel with knives, one had a great auger in front, the purpose of which was to bore into the snowdrift and draw the snow into the machine, as the chips are drawn from an auger hole by the revolving of the screw. The discharging apparatus was similar in the two, and like that already described. There was a formidable array of rolling stock on the two sidings at the foot of the mountain where we had our car, and where we camped nights. On one side track stands one of the machines, with three engines behind her; on another, the other, with the same number of locomotives. You could tell the men of the one from those of the other, for the two armies dwelt apart, just as the Denver police kept clear of the State militia in Governor Waite's war. It was perfectly natural for the men on the different machines to be loyal to their respective employers, and a little bit jealous of the rival crew ; but I was surprised to see how quickly that feeling extended to the crews of the half-dozen locomotives, all working ■I A Novel Battle. 199 for the same railroad company, and in no way inte- rested in the outcome. On the morning of the first day of the trial, when the six engines came down the track from the coal- yards, a trainman stood at the three-throw switch, and gave a locomotive to each of the two machines alternately. They all knew where they belonged, and they kept the same place, each of them, until the battle was over. There was no betting, but there was a distinct " favourite " from the start ; and when the iron horses were all hooked up, the men on the " favourite " began, good-naturedly enough, to "josh" the other crew. Mr. Egan decided that one of the machines should go forward ; p'^d when it stuck, stalled, or stopped, for any reason, it should at once back down, take the siding, and give the other a chance. It was nearly noon when the railway oflficers and pencil-pushers climbed to the storm deck of the first machine, and the commander gave a signal to start. The whistle " off brakes " was answered by the six locomotives, and the little engine that brought up the rear with the special train. The hungry machine gathered up the light drifts which we encountered in the first few miles, and breathed them out over the tops of the telegraph-poles. At a sharp curve, where there was a deep drift, the snow-plough left the track, and we were forced to stop and back out. The engineers looked sullen as they backed down to let the other crew pass, and the fresh men laughed at them. The snow was lighter now, so that instead of boring into it, the second plough only pushed it and 200 A Novel Battle. piled it up in front of her, until the whole house was buried, when she chocked up and lay down. Now the frowns were transferred to the faces of the second crew, and the smiles to the other. For two days we see-sawed in this way, and every hour the men grew more sullen. The mad locomo- tives seemed to enter into the spirit of the fight ; at least, it was easy to imagine that they did, as they snorted, puffed, and panted in the great drifts. Ah, 'twas a goodly sight to see them, each sending an endless stream of black smoke to the very heavens, and to hear them scream to one another when about to stall, and to note with what reluctance they returned to the side-track. In the little town at the foot of the hill the rival crews camped at separate boarding-houses. This was fortunate, for it would not have been safe for them to live together. Even the enginemcn by the end of the second day were hardly on speaking terms. Bob Stoute said that somebody had remarked that the 265 wouldn't make steam enough to ring the bell. He did not know who had said it, but he did know that he could lick him. After supper that evening, when the " scrappy " engineer came out of Red Woods saloon, he broadened the statement so as to include "any ' Rotary ' man on the job, see ? " When we went into the field on the morning of the third day, not more than seven miles of snow remained between us and the mouth of the Alpine tunnel, where the race would end, for the tunnel was full of snow. All the forenoon the hot engines steamed and snorted and banged away at the great sea of snow that grew A Novel Battle. 201 deeper and harder as we climbed. The track was so crooked that the ploughs were off the rail half the time ; so that when we stopped for luncheon wc had made less than three miles. The least-promising of the two machines was out first after dinner ; and, as the snow was harder up here, she bid fair to win great credit. She rounded the last of the sharp curves that had given us so much trouble successfully. But as the snow grew deeper she smothered, choked up, and stalled. Then even her friends had to admit that "she was not quite right," and the enginemen looked blacker than ever as they backed down and took the siding. Up came the rival, every engine blowing off steam, the three firemen at the furnace doors, the engineers smiling, and eager for the fray. As she turned into the tangent where the other had stalled, the leading locomotive screamed " off brakes," and every throttle flew wide open. Down, down went the reverse levers, until every engine in the train was working at her full capacity. While waiting in the siding, the en- gineers had screwed their " pops," or relief-valves, down so that each of the engines carried twenty pounds more steam than usual. There were no drifts now, but the hard snow lay level six feet deep. The track was as good as straight — ^just one long curve ; and the pilots would touch timber-line at the mouth of the tunnel. The road here lay along the side of the mountain through a heavy growth of pine. The snow was granulated, and consequently very heavy. By the time they had gone a hundred yards, a great stream of snow was flowing from the spout out over 202 A Novel Battle. the telegraph wires, over the tops of the tall spruces and pines, crashing down through their branches until the white beneath them was covered with a green carpet of tree-twigs. On and on, up and up, the monster moguls pushed the plough. Higher and higher rose the black smoke ; and when the smoke and the snow came between the spectators a i the sun, which was just now sinking behind the hill, the effect was marvellously beautiful. Still, on they went through the stainless waste, nor stopped nor stalled until the snow-plough touched the tunnel- shed. The commander gave a signal to " back up ; " and with faces wreathed in smiles, and with their machine covered with cinders, snow, and glory, the little army drifted down the hill. The three days' fight was at an end, and the Rotary was the victor. But I started to write about pilot-ploughs and old- time snow-bucking — when we used to take out an extra insurance policy, and say good-bye to our friends when we signed the call-book. On a mountain division of a Western road, some ten years ago, I had my first experience in snow-bucking. For twenty- four hours a pilot-plough and flanger had been racing over the thirty miles of mountain, up one side and down the other. As often as they reached the foot of the hill they received orders to " double the road." It was Sunday afternoon when the caller came for me. Another engine had been ordered out to help push the snow-plough through the great drifts, that were getting deeper and deeper every hour. Ten miles out from the division station, at the foot of A Novel Battle. 203 Ihc mountain proper, we side-tracked to wait the return of the snow-plough. The hours went by, the night wasted away. Monday dawned, and no news of the snow brigade. All we could learn at the telegraph-office was that tliey were somewhere between Shawano and the top of the hill — presumably stuck in the snow. All day and all night they worked and puffed, pushed and panted, but to no purpose. Now, when they gave up all hope of getting through, they attempted to back down ; but that was equally impossible. The heavy drifts in the deep cuts were not to be bucked away with the rear end of an engine. Tuesday came, and found us still watching and waiting for the snow-plough. Other engines came up from the division station with a work train, and a great army of trackmen with wide shovels. A number of railroad officers came, and everybody shovelled. We had no plough on our side of the hill, and had to buck with naked engines. First we tried one, then two, then three coupled together. The shovellers would clear off a few hundred yards of track, over which we would drive at full speed. As our engine came in contact with a great drift, all the way from eight to eighteen feet deep, she would tremble and shake as though she was about to be crushed to pieces. Often, when we came to a stop, only the top of the stack of the front engine was visible. The front windows of the cabs were all boarded up to prevent the glass from being smashed. For three or four days the track was kept clear behind us, so that we could back out and tie up at night where there was coal and 204 A Novel Battle. water. All this time the snow kept coming clown, clay and night, until the only sign of a railroad across the range was the tops of the telegraph-poles. Toward the last of the week we encountered a terrific storm, almost a blizzard. This closed the trail behind us, and that night we were forced to camp on the moun- tain-side. We had an abundance of coal, but the water in the tanks was very low ; but by shovelling snow into them when we were stuck in the deep drifts, we managed to keep them wet. For three or four days — sometimes in the dead hours of the night — we had heard a mournful whistle away up on the mountain-side, crying in the waste like a lost sheep. This was a light engine, as we learned afterward, that had started down ti:e hill, but got stuck in the storm. For four days and nights the crews were imprisoned in the drifts. They had only a few pieces of hard bread, which they soaked in snow- water and ate. More than once during the fourth day they had looked into the tallow bucket, and wondered if they could eat the tallow. On Sunday morning, just a week from the day on which I had signed the call-book, the sun shone clear and bright. The crew with the big pilot-plough had reached the summit ; and now a new danger con- fronted the lone engine, whose cry had gone out in the night like the wail of a lost soul. The big plough 'vas coming down the hill with two locomotives behind her ; and if this crew remained on the main line, they would be scooped into eternity. When the storm cleared away, they found that they were within a few feet of the switch target. If they could A Novel Battle. 205 shovel out the snow and throw the switch, it would let them on to a spur. Hungry and weak as they were, they began with the fireman's scoop to clear the switch, and shovel away from the wheels so that the engine could start herself. All the time they could hear the whistles of the three engines, now whistling down brakes, back up, and go ahead, as they ham- mered away at the deep drifts. At last the switch was forced open, the engine was in to clear ; but not a moment too soon, for now came the great plough fairly falling down the mountain, sending a shower of snow over the lone engine on the spur. We, too, had heard and seen them coming, and had found a safe siding. When the three half-starved and almost desperate engineers came to the clear track we had made, the great engines, till now held in check by the heavy snow, bounded forward down the steep grade at a rate that made us sick at heart. Each of the locomotives on the side track whistled ; but the wheels were covered with ice and snow, and when they reversed their engines they seemed to slide as fr.st. Fortunately, at the next curve, there was a heavy drift — so deep that the snow-train drove right through it, making a complete tunnel arched over with snow. Thus, after eight days, the road was opened, and eight sections of the passenger train came slowly and carefully down the mountain and passed under the arch. 4 i I On Board an Ocean Flyer. At midnight seventy-two fires were lighted under the nine big boilers of the Bismarck, and shortly after a cloud of yellow smoke, rolling from the huge stacks, was floating over the bosom of the bay. In their various homes and hotels a thousand pro- spective travellers slept and dreamed of their voyage on the morrow. By daybreak the water evaporating into steam fluttered through the indicators, and as early as 6 a.m. people were seen collecting about the docks, while a fussy little hoisting engine worked away, lifting freight from the pier. At seven a few eager passengers came to the ship's side, anxiously inspecting her, and an hour later were going aboard. Officers in uniform paced the decks, guarded the gangways to keep intruders back, and others of the crew, in citizens' clothes, mingled freely in the crowd, having a sharp eye for suspicious character. Finally, the steam-gauge pointer advances to the hundred mark. Noise and confusion wax wilder. The ship's crew is busy, from captain to meanest sailor, until at ten o'clock, thirty minutes before sailing. On Board an Ocean Flyer. 207 the sound of hurrying feet is lost in a deafening hum of human voices. All visitors are now refused admit- tance, except perhaps a messenger with belated letters packages, or flowers for people on board. The little hoister fairly flies about in a heroic effort to lift everything that is loose at one end and store it away in the ship's hold. The pier is invisible, buried beneath a multitude of peering people. All being ready, the captain is notified, and at his signal the first engineer pulls the lever and starts the little engine whose work it is to open the throttle, the steam shoots out from the big boilers into the great cylinders, screws begin to revolve, and the ocean-liner, with one thousand passengers, two thousand tons of coal, and three thousand pounds of ice cream, leaves the landing. Hundreds of handkerchiefs flutter, and hundreds of people say good-bye, with eager, upturned faces that try to smile through tears. Some are sad with the pain of parting, while others, like Byron, are sad " because they leave behind no thing that claims a tear." Thirty-six stokers take their places before the furnace doors, each with two fire-boxes to feed. There are three stoke-holes, twelve men in each, and twelve buckets of cold water, with a bottle of red wine in every bucket. As the speed increases, the great ship begins to rise and fall ; not with the swell of the sea, for there is no swell and no sea, but with her own powerful exertion. When the ventilators catch the Dcean breeze and begin to drink in the salt air, there is rejoicing in the 2o8 On Board an Ocean Flyer. stoke-room. Unfortunately for the stokers, the in- creased draught increases also the appetite of the furnaces, that seem famishing for fuel. After four hours in the heat, semi-darkness, and dust of the furnace-room, the stokers come out, and fresh men with fresh bottles take their places. Gradually the speed of the boat increases. The fires are fanned by the ever-increasing breeze, the furnaces fairly roar, and the second shift work harder than the first. If there is no wind, instead of allowing the stokers to drop dead, the engineer on watch simply turns a lever and starts the twelve large steam fans, and saves the firemen, just before the bone buttons are melted from their overalls. The steamship stoker is inferior mentally to the locomotive fireman, but physically he is the better man. The amount of skill required to stoke is nothing compared to that of firing a railway engine. The locomotive fireman must use his own judgment at all times as to how, when, and where to put in a fire. The ocean stoker simply waits for a whistle from the gang-boss, when he opens his furnace door, hooks, rakes, and replenishes his fire, and at another signal Closes the doors, the same whistle being a signal to his brother stoker at the other end of the boiler to fix his fire. The white g! t of the furnaces when the fires arc being raked is so intense that the place seems dark when the doors are closed. And through that dark- ness comes the noise of the rattling clinker-hooks, the roar of the fires, the squeak of the steering-engine, and i of t was On Board an Ocean Flyer. 209 the awful sound of the billows breaking on the ship. Once, above all this din, I heard a stoker sing : "Oh, what care we, When on the sea, For weather fair or fine ? For toil we must In smoke and dust Below the water-line." Then came the sharp whistle, and the song was cut short as the stoker bent to his work, and again the twenty-four furnaces threw their blinding glare into our faces. With all the apparatus for cooling the stoke-room, it is still a first-class submarine hell. One night, when the sea was wicked, rolling high and fast from the banks of Newfoundland ; when the mast swung to and fro like a great pendulum upside down — I climbed down to the engine-room. When the ship shot downward and the screws went out of the water, the mighty engines flew like dynamos, making the huge boat, with her hundreds of tons, tremble till the screws went down into the water again. In the stoke-rooms the boilers lie crosswise of the ship ; so when she rolls it is with the greatest diffi- culty that the stoker prevents himself from being shot head first into one of the furnaces. Here I watched these grim toilers this wild night, and it seemed the more she rolled, pitched, and plunged, the more furiously they fed the furnaces. What with the speed of the ship and the speed of the wind, the draught was terrific, and the fire-boxes seemed capable of ■3 1 2IO On Board an Ocean Flyer. consuming any amount of coal that could be thrown into their red throats. Though absolutely safe, the stoke-room on a night like this is an awful place for one unused to such scenes ; so terrible that a young German, working his way from New York to Hamburg, was driven insane. As the sea began to break heavily on the sides of the boat and make her rock like a frail leaf in an autumn wind, the man was seen to try to make his escape from the stoke-hole. For an hour he worked in the same nervous way, always looking for a chance of escape. At last the ship gave a roll that caused the furnace door to fly open, and, with the yell of a demon, the green stoker sprang up the steps leading to the engine-rooms. Here one of the engineers, seeing the man was insane, blocked the way. The poor fellow paused for a moment, and stood shaking like an aspen, while the cold perspiration rolled down his face. Two or three men tried to hold him, but, without the slightest effort, apparently, he cast them off, and, running out on the steerage deck, jumped into the sea. All through the night, above the roar of the ocean, at regular intervals, came the sharp whistle of the head stoker, and at longer intervals the cry from above : " All's well ! " On Sunday morning when we awoke, the waves still washing up the steerage deck, and the great ship rolling from side to side, we could hear from the stoke-room the same shrill whistle, and the same cry outside of " All's well!" Then, like a flood of sunshine, came the sweet strains cf the anthem, which the band always plays on Sunday wm On Board an Ocean Flyer. 2 1 1 mornings ; and again the sea came up and closed our windows and shut out the light of day, and the sound of the sea drowned all other sounds, and seemed to suggest, " Nearer, my God, to Thee ! " The waves rolled back, the sun shone in through the windows, and the hymn was heard again. When the reckoning was taken, we were all sur- prised to learn that on such a tempestuous sea this wonderful ship had made a mile more than on the previous day on a summer sea. " Look away," said the captain, as we passed an ocean steamer that seemed to be standing still. " Is she at anchor ? " I asked. " No," said the captain ; "she's making twelve knots an hour ; and only a few years ago she was one of the ocean greyhounds." Within the last decade the time between New York and Southampton has been reduced by nearly two days ; but those who look for a like reduction within the next ten years will surely be disappointed. The Ljicania, with thirty thousand horse-power, is able to make only a little over a mile an hour more than the Fiirst Bismarck, with sixteen thousand. If by nearly doubling the horse-power, and with twenty-five per cent, more firemen, we can shorten the time but half a day, then indeed does the problem become a diffi- cult one. The Fiirst Bismarck is 502 feet long, 27 feet wide, and 60 feet deep, from her hurricane deck to her keel. There are nine huge boilers, 15 feet 7 inches in diameter, and 19 feet long. It requires 130 stokers and trimmers, and 300 tons of coal a day to keep them 212 On Board an Ocean Flyer. hot. They boil down lOO tons of water every 24 hours. There are, all told, 55 engines on board the ship. The steam that drives the boat passes through three pairs of cylinders. The first are 43 inches in diameter, and work at a pressure equal to eleven atmospheres. The next, Sy inches, working at four atmospheres. The third are the low-pressure cylinders, 106 inches in diameter, with one atmosphere pressure, and a vacuum equal in working power to an atmosphere. There are two main shafts, one to each screw, or propeller, 20 inches in diameter, each 142 feet long, and weighing a ton for every foot of steel. There are twelve engineers and twelve assistants. Over all these men there is a chief engineer, whose duties are similar to those of a master mechanic on a railway. His office is a little palace, finished in beautiful Hungaran ash, supplied with easy-chairs and soft couches. There is an indicator which shows at all times the pressure under which the various engines are working and the speed of the boat. When we were ready to go below, the chief engineer pressed a button, which, he explained to us, was a signal to the engineer in charge to open the doors and allow us to pass from one room to another; for there are water-tight doors between the engines. There are in all thirteen air-tight compartments, so that if a man-of-war were to stave a hole in one side of the Bismarck, that compartment would simply fill with water, but would do no serious damage. In fact, a half-dozen holes might be stove in, and she would continue to ride the waves. If the Bismarck were to strike a rock and cave in On Board an Ocean Flyer. 213 :i six feet of her bottom or keel, a solid plat*^ or false bottom would then be reached that would stand almost any pressure. When a boat with a single propeller loses her steering apparatus, she is in great danger ; but with a twin-screw ship there is absolutely no danger. By simply reversing one screw, the ship may be steered as a row-boat is guided, by holding one oar still, and moving the other. The electric-light plant alone is of interest. There are four dynamos, and they supply a current for eighteen hundred lamps. In addition to the lamps in the saloons and state-rooms, all the signal-lights are electric, as well as the lights used in the steerage and in the supply- rooms. The chief steward has been with the company twenty-seven years, and will probably be there as long as he cares to remain. There are eighty-four other stewards, who report directly or indirectly to him. The passengers are divided into three classes — first cabin, second cabin, and steerage ; so that three separate and complete kitchens and dining-rooms are kept up. The food furnished for the steerage passengers is better than one would expect when we consider that the company carries them from New York to Hamburg and keeps them on board seven days for ten dollars. The food and service in the second cabin are better than at the average three dollar a day American hotel. In the first-cabin saloon they are perfect. The stewards file in in regular order, and when a change is made they all march out, keeping time to le band, 214 O^ Board an Ocean Flyer. and making, with their neat uniforms and snow-white gloves, a goodly sight to see. Each table has its own table steward, and at the elbow of each passenger stands a white-gloved undcr- stevvard, who seems capable of anticipating your very thoughts. If a drop of coffee is spilled over your cup — before you have time to realize it yourself — both cup and saucer are exchanged for one in per- fect trim. The regular dinner consists of from seven to ten courses, and is fit for the Emperor. The wines and ales are excellent, and are forty per cent, cheaper than in New York. In addition to the regular meals, at eight o'clock every evening they serve tea in the main saloon to all who care to indulge in that stimulant. After that, at nine o'clock, the band gives a concert in the second- cabin saloon, which is always attended by many of the first-cabin passengers. There, the people sit about the tables and eat the daintiest little sand- wiches, and some of them drink the delightful Hamburg beer, while the band plays. If you are ill and remain in your berth, the room steward will call a half-dozen times a day to ask you what you want to eat. If you remain on deck, the deck steward will bring you an excellent dinner with- out any extra charge. It was the day after the rough sea when we were shown through the steerage ; the women and children were still huddled in their gloomy bunk-rooms recovering slowly from the sea-sickness of the previous day. On Board an Ocean Flyer. 215 Cheerless as their surroundings were, they had the satisfaction of knowing that the countess at the top was as sick, when she was sick, as they. Forward, where the ship's side walls are close together, the sailors sleep. Here, when the sea is rough, one may experience the sensation of riding in the elevator of a sixteen-story building, and, as the bow descends, the sensation of falling. The occupants of this rough quarter are a rough-looking lot, but apparently as happy as cowboys. Every sailor has his regular ration of rum, while the stokers, in addition to the red wine they have in the stoke-room, have kiinnnel four times a day. Just back of the sailors are the stores. In the cold room, where the meats are kept, all the pipes are covered with frost. The large ships all have ice- machines, and make their own ice. There are also two large evaporators, so that if the supply of drink- ing water should become unfit for use, drinking water could be made from the sea. The same evaporators could easily supply water, in the same way, for the boilers, should the supply run short. Two things I should like to change : the tons of wholesome food, delicious meats, and delicate sweets that are carried from the tables and thrown into the sea, I would give to the poor steeragcrs. Every day at dinner, when the lamps made the saloon a glare of light, I could see these poor people peeping in at the windows, where the tables were freighted with good things, and it made me sad. Sometimes a mother would hold her poor, pinch-faced baby up to the window ; and I could not help wondering what 2i6 On Board an Ocean Flyer. answer that mother would make if the baby were to ask why they didn't go in and eat. After making the steerage happy, I should like to rig a governor to the main shafts, so that the screws would not "cut up" so when out of water. I mcn- Uoned this to Mr. Jones. He looked at -o =tead, ly for a moment, then, as he allowed h.s head to dp slightly to the starboard, a sunny sm.le broke over his kindly face, and he replied, " Well, somebody has tried that already." ■■■I On an Iron Steed. Hundreds of hansom cabs, countless carnages, and myriads of omnibuses came out of the fog and filled the ample grounds in front of Victoria Station. A solid stream of men, women, and children was pour- ing in at the gates to the platforms where the trains stand. Long lines of people were waiting in front of the windows in the booking-ofiice. Trunks, bags, and boxes fairly rained into the luggage-room ; but the porters (short, stout fellows) picked them up and bore them away, as red ants run away with crumbs at a picnic. To the train, titled people came in carriages, behind splendid horses, with coachmen in high hats, and footmen in yellow trousers. American million- aires came also in coaches and tally-hos, and mingled with the plain English nobility. You can tell the American women by their smart dresses, and the English by their heavy boots, red cheeks, and heaps of hair. You can tell the London swell from the New Yorker, for there is something the matter with one of his eyes. And you can pick out the duke and the lord, for they are, in most 2l8 On an Iron Steed. cases, plain and modest men. There is a noticeable absence of poor people ; for the train is not going to the hop-fields of Kent, but to Paris and the Riviera. The American representative of the London, Chat- ham, and Dover Railway, in a shining silk hat, a snow-white cravat, and blood-red bontcnnitre, and the station-master, are busy assigning rmall parties of Americans to compartments, and larger parties to saloons. The Englishman travelling in his native land makes little trouble for any one. He usually has his luggage aboard and his porter dismissed with a scowl and a threepence, while the foreigner with a smile and a shilling awaits his turn. All the Englishman asks is to be let alone ; and surely that is not too much. The faded carriage;?, that stretch away in a long line towards the locomotive, look singularly small to those who are accustomed to seeing the heavy trains of America. And now we come to the locomotive. The stoker touched his cap when I stepped aboard, and I noticed thut he did this every time he addressed me. If I asked a simple question he invariably touched his rap before he answered. The absence of a pilot, or "cow-catcher," as it is sometimes called, makes the English locomotive look awkward and unfinished to an American. There are no cylinders, cross-heads, or mains rods in sight, and, at a first glance, she reminds one of a well-made stationary engine. Even her beautiful high wheels are half covered with steel. Like a well-dressed Englishman, the English locomotive looks best from her knees up. 1 On an Iron Steed. 2IQ Above her running-board she is scrupulously clean, bright, and interesting. But even here she has a vacant look. There is but one steam dome and no sand-box or bell ; she looks as though she had been driven under a low bridge and had her back swept bare, and then had nothing rebuilt but one dome and the stack. In the cab, where ought to be comfortable seats for the driver and stoker, there are high boxes that come nearly to the window-sills. No matter how long he remains on duty, the driver must stand up ; nor has the stoker, who in descending a long bank might get a moment's rest, any place to sit, but must stand the whole way on his weary feet. This is simply disgraceful. The precious lives of thousands of people are placed in the hands of the engine- driver, and yet no thought is given to his comfort. I read, with considerable amusement, an article in an Engli.sh journal urging the Board of Trade to provide medals as a reward to engine-drivers "for duty ably done." I would suggest better wages, and seats in cabs. Medals are all right as a mark, but even titles are no good when we are dead. Think of a man spending years in learning a trade, and then doubling the road between London and Dover, a hundred and sixty miles, for seven shillings— $1.75, or ninety miles for a dollar — ^just three dollars less than an engineer gets for covering the same distance on a mountain road in the United States. The risk is about the same, for an English driver runs four times as fast as the mountaineer. Out through the ragged edge of London, over the ^>.. 220 On an Iron Steed. Thames, and down the rail our steel steed whirled us at a rapid rate. The English driver does not run "with his hand on the throttle, and his eye on the road," as we are wont to picture a locomotive engineer ; for the throttle is at the top of the boiler- head, and must be sought out by the driver before he can shut off steam, no matter how great the emergency. It does not require a practised rail- roader to understand that if the driver had his hand on the lever, he could shut off without taking his eyes from the rail, and in less than a quarter of a second. Five miles out we stopped at a small station, and picked up four more carriages. Our train was equipped with the matchless " Westinghouse " air- brakes ; and they do the work delightfully on these light cars. So perfectly were they adjusted, and so smoothly did the quiet, old seven-shilling-a-day driver apply them, that the train came to a dead stop with as little jolt as would attend the stopping of a baby carriage. Already I had learned to like our locomotive ; but when we got a signal to go, and the driver gave her steam, the fifteen carriages refused to start. Here I witnessed, for the second time in my life, the work- ing of the slowest, clumsiest piece of machinery in use to-day in any civilized country — the "reversing wheel." I had seen it once before, when the London and North-Western's prize e igine was leaving Chicago. When the locomotive fails to start her train, it is always necessary to reverse her to get what there is of slack between the cars. In this way the engine starts a car at a time, so that by the time the last On an Iron Steed. 221 car is started, the locomotive has made a quarter of a turn or more, and the front part of the train is in motion. With a quick-working reverse-lever this is accomplished easily ; but with a wheel that must be given from seven to eleven revolutions to reverse the machinery, the process is painfully slow, without the saving grace of being sure. As the wheel revolves^ the locomotive creeps forward, stealing the slack from car after car, so that by the time the machinery is in the forward motion the slack is gone, and you are just where you were before you began to reverse. There was a serious collision on the Great Northern not long ago ; a double-head express train dashed into a goods train that was being shunted ; and if the locomotive had " wheels," the wonder is that more people were not killed. From Heme Hill, where we got the last four carriages, it is seventy-five miles to Dover ; and we were to make the run without a stop. Just about the time our steed got them going, she dashed into a tunnel half a mile long. The great drivers hammering the rails, and the rattle of the carriages, made a deafening roar, and, to add to the lorture, the driver pulled the whistle. The English locomotive whistle is the shrillest, sharpest, most car-splitting instrument of torture ever heard. It is about as musical as a Chinese fiddle accompanied by a lawn- mower. As the smoke of London began to grow dim. in the distance, a beautiful panorama of fields and farms opened up before us. As far as the eye could re?ch, on cither side were rolling meadows and brov> .1 fields. 222 On an Iron Steed. dotted with thatch-roofed stacks. If the speed slackened as we ascended a long "bank," these rural pictures claimed my attention and made me forget, for the moment, that we were at the front of the Paris express. But when we had reached the summit, and the world began to slip beneath us till the keen air cut our faces, we we*--? made to realize that we were not losing any • 't^ Now we were rolling along the top of a high hiil, from whose flat summit we looked down the chimney-pots in the village houses ; and now dashing into a deep cut, where flocks of frightened quail rose up and beat the bank, or, caught by the eddying wind, were dashed against the sides of the flying train, as a man stand- ing near the track and grown dizzy throws himself beneath the wheels. A sharp curve throws our train out on the brow of a gentle hill. Below, through a green valley, winds a lazy looking river— the Mcdway. This h the old town of Rochester, the land of Dickens, -n b-^yond the river stands the old Norman castle And this is what Mr. Jingle said when iic % v it — "A fine old place — a glorious pile — try. .iing walls — tottering arches — dark nooks — crumbling stair- cases — old cathedral, too — earthy smell — pilgrims' feet wore away the old steps — little Saxon doors — confessionals, like money-takers' boxes at theatres — queer customers, those monks — popes, and lord treasurers, and all sorts of old fellows ■•ith great red faces and broken noses turning up • 'r y day — buff jerkins, too — matchlocks — sarcophagus— anc place — old legends— strange stories." On an Iron Steed. 223 The red vines that cling to the shoulders of this rare old ruin glow warmly in the autumn sun. Only a flash, and we turn another corner, and the old castle is lost in the dreary, blond brick houses of Rochester. Now and then, as the train whirls through the city, the towering spires of the cathedral are seen. Away, away, the engine flies, and the dull town is left for the sunny fields. We are now entering the great hop-fields of Kent — one of the fairest counties in all England, I am told. Ours is not the only locomotive abroad, for almost every moment we can see another train flying across the country, always crossing either above or below our track. Out in the fields are other engines, great awkward machines pulling ploughs, and sometimes trains of waggons, through village streets. At the end of a long curve, around which we swing at a mile a minute, rise the great spires of the cathedral of Canterbury. Here, too, are clinging vines and crumbling walls, old legends and strange stories. Here are stone steps worn away by pilgrims' knees — the steps that lead from the musty crypt to Becket's shrine. Here sleep the murdered bishop and the king. But there is no time to dream, for we are now whirling away towards the water-edge. At last the driver shuts off steam, the stoker washes the deck with a water- hose connected with the injector pipe, and remarks that his work is done. His labour, like his salary, is light ; for although we have been on the road nearly two hours, he has not burned a half-ton of 224 On an Iron Steed. coal. The trains, of course, are light, and that makes light work for the enginemen. It is all downhill now, and we fairly fall through the tunnels and deep cuts, till all at once the "silver streak," as they call it here, is seen ; and this is the end of the first heat. Many things bear the name of "the widow at Windsor," and I was not surprised to find the Victoria rocking restlessly by the dock at Dover. It is surprising to an American to see how quickly fourteen English carriages can be emptied. I should say that in two minutes from the time our train stopped, we were all aboard. In eight minutes the baggage was transferred from the train to the boat, and in ten minutes we were leaving the dock. The Channel has not the reputation of being particularly pacific, and this was one of her busy days. In ten minutes after the whistle sounded, the Victoria was capering out towards the coast of France just as an untamed broncho capers with a cowboy across a corral. To the disgrace of the London, Chatham, and Dover Railway Company, she is a side-wheeler. Except the reversing wlioel and the seatless cab of the 117, this is the only disgraceful thing I found on the Dover route. There are in the Victoria a number of state-rooms, a splendid lounging saloon, a ladies* cabin, and a "public house." Better than all these things, there are the ever-ready stewards, who watch the women ; and just at the moment when life loses its glitter, and the unhappy tourist ceases to care, come quietly, wearing the while a look of deepest sympathy, leave a small regretting basin by her chair, and move away. On an Iron Steed. 225 I made a short study of a lord going over. He was not what you would call distinguished looking, in his large, soft hat and rain-coat, but he looked respectable at least. We had not gone very far when he began to turn his head from side to side as if he had lost something. Then he would close his eye for a spell, and try to think. He was the homeliest man 1 have seen in Europe ; and he was constantly doing " stunts " with his good eye in order to keep the glass in the other. I don't know whether he died or not, for a sort of malarial feeling came over me, and I lost interest in everything except the French coast. In spite of the rough sea, we made the run from Dover to Calais, twenty-five miles, in a few minutes over an hour. "Chemin de Fer du Nord" is the first French sign seen by the voyager from England. It is the name of the railway — or " road of iron," as the French put it — over which we are to pass to Paris. The captain of the Victoria had given me a letter which contained a pass — a "permis de monter sur les machines " — and this pass went on to say that I would be "permitted to circulate or promenade on the machine drawing the quick express during one voyage between Calais and Paris." Sliding back into my engine clothes, I went forward to where the locomotive stood steaming and sizzling, ready to be off. Just as I reached her, the driver began to whirl the reversing wheel ; for he had heard the signal-bell, and the long train moved away. I showed my pass. Q 226 On an Iron Steed. The driver smiled, and waved me out of the fireman's way. The cab was the same wretched, comfortless cavity that I had seen on the Dover, only not so clean. The tank, or tender, where the coal is carried, was filled with slack and dust. As fast as he shovelled into the heap where the slack was dry, the fireman turned the hose on it, until it was a puddle of mush ; and, to my surprise, he shovelled this slop into the fire-box, and kept the locomotive howling hot. It would be impossible, of course, to fire an American express locomotive with such fuel ; for there the engines are worked so much harder to draw heavy trains. When we had whipped around a few curves I saw that the best place for me was behind the driver, and I stepped over to his side. There existed between the engine, the enginemen, and me a feeling of estrangement that was almost melancholy. I missed the sleepy panting of the air-pump, and the click of the latch on the reverse-lever. There was no bell to relieve the monotony of the rasping, phthisicky whistle. I wondered if we could ever understand each other, if she would respond to my touch ; for the driver talked to her in a strange tongue. The enginemen wore no gloves, and handled the door-chain and hot levers as though they were wood. The driver held a piece of burning waste in his hand to furnish fire for his cigarettes. I did not reproach him or blame him for smoking cigarettes ; it was the " wheel," no doubt, that drove him to it. On an Iron Steed. 227 iman s brtless not so ;oal is fast as as dry, was a lovelled )motive urse, to :h fuel ; , harder A^hipped )lace for over to jinemen, 5 almost mp, and There rasphig, uld ever d to my strange handled icy were waste in I did not [oarettes ; m to it. If cabs had seats, running a locomotive would be much easier in Europe than in America. The ways are all walled or fenced in, and there is no necessity for the constant straining of the eyes and nerves, from which American drivers suffer so much. The first stop is at Amiens, eighty miles out. There I saw what I had never seen before — women working the switches in a signal-tower. There were two of them, and they appeared to have the station quite to themselves. I make no doubt that they find their work very agreeable and interesting, that they are faithful, that their homes are happy, and that they consider themselves very superior, and refuse to exchange calls with their sister, the "bull- whacker." At Amiens we met Night on her way to the west, and I gave up the engine for the more comfortable carriage. This compartment was very like the one assigned our party on the Chatham and Dover, except that it was a trifle \vider, and done in tan instead of blue. Here, as in England, the stations are ample, with all the tracks under cover. The trains stop but five minutes ; but the European carriages soon discharge their passengers — the first-class into the buffet, the second, as a rule, into the biivctte. A brass-hulled yard-engine was hustling about, uttering shrill shrieks in the great sheds. The yardmen worked without lamps, and wore horns over their shoulders, through which they " conched " signals to the engineers. The locomotives have no head-lights in Europe, such as are used in the States, but there was a hand-lamp, 228 On an Iron Steed. or a lightning-bug, chained fast to the pilot of the " shunter " at Amiens. After trembling away in the twilight for an hour, and an hour into the night, the street-lamps began to thicken by the way, and in a few minutes we Stopped in the great station of the Nord, and were in Paris. Over an Earthquake. For more than twenty minutes the cab rattled through the narrow, stony streets of Paris, crossed the Seine, ahvays interesting, but weirdly beautiful at night, with its many bridges and countless lamps of every colour, and finally stopped at the Gare de I'Est. " Orient Express, monsieur ? " asked the porter, as he balanced my box on the scales. " Oui," said I ; and then he cried the weight — fifty kilos. " Twenty-one francs, if you please," said the man in the baggage-ofifice, and I flashed up my transportation. "Twenty-one francs," the money-taker repeated, and I showed my sleeping-car ticket, thinking I had him on the hip this time, sure. " For the baggage, for the baggage ! " he said, in French, growing impatient ; and I gave him the money. Manifestly there was no free baggage on the Orient Express ; and the rate of twenty-one francs, i^s. lod.y or $4.20 for one hundred pounds, eight hundred miles, was a stiff one. To the porter who freighted my trunk I gave 230 Over an Earthquake. some sous, and saw him drop them into a locked box at the door of the baggage-room. In England the porters keep what they get, and it has a good effect. It makes the individual porter look out for baggage ; for the more peoi)le he serves, the more he will receive. In France each porter waits for the other, knowing the division will be equal at night ; and so there is nothing to work for. It kills competition, this French arrangement, and makes the man almost worthless. The moment you relinquish the ponrboirc the porter's interest in you ceases. He simply heads you in on the main platform, where you must work out your own salvation. I fancy this rule does not apply at all stations, but it certainly does at the Garc de I'Est, with a very bad result. The train which I was preparing to board, this bleak November night, consisted of a smart-looking locomotive and five cars. Next the engine there was a sort of combination express, baggage, and commissary car, where the stores were kept. Then came the dining-car, one-third of which was made into a beautiful smoking saloon, with great easy- chairs put up in dark leather. Back of the diner there were three sleeping cars, Mann boudoirs, and running along under the roof, above the tops of the high windows, in bold gold letters, was the name of the company unabridged, "The International Bed-Wagons Company and the Grand European Express ; " only it was in French, and ran like this : " Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits et des Grands Express Europdens." Over an Earthquake. 231 The outward appearance of this company's trains is similar to the trains run on the American continent. The cars are long, and rest on eight wheels. You enter the car at or near the end, and pass through a narrow corridor, from which you enter the compart- ments. A compartment holds two or four people, and often, with the judicious expenditure of a few francs, the voyager can secure a small compartment all to himself, and he is quite as secluded and comfort- able as he would be in the state-room of a Pullman or Wagner. There are certainly many advantages in a compartment sleeper. A man travelling with his wife has only to provide himself with two tickets and secure a compartment all to themselves. Two ladies travelling together would have the same ad- vantage. There is no rush or excitement, no one appears tc be in any hurry. Three or four porters come along, leisurely rolling a little iron car containing a small canvas travelling-bag. Other porters — not in uniform — come with hot-water cans — long flat cans which they slide into the compartments of ordinary European coaches ; but the Orient is heated by steam. Now comes a truck with a great many mail-bags, which are put into the rear car. The n:. "Is are an important item to the railways, and as this train leaves Paris but twice a week, they are usually heavy. In half an hour the splendid train is trembling away in the night. It is seven o'clock, and the dining car is filled with people — men and women from every corner of the earth. If a Russian speaks to an Italian, or a German to a Spaniard, it is almost invariably in French. 232 Over an Earthquake. All the reading matter belonging to the train is printed in three languages ; but only French is spoken, save when another language is absolutely necessary. The cards posted in the cars have these headings: "AVIS," "NOTIZ," "NOTICE." The dining-car service is equal to the best in any country, and the rates are reasonable. The first break- fast is the regulation European bill — bread, butter, and coffee, with fruit if you want it, for i franc, 75 centimes {is. $d,, or 35 cents'). At efeven o'clock they sen* good dejeuner for five francs — a dollar — and a ning a splendid dinner for six francs ; so you have three good meals for $2.55, which in America, in the average dining- car, would cost three dollars. When dinner is over, the men lounge in the smoking- room for a couple of hours, and then go to their " boudoirs." In a few hours we were rolling away toward the selvage of France over a smooth track. Shortly after midnight I was awakened by a commotion at my door, opened my eyes, and beheld an officer in the corridor. He was grand beyond description. With every movement of the train he flashed back to me the flickering light that went out of my compartment to his plated person. In addition to the cord on his cap and his brilliant buttons, he wore festooned about his breast enough gold cable to rope a steer ; and I knew then that we were in Germany. This awe- inspiring individual stood without, while his assistant, a less imposing personage, inspected my ticket and hand-luggage. Over an Earthquake. 233 Wc left Paris at 6.50 p.m., and at noon the next day we were at Munich. Halfway between noon and night we were rolling along the banks of a beautiful river, near the edge of Austria. It was a clear, sparkling stream such as run rapidly down from the hills, and far to the south we could see the mountains wearing their first white robe of winter, and stabbing the blue sky with their polished peaks. When the train sto] at a station of any importance, an officer with a large book, followed by two or three assistants, goes to the locomotive, secures the autograph of the engineer, and gives him a lot of vocal instructions. They all talk at once, " kracking " their >t's till one is reminded of a skating-party breaking through the ice. Finally, peace is declared, they all salute, and the train moves on. Everything has a military air about it. The old woman sweeping a crossing brings her broom to her shoulder, and the one-legged watchman comes to the proper position, with a red flag for a musket, as the train goes by. Twenty-four hours takes the traveller to Vienna, 1402 kilom6tres — over 800 miles — which is very good speed. The locomotives used in Austria are more like American machines than those of England and France, and the day cars are the best I have seen on the Continent. They are heavier than the ordinary European railway carriage, and rest on eight large wheels. First-class carriages are heavily padded with beautiful russia leather, clean, cool, and comfortable. You enter these cars, not at the 234 Over an Earthquake. side nor at the end, but at the corner ; the compart- ments open into a corridor. Leaving Vienna, you pass through a great valley, or prairie, where farmers follow bull-teams down the dark furrows that seem never to end, but disappear at the edge of the horizon. The vastness of the fields, and the houses so far apart, give the land an air of desolation. At midnight we were at Budapest, the beautiful capital of Hungary, with a splendid king's palace on the Danube ; but there is no king there : the king is the Emperor of Austria, and lives at Vienna. Here are more strange-looking people, and the sign ; and notices are printed in four tongues. Twenty minutes for another language. Dropping down the Danube for six or seven hours, we see the sun rise in Servia, and the first stop on the following day is at Belgrade. Further to the south, it is warmer here ; the earth is dry, and the sky clear. Here the voyager begins to feel that he is in a new world, with strange people. Here are evidences of dress reform. The pantaloon is merging into the gown, or the gown into the pantaloon, perhaps, as it is in America. Each succeeding hour takes the traveller further into this desolate country, so old and yet so new, with so little of what are now regarded as signs of civiliza- tion. Here prosperity and poverty appear to meet and pass. A wild-looking shepherd, in his coat of wool, gazing at the train, reminds me of the lone wolf as I have seen him stand in my native land, watching the train with nothing near him but solitude and God. ) Over an Earthquake. 235 In the low, stone-fenced corrals are stacks of fine oak-brush, cut from the gentle hills, evidently in summer when the leaves were green ; and this brush is to be given to the frail horses, cows, and donkeys, for hay. These stacks of bushes tell more than enough o: the poverty of the country. When we have trav'dled through it, we wonder how the Inter- national Sleeping-Car Company can afford to run a train even twice a week through such a land. At noon we met and passed the west-bound train. It may be that we had passed other trains ; but this was the first passenger train I had seen for forty hours. I carried with me a permit to ride on the locomo- tive of the Orient Express when I wished to do so, and now I slipped into my engine clothes and mounted the machine. The engineer was a native ; and about all we could say to each other was " Yes " and " No," in French. Nearly, if not all, the railroads here are operated by the Governments of the various countries through which they pass. The Orient Express, however, is operated solely by the Slceping-Car Company. This company's c*. ductor, who goes all the way from Paris to Co stantinople, is the captain of the train ; only the Government inspectors of the different countries come aboard to inspect baggage and look after the interest of the Government. The railway fare from Paris to Constantinople by the Orient Express, a train de luxe, is sixty-nine dollars ; the sleeping-car ticket is eighteen dollars. The track was only fair, but the locomotive was 236 Over an Earthquake. in good condition. The time is slow, not more than twenty or thirty miles an hour. At the first road crossing outside the town we found a long line of waggons drawn by small cattle, waiting at the closed gate. Behind these waggons, reaching far out to the hills, miles away, were strings of pack animals loaded with corn on the stalk. Evidently this was an important market for the surrounding country. It was a beautiful afternoon, soft as September in Paris or New York. The road here ran up a broad vale, which, however, grew narrower as we ascended the waterless stream. On either side the wash, the country grew rough ; the hills in the distance would be called mountains in the Holy Land. The waggon road lay parallel with the railway, and in half an hour we passed hundreds of ox teams bring- ing wood down from the hills. Some women and children were driving a flock of turkeys, a man was leading a sheep, and others were carrying jars o*" something — honey, perhaps — on their heads. All at once the air grew still ; an oppressive silence seemed to hang on vale and hill, and all the people stopped short. It seemed to me that we had run into a bad piece of track, or that our train had suddenly quickened its pace. I saw a Servian woman, with a little child on her arm, stagger, stop, take the water-jug from her head, and hug her frightened babe to her naked breast. Hundreds of yoked cattle were lowing, burros were braying, and whole flocks of sheep were crying on the distant downs. Meantime the curves seemed to increase ; Over an Earthquake, 237 and, although we were not making more than forty miles an hour, we appeared to fairly fly. Men stood still and stared at the heavens. A Mohammedan slid down from a pack-mule, spread his prayer-rug, set his face toward Mecca, and prayed. Christians crossed themselves, and as often as I stole a glance at the driver I found him looking at me. Till now, I had attributed the action of these wild people to childish wonder at seeing the train sweep by ; but when I looked at the almost pale face of the sun- browned driver, I was bewildered. The things I beheld were all so unnatural that I felt my head swimming. Glancing ahead, I saw the straight track take on curves and shake them out again, resembling a running snake. The valley had become a narrow gulch, and from c near hills arose great clouds of smoke, as from a quarry when the shots go off". The fireman, who had been busy at the furnace door, stood up now and gazed at the driver, vho pressed his left hand hard over his eyes, then took it off and tried to see, but made no attempt to check tl .speed of the flying train. As a drunken < Avboy dashing down a straight street sways in his saddle, as a wounded bird reels through the air, did this mad monster of a locomotive swing and swin o'er the writhing rail. Suddenly a great curve appeared in front of us. This time the stoker, who had left off firing, saw it, and made the sign of the cross. Again the driver hid his eyes, and again I felt my brain grow dizzy trying to understand. We could hear and feel the engine wheels rise and fall on the twisting rail with 238 Over an Earthquake. io> a deafening sound. At last she settled down, and began to glide away as a boat glides down a running stream. " What is it } " I asked of the French fireman. "Tremblement de terre," he said, shaking himself violently, and pointing to the ground ; and then I understood that we had been riding over an earth- quake. The driver was either too proud and brave to stop, or too frightened to be able to shut off steam ; I don't know which. Passing out of Servia, we clip off a corner of Bulgaria, calling at the capital, Sofia. The next place of importance is Adrianople, the old capital of the Turks. It was here that young Mohammed caused the great cannon to be cast with which he battered the walls of Constantinople, and conquered Constantine, the last Christian emperor of Byzantium, while the fat priests plotted against each other, and the poor, ignorant Christians laid down their arms to cross themselves. It is Wednesday morning, and we are rolling slowly along over a dreary, desolate-looking country. All things European are rapidly disappearing. The old familiar battle-cry of the beggars of France, "pourboire," is changed to "baksheesh." Instead of section men with picks and shovels, we see by the side of the track dark Turks in bicycle trousers, carrying rusty muskets on their shoulders. Here and there, far apart, we find bands of dusky, sooty labor. crs burning oak-brush, from the sticks of which they make charcoal. While we arc at iUjenner^ the train toils up a long Over an Earthquake. 239 grade, and finally reaches the summit of a sort of tableland, from which we look down into the quiet Sea of Marmora, sleeping silently between Europe and Asia. It looks more like a great lake than a sea, with its sloping shores and marshy margin, fringed with flags and swamp-grass. Now we are entering a city that seems very old. The train rolls along among the houses behind a rain-stained wall ; and when we stop, we find the platform crowded with red caps, the cabmen are having a spirited argument, hotel-runners, guides and dragomans are pushing each other, a long line of hammels, or porters, are waiting at the customs office, and beyond them a line of miserable beggars, and this is Constantinople. Through the Dardanelles. Constantinople may be considered as the end of the railway system of the earth. Here, if you wish to see more of the Orient, you must take to the sea. There is, to be sure, a projected railway out of the Sultan's city into the interior, but only completed to Angora, three hundred and sixty-five miles. The intention of the projectors was to continue the road op down to Bagdad, on the River Tigris, through which they could reach the Persian Gulf. I had arranged to go to Angora, but found a ten days' quarantine five miles out of Constantinople, and backed into town. I then made an effort to secure from the office of the titled German who stands for the railway company some idea of the road — its prospects, probable cost, and estimated earnings ; but my letters returned without a line. To show that I was acting in good faith and willing to pay for what I got, I went with Vincent, the guide — the only good guide I ever knew — and asked them for some printed matter, or photographs, or anything that would throw a little light along the hcc Through the Dardanelles. 241 line of their plague-stricken railway ; but they still refused to talk. No wonder it has taken these dreamers ten years to build three hundred and sixty miles of very cheap railroad ! It was my misfortune to fall into a lit'Ie old Austrian-Lloyd steamer, called the Daphne. Before we lifted anchor in the Golden Horn, I learned that hor boilers had not been overhauled for ten years ; and before we reached the Dardanelles, I concluded that the sand had not been changed in the pillows for a quarter of a century. I have slept in the American desert for a period of thirty nights, between the earth and the heavens, and found a better bed than was made by the ossified mattress and petrified pillows of the Daphne. It was bad enough to breathe the foul air that came up from the camping pilgrims on the main deck ; but the first day out we learned that these ugly Armenians, greasy Greeks, and filthy Bedouins would be allowed to come upon the promenade deck and mingle with those who had paid for first-class passage. Poorly clad, half-starved, poverty-stricken people headed for the Holy Land came and rubbed elbows with American and European women and children. Of course, one sympathizes with these poor, miserable people ; but one does not want their secrets. These facts are not put here to injure the steamship company, but that other voyagers may fight shy of these little old rattle-traps of coast steamers, that ought to be run up a canal for the sea-birds to rest R 242 Through the Dardanelles. on. This company has many excellent steamers, and ought to be ashamed to put first-class passengers into a cattle-ship and charge first-class rates. We left the Bosphorus at twilight, crossed the Sea of Marmora during the night, and the next morning were at Gallipoli, where the bird-seeds come from. The day broke beautifully, and the little sea was as calm as a summer lake. By ten o'clock we were drifting down the Dardanelles, which resembles a great river ; for the land is always near on either side. The ship's doctor, who was my guide at every landing-place, kindly pointed out the many places of interest. " Those pyramids over there," he would say, " were erected by the Turks to commemorate a victory. Here is where Byron swam the sea from Europe to Asia ; and over there is where King Midas lived, whose touch turned piastres to napoleons, and flounders to gold fish. Here, to the left, on that little hill, stood ancient Troy." All things seemed to work together to make the day a most enjoyable one, and just at nightfall the doctor came to me, and said — " See that island over there .? That was the home of Sappho." And there she sang — '"Twas like unto the hyacinth That purpled on the hills, That the careless shepherd, passing, Tramples underfoot and kills." An hour later, we anchored in a little natural harbour, and five of us went ashore. ■i Through the Dardanelles. 243 Beside the ship's doctor — whose uniform was a sufficient passport for all — there were in our party a Pole and a Frenchman (both inspectors of revenue for the Turkish Government, and splendid fellows), a Belgian, and the writer. We entered a cafe- concert, where one man and five or six girls sat in a sort of balcony at one end of the building and played at "fiddle." The main hall was filled with small tables, at which were Greeks, Catholics, Armenians, Turks, and negroes as black as a hole in the night. Between acts, the girls were expected to come down, distribute themselves about, and help consume beer and other fluid at the expense of the frequenters. The girls were nearly all Germans — plain, honest, tired-looking creatures, who seemed half embarrassed at seeing what they call "Europeans." One very pretty girl, with peachy cheeks, who, as we learned, had for several evenings been in the habit of drink- ing beer with a Greek, sat, this evening, with a dark Egyptian, almost jet black. The Greek — a hollow- chested, long-haired loafer — came in ; and the moment he saw the girl with the chalk-eyed man, turned red, then white, and then, whipping out a gun, levelled it at the girl. Nearly all the lights went out, and the girl dropped from the chair. When the smoke and excitement cleared away, it was found that the bullet had only parted the girl's hair, and she was able to take her fiddle and beer when time was called. At midnight we were rowed back to the boat, with all the poetry knocked out of the Isle of Sappho, hoisted anchor, and steamed away. On the whole, however, the day had been a most delightful one. 244 Through the Dardanelles. To me there are no fairer stretches of water for a glorious day's sail than the Dardanelles. When we dropped anchor again, ten hours later, it was at Smyrna, the garden of Asia Minor. Here I went ashore with my faithful guide, the doctor, and found a real railway. The Ottoman Railway, whose head-quarters are at Smyrna, was the first in Asia Minor, and was begun by the English company, which continues to do business, thirty-six years ago. Mr. William Shotton, the locomotive superintendent, showed us through the shops and buildings. One does not need to be told that this property is managed by an English company — I saw here the neatest shops and yards that I have ever seen in any country. There were in the car-shops some carriages just completed, designed and built by native workmen who had learned the business with the company ; and I have not seen such artistic cars in England or in France. Mr. Shotton explained to me that they found it necessary to ask an applicant his religion before em- ploying him, so as to keep the Greeks and Catholics about equally divided ; otherwise the faction in the majority would lord it over the weaker bar.', to the detriment of the service. An occasional ^Jldham- medan made no difference ; but the Greeks and Catholics have it in for each other, as they do at Bethlehem, just as they had in the dark days of the gentle Constantine, and just as they will have till the end of the chapter. The Ottoman Railway Company has three hundred and fifty miles of good railroad, and hopes some day arni touc Heii shod for sect Through the Dardanelles. 245 to be able to continue across to Bagdad — though it is hinted by people not interested that the Sultan's Government favours the sleepy German Company, to the embarrassment of the Smyrna people, who have done so much for the development of this marvellously blessed section. We spent a pleasant day at Smyrna, with its water-melons, Turkish coffee, and camels ; and twenty- four hours later we were at the Isle of Rhodes, where the great Colossus was. It was a d.rk, dreary, windy night, and the Turks fought hard for the ship's ladder. We had on board a wise old priest from Paris, with a string of six or eight young priests, who were to unload at Rhodes. Despite the cold raw wind, and rain, men came aboard with canes, beads, and slippers made of native wood — for there is a prison here — and offered them for sale at very low prices. For the next forty-eight hours our little old ship was wallopped about in a boisterous sea, and when we stopped again it was at Mersina, where a little railroad runs up to Tarsus, where Saul used to live. As we arrived at this place after sunset — which ends the Turkish day — we were obliged to lie here twenty- four hours, to get landing. On the morning of the second day, after our arrival at this struggling little port, our anchor touched bottom in the beautiful Bay of Alexandretta. Here they show you the quiet nook where the whale shook Jonas. That was a sad and lasting lesson for the whale ; for not one of his kind has been seen in the Mediterranean since. All day we 246 Through the Dardanelles. watched them hoist crying sheep and mild-eyed cattle, with a derrick from row-boats, up over the deck and drop them down into the ship — just as carelessly as a boy would drop a stritjg of squirrels from his hand to the ground. The next morning wc rode into the only harbour on the Syrian coast, and anchored in front of the beautiful city of " Bayroot," — I believe that is the correct spelling ; it is the only way iL has not been spelled ! It would take too long to describe this place, even if I had the power, to tell of the rond to Damascus, the drives to the hills of Lebanon, thro.jgh the silk- farms, the genial and obliging American Consul, the American College : but here, after nine days and nights, we said good-bye to the obliging crew of the poor old Daphne. It was Christmas Eve when wc learned that the sea had quieted sufficiently to allow ships to land at Jaffa ; and as early as three p.m. Cook's comedian came and hustled us aboard. The ship did not leave until 7.30, and we had to pay a dollar each for our dinners. For nearly a week the steamers had been passing Jaffa without landing, and the result was that Beyroot and Port Said were filled with passengers and pilgrims for the Holy Land. All day the Russian steamer which we were to take had been loading with deck or steerage passengers, poorer and sicker and hungrier, if possible, than those on the DapJine were. It was dark when they had finished, and when we steamed out of the harbour we had seven hundred patches of poverty Through the Dardanelles. 247 piled up on the deck. It began to rain shortly — that cold, damp rain that seems to go with a rough sea, just as naturally as red liquor goes with crime. For a week or more these miserable, misguided beggars had been carried by Jaffa, from Beyroot to Port SaTd, then from Port Said to Beyroot, unable to land. And this was Christmas Eve. Not a passenger nor a pilgrim in all that vast shipload but had hoped and prayed and planned to be at Bethlehem to-night. The good captain caused a canvas to be stretched over the shivering, suffering mob that covered the deck ; but the pitiless rain beat in, and the wind moaned in the rigging, and the ship rolled and pitched and ploughed through the black sea, and the poor pilgrims regretted the trip in each other's laps. All night and till nearly noon the next day they lay there, more dead than alive ; and the hardest part of their pilgrimage was yet before them. If you have ever seen a flock of hungry gulls round a floating biscuit, you can form a very faint idea of a mob of native boatmen storm- ing a ship at Jaffa. Of course the ladders are filled first ; then those who have missed the ladders drive bang against the ship, grab a rope, or cable, or anything they can grasp, and run up the iron, slippery side of the ship, as a squirrel runs up a tree. From the top of the ship they began to fire the bags, bundles, and boxes of the deck passengers down into the broad boats that lie so thick at the ship's side as to hide the sea entirely. When they had thrown everything overboard that was loose at one end, they began on the poor pilgrims. 248 Through the Dardanelles. Women, old and young, who were scarcely able to stand up were dragged to the ladders and down to the last step. Here they were supposed to " lay " for the boat into which the Arabs were preparing to pitch them ; for the sea was still very rough. Now the bottom step of the ladder was in the water, now six feet above ; but what did these poor ignorant Russians know about gymnastics } Wh* n the roll- ing sea brought the row-boats up, the pilgrims usually hesitated, while the bare-armed and bare- legged boatmen yelled and wrenched their hands from the chain. By the time the Mohammedans had shaken a woman loose, and the victim had crossed herself, the ladder was six or eight feet from the small boat ; but it was too late to stay her now, even if the Arabs had wished to — but they did not. When she made the sign of the cross, that decided them, and they let her drop. Some waiting- Turks made a feeble attempt to catch the sprawling woman, but not much. Sometimes, before one could rise, another woman — for they were nearly all women — would drop on to her bent back. Sometimes, when the first boat was filled, an Arab would catch the pilgrim on his neck, and she could then be seen riding him away as a woman rides a bicycle. From one boat to another he would leap, with his helpless victim, and finally pitch her forward over his own head into an empty boat, where she would lie limp and helpless, and regret it some more. I saw one poor girl, with great heavy boots on her feet, with hobnails in the heels, fall into the bottom of a boat ; and before she could get up, three Through the Dardanelles. 249 large women were dropped into her lap. Just then the boat, being full, pulled off, and I saw her faint, and her head fall back ; and her death-like face showed how she had suffered. It was rare sport for the Mohammedans. " Jump ! " they would say to the Christians. " Don't be afraid ; Christ will save you ! " It was four p.m. when the last of these miserable people, who ought to have been at home hoeing potatoes, left the ship. An hour later, a long dark line of smoke was stretching out across the plain of Sharon, behind a locomotive drawing a train of stock cars. These cars held the seven hundred pilgrims bound for Jerusalem. It will be midnight when they arrive at the Holy City, .'Md they will have no money and no place to sleep in. Ah, I forgot ; they will go to the Russian Hospice, where they will find free board and lodging. It is kind and thoughtful in the Russian Church people to care for these poor pilgrims, now that they are here ; but it is not right nor kind to encourage ihem to come. It will be strangely interesting to them at first ; but when they ha^'c seen it all, there will be nothing for them but idleness ; nothing to do but walk, walk — up the Valle^' of Jehoshaphat, and down the road to Bethlehem. Jaffa to Jerusalem. Jaffa was the home of Simon the Tanner, whose house still stands, and is now for rent. It was the shipping station of Jonas ; the port where Solomon landed the cedars of Lebanon, with which he built his extravagant harem ; and out of the wreck-strewn reef that frowns in front of the custom-house, rises the rock of Andromeda. It was here the poor lady was chained ; but it was not the sea monster she feared, but a change in the wind. If the wind had blown from shore, and brought to her the faintest whiff of Jaffa, she could not have lived to tell her talc. When you land here — which you can accom- plish only when the sea is calm — you find yourself in a narrow, mean, muddy street, filled with freighted camels, /icunals, and burros, through which you are marched for a quarter of a mile before you come to a road wide enough to hold a carriage ; then you look across the street, see Howard's Hotel, dismiss the carriage for which you have paid a tourist agency a dollar, and walk to your stopping place. We landed at 10.30, and by 1045 we had become Jaffa to Jerusalem. 251 tired of the sights and scent of the city. Securing a guide, I waited upon the chief of the Jaffa and Jerusalem Railway. It was Saturday ; the manager — whom I could not see — said he was very busy, but if I would come in to-morrow, he would be glad to give me any infor- mation I desired. I went straight to the station, caught the 12.15 express, and entered the only first- class carriage in the train, with a ticket for Jerusalem. The road is a three-foot gauge, the cars are narrow, and only half of one little pine coach is set apart for first-class passengers. This space is cut by a partition making two boxes, six by seven feet, for tourists. The train is made up of all kinds of cars. The grass is green between the tics, and the scale that is crumbling from the sandstone cornice of the station is allowed to remain where it falls, to be crushed under the feet of the travellers. The management is French, with a strong Turkish flavour. The pompous, almost military-looking manager, and the brightly uniformed chef do gare, or station-master, seem strangely out of place, when you glance at the wretchedness that surrounds them. Here is a queer mixture of the frivolity of France with the filth of the Orient. From the time you get the first glimi s-; of the Jaffa gare till you reach Jerusalem, the wh ■ , show has about it an air of neglect like a widow's farm. They appear to know as much about railroad- ing as the average Arab knows about the Young Men's Christian Association. The time was up, and we were fifteen minutes 252 Jaffa to Jerusalem. overdue to leave, when I asked Howard, the hotel man, what the matter was. "Waiting for le directeur de la compagnie" said he, with a smile ; for he knew how absurd it was to hold the only daily train the road runs for the general manager. Another quarter of an hour went by, and still another. Suddenly there was a bustling among the station- hands, the bell jingled, the whistle — the deep-voiced North American Baldwin whistle — sounded, and we moved away. At the last moment I saw the hand- some station-master hurry a well-dressed gentleman to our car, put him in, and then swing gracefully into the second-class carriage immediately behind ours. A couple of officers of an English war-ship, which was anchored off Jaffa, occupied one of the first-class compartments, and now the new-comer came in where I was. The train started slowly, and seemed to be running over a track made of short pieces of rails ; but I soon found that the one wheel at my corner had three flat spots on it, and that the two rear wheels had but one. This gave the car an un- certain sort of movement, two short hops and a long one. I looked at my companion, and tried to look pleased. He frowned. I raised the window and tried to see what made the car caper about so, and my travelling companion burnt a cigarette. " Little rough," I said as a feeler ; and my friend blew such a fog into my face that I was obliged to take to the window again. Jaffa to Jerusalem. 253 " Window too cool for you ? " I asked, venturing another flyer at the Frenchman, and he scowled. Growing accustomed to the pounding and bucking of the carriage, I began to look at the strange scenes along the line. On one side there was an orange orchard, whose trees were laden with golden fruit. On the other was an olive orchard, and here and there tall date-palms flung their banners to the breeze. In a field near by, a native was ploughing with two little thin-legged blond cows, followed by another team which was a strange combination — a burro and a bull ; and, just behind that, a tall camel came swimming slowly through the peaceful air, drawing a wooden plough which had but one handle. This is a beautiful valley, called the Plain of Sharon ; and if it was farmed as France or England is farmed, it would be a veritable garden. Forty-five minutes out we stopped at Lydda, twenty kilometres from Jaffa. Here my friend got out, walked up towards the engine, scowled, and returned to the car. The red-fezzed station-master from Jaffa came from his carriage, just as the station-master of Lydda came out of the station. Their eyes met ; they stopped, clasped their hands, and you could see in a minute that i"hcy Delongcd to the same lodge. The Lyddian ti'led his head slightly, as a hen does when she sees a hawk high above her , then they unplaited their fingers, and rushed into each other's arms. When they had embraced, the chef from Jaffa held the Lyddian off at arm's length, and looked calmly into his eyes, as if to say : " Hast thou been faithful to thy trust ? Lie not ; for behold the breath of the high 254 Jaffa to Jerusalem. cJief des gares is upon thee, and will wither thee if thou speakest not the truth." The Lyddian nodded his head three times very slowly, and the chef kissed him on the right and then on the left cheek. Another deep blast from the Philadelphia whistle, and my carriage began to scamper away like a wounded hare in the stubble. Another quarter of an hour brought us to Ramlch — old Arimatha^a. One hour from Jaffa, and this Syrian cyclone, this Jerusalem jerk-water, has covered nearly eighteen miles. I dropped off as the train was coming in, and made a picture of the pretty little station. Ramleh is an old town — in fact, every- thing is old here. The railway, which was opened only two years ago, is old, and only a few people came to see the train go by. It has always been a place of importance, for here the old caravan road from Damascus to Egypt crosses the trail trod by the Crusaders from Jaffa to Jerusalem. At Lydda I fancied I smelt a hot-box ; then I laughed at the idea — a hot-box at eighteen miles an hour ! It was only the odour of the Orient, I reasoned, and forgot. But now, as the train stopped at Ramleh, two clouds of beautiful blue smoke came up from a coal car near the locomotive, and floated away across the rolling plain. The doctor of the battle-ship and his friend the lieutenant were contemplating one of these boxes, when I came up and offered to bet a B. & S. that my side would blaze first. " Taken ! " said the game doctor ; and while we were amusing ourselves thus, my French friend came forward, saw the hot-box, and made a bee-line for the station. Jaffa to Jerusalem. 255 The next moment he was out again with the con- ductor. You could see that the box was not the only thing hot on the J. & J. The distinguished traveller was beating his hands together, pushing his nose side- ways with his front finger, and telling the conductor things that would burn the paper if we printed them. When he stopped to breathe, the station-master of Ramlch — who had already been hugged and kissed by the station-master from Jaffa — pulled the bell, and the train started. My travelling companion then turned on the poor station-master for having started the train while he was busy roasting the con- ductor. He raised both hands above his head and rolled off a succotash of French and Arabic for a whole minute ; and when he turned, the rear end of the train was just disappearing over a little hill beyond the switch, and the general manager — le directeur dc la compagnie — n-as left behind. I believe he must have Lcen glad of it, for he knew enough English to know that English officers were making jokes of his railroad, and that I was not over-pleased with the flat wheels. The land was still beautiful. A little way to the south was the broad valley of Ajalon, where Pharaoh conquered a king, and gave the ranch to Solomon, together with his daughter ; for it was plain to Pharaoh that Solomon was wasting a fortune trying to create a boom on Mount Moriah, which is in Jerusalem — the only place where they suffer from drought and mosquitoes at the same time. "Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon ; and thou. Moon, in the valley of Ajalon. And the sun stood still, Hi 256 Jaffa to Jerusalem. and the moon stayed, and there was no day like that before it or after it." So it is written of the valley of Ajalon ; and now the sound of a locomotive whistle floats o'er the plain, and echoes in the hills of Judaea. " I win I " said the doctor, presently, pulling his head in from the open window. "Mine's burning beautifully." Leaving the plain, we enter a canon about six hundred feet above the sea, up which we toil at a snail's pace. The country grows more desolate, the hills are barren wastes of grey rock, with not enough vegetation to pasture a tarantula. When we had arrived at Beir Aban, thirty-one miles out, time two hours and fifteen minutes, and the station-master from Jaffa had embraced and kissed the station- master at Beir Aban, first on the right cheek, and then on the left, the cloud of smoke that arose from the two hot-boxes hid the locomotive entirely. For a half-hour the train crew carried water from the tank and flooded the hot-boxes. The same was repeated at Bittir — even to the kissing and embracing — and we were off on the home stretch for Jerusalem, which is twenty-six hundred feet above the Mediter- ranean. The canon grows narrower as we ascend, and still there is no earth in sight — nothing but rock, rock, everywhere. Sometimes we can see on the sides of the terraced hills a few rows of olive trees, which, like the scrub cedars in the mountains of America, seem to spring from the very stones. The conductor — the slouchy, careless, polite con- ductor — came through the car for the last time, and I i i i Jc Jaffa to Jerusalem. 257 every one was glad we were nearing the Holy City. The trainmen are all French, and, like most French people one is compelled to rub up against in the churches, theatres, and shops of the Republic — especially in Paris — they appear never to use water, except the little they put in their claret. There arc more fountains than bath-tubs in Paris. French people in the lower walks of life remind one of the Mohammedan making a pilgrimage to Mecca, who obstinately refuses to bathe until he gets there — only these people seem never to get there ! There's the sea at Jaffa ; but these fellows never think of using it, any more than the natives do. The conductor is in keeping, however, with other things pertaining to the road. Their cabinets de toilet, supposed to be built for the use of the public, are absolutely unapproachable. They are as far below those of France in the way of cleanliness as the latter are below those found in England. I have never seen such inexcusable filthiness in any country. Even the Arabs notice It. The distance from Jaffa to Jerusalem, according to Howard's " Guide to Palestine," is thirty-two miles as the raven makes it, and thirty-six by waggon road. No guide-book has been perpetrated since the opening of the railway ; but none is necessary, as the time is about the same. In fact, " White Sheik " — Howard's Arabian steed — beats the train as often as he is ridden down from Jerusalem. The distance by rail is eighty-seven kilometres (about fifty-four miles), according to the time-card ; S 258 Jaffa to Jerusalem. and the same makes the running time four hours and ten minutes : but we lost an hour to-day. The fare, first-class, is $3.00, second-class $2.00, and third-class $1.25. The road has never earned operating expenses, I am told, and never will, I am led to believe. The locomotives are the best moun- tain locomotives made ; and that is about the only thin they have to speak of. I think there must be something in the Brother- hood of Station-Masters prohibiting the sweeping of floors in stations, as they are all covered with sand, dirt, and scraps of paper, and things. I travelled over a little lumber road in Texas once, whose initials were T. & S., and the trainmen called it the " Trouble and Sorrow," and sometimes " Timber and Sand." I rode on the locomotive, for it was the first wood-burner I had ever seen. The train was carded at twelve miles an hour, and we were losin;^ time ; but it was the only time I was ever frightened on an engine. The road was so rough, and the engine rolled so, that the hazel- splitter hogs would scamper out of the ditches beside the track. In places the track was so sunken that the ties hung to the underside of the rail ; and when the engine struck a place like that, and drove the ties down, the mud and water would shoot out over the face of the earth, and fresco everything inside the right of way. The passengers, if they had not been too frightened, could have picked flowers from the windows of the rolling coaches — almost. Till now, the T. & S. has been to me tlic rockiest road on earth ; but now— it's all changed. Jaffa to Jerusalem. 259 hours |2.00, arned 1 am moiui- e only Irothcr- ping of h sand, Texas rainmcn mctimcs )tive, for pn. The and we \c I was was so liazel- cs beside ccn that ail ; and vnd drove shoot out verything if they picked coaches— to me the hanged. IK /e Now the whistle sounds deep and long, the train has reached the top of the cailon, the end of the gulch, and here before us, nestled in the very top of a group of little mountains, is Jerusalem. The sun is just going down in the hills through which we came, and away to the east, beyond the Dead Sea, the hills of Moab are taking on the wonderful tints they wear at sunset. They are unlike any other mountains, in that the crcst-linc is as straight as the line of the horizon on a level plain. How strange it all seems ! There is nothing but rocks, and scrubby olive tree , and dead-looking grape-vines — and not many of them. The people are strange, too. On the way to the hotel, we pass all kinds of people of the Orient — Bedouins on high horses, with their knees cocked up : plains-men on Ihin-leggcd Arabian steeds ; all manner of men on donkeys and on foot — beggars, and even lepers, and poor Jews ; Jews with cork-screw curls hanging down ill front of their ears, and idle pilgrims who do nothing on earth but walk, walk up the valley of Jchoshaphat and down the road to Bethlehem. The moment you have seen it all, Jerusalem becomes to you the most melancholy locality on the face of the earth. It was so with us, I know ; and when the time came to leave, not one of our party missed the train. When the Syrian cyclone begins to descend from Mount Zion to the sea, you are led to believe that you will reach Jaffa in about an hour ; but when the train has gone a quarter of a mile the careful driver reverses the engine, opens the cylinder-cocks, and 26o Jaffa to Jerusalem. you think, by the swish, swish, of the escaping steam, that there is an open switch just ahead ; but you arc always wrong. The truth is, they have no air-brakes, and the driver is obliged to hold the train with the engine in the back motion until it is brought down to a reasonable pace. When you have nearly stopped you go ahead again, just as you did before, and go on repeating the performance to the bottom of the hill, twenty-five miles, and two thousand feet below Jerusalem. The balance of the journey over the plain of Sharon is less hazardous. The engine-driver is a Frenchman, and extremely careful and com- petent. He never allowed the train to get beyond his control for a single moment, and he has, on the whole, about as difficult a run as there is east of Pike's Peak. At Jaffa, as at Constantinople, you must take to the sea again, for there are no more railroads here. After the Jaffa and Jerusalem, the P. & I. is good to look upon. This little railway runs from Port Safd to Ismailia, less than a hundred miles. The gauge is not even three feet — which seems to be a sort of standard for narrow-gauged railways every- where. It is only thirty inches. The locomotives are like toy engines, but good ones, and the carriages are beautiful — perfect little palaces. They are not only neatly designed and artistically constructed, but scrupulously clean and very comfortable. They arc narrow, of course, but ample room is given to each passenger. They are so arranged that the whole car may be opened up, allowing one to pass through it ti"avclle| ic-wcigj tiful IK iinloadc down, ic-weigl '■ailwayj The c Jaffa to Jerusalem. 261 am, arc kes, the own )pcd I go the clow the river com- yond 1 the ,st of take Iroads I. is from miles, to be evcry- lotives rriagcs ire not ed, but icy are ;o each lole car ough it i from end to end. I had no time to inform myself regarding the road's history, but I was told that it had been built and was being operated by a French company. I hope so, for the J. & J. has rather dis- graced France. The rail, which rests on metallic cross-ties, looks to be about thirty pounds to the yard. The road runs, for the greater part, along the Suez Canal, with the sea on the other side ; and the ride from Port SaVd, if the sand is not blowing, is an interesting one. In the shallow sea to the right are myriads of sea- birds of every conceivable kind, and further out, hundreds of sleepy-looking little ships with one sail, whose masts lean back like a slender palm in a steady wind. To the left is the canal, upon whose narrow waters one sees the flag of almost every civilized country, save perhaps the Stars and Stripes, which, somehow, one seldom sees at the Orient — or anywhere else, for that matter. Even at Constanti- nople the flag at the embassy flies only on high days and holidays — and not very high then. With all their enterprise, this company make one serious mistake. They refuse to "paste" baggage through from Port Said to Cairo, and at Ismailia the traveller must hunt out his luggage, and have it rc-weighed and re-registered. The P. & O.'s beau- tiful new steamer Caledonia, bound for India, had unloaded an English excursion-party the day I went down, and it took nearly two hours that night to rc-weigh the baggage where we left the smart little railway and boarded the Egyptian line. The Egyptian state railways are not bad, nor very i 262 Jaffa to Jerusalem. good, but they answer the purpose. Their locomo- tives are fair, their cars are of the usual European style, short and light. They make very good time, too, for such a slow country ; but one must travel first-class always in Egypt, to avoid smoke, filth, and dirt of every kind — the quick and the dead ! If the reader has ever ridden on the rear-end of an American railroad train, and is of an observing turn, he has noticed that the moment the train passes a gang of section-men, they all fall to afj vigorously as though they were repairing a wash-out, and were holding the president's special. " Poor fellows," says the .sympathetic traveller, "how they work!'" lie does not observe that every Irish son of them has one eye on the track, and the other on the rear car looking for the road-master. Well, they do that here, and the Arabs did it on the Jaffa and Jerusalem — just as the Chinamen do in California, and the negroes in Texas. Human nature is mucli the .same the world over. Relations of the Employee to the Railroad. As the shifting sands in the bed of a river are con- stantly changing the channel, so are the conditions of the country constantly changing the relations of the railroad employee to the railroad. When the country is prosperous, and all the rail- roads are running full-handed, emiyioyees are apt to air their grievances and ask for a raise in wages as often as a dividend is declared. When times arc hard and hundreds of idle men are abroad in the land, and locomotives are rusting in the round-houses, railway managers are apt to ask the employees to submit to a reduction in wages as often as a fresh batch of men are discharged and sent adrift. These facts may not be very comphmentary to either side, but they are facts, I fancy, all the same. The railroad company proper is regarded by the average employee as a mythical soulless something, ever invisible and always out of »-each. The struggle is really between the men and the management — the employees and the officials ; and as they are all 264 Relations of Employee to Railroad. employees — from the president to the tic-tamper ; from the master mechanic to the poorly paid wiper — we must have a division to begin with. Out of this great body we must find the fighting forces for two armies, absurdly arrayed, one under the flag of " Capital," the other bearing the banner of " Labour." This condition of things is all the more inconsistent when we remember that the real fighters are all labourers ; only, one side has succeeded, the other is struggling to succeed. And how are we to know them } When does the " employee " become an official ? Ah, that's the easiest thing in the world ! For example, this change in the life of a locomotive engineer comes the day he is promoted to be travel- ling engineer or round-house foreman. It comes to the conductor when he is made superintendent of a division ; to the telegrapher when he becomes a dc- spatcher or train-master. The other employees come In awkwardly, congratulate the new official, and then go back to the boarding-house and lock their trunks. Here is a parting of ways. From this day the new official walks on the other side of the street, regard- ing the promotion (for which all are striving) almost a misfortune. At the end of a week his room-mate leaves him, and he goes also — to live in a better place. At the end of a fortnight he finds that he has, almost unconsciously, changed his mode of living and his associates. He sit:j no longer in the councils of employees, for he stands for the company — for Capital. In many cases he pays up his dues and takes an honorary mem- bership, or withdraws finally from the Brotherhood, wh- hiir of h whi( Tl direc ihTfe the less- and his He on and Relations of Employee to Railroad. 265 He is so different in his new place that sometimes he is accused of being " stuck on himself" I put it that way, for it is precisely as the " other fellows " will put it ; and I have dwelt upon this point to show that there is no mistaking an employee for the "company," which is simply the management. It would not be just to say that the new-made officer deserves all the bad things said of him. nor would it be right to say that the unpromoted employees are wholly to blame. They have simply all dropped down the wrong leg of the " Y," and nobody has taken the trouble to back them up and set them right. Then it is always so much easier to convince a working man that he is getting the worst of it than to show him that he is prosperous and ought to be happy. That's why the professional agitator has such smooch sailing. Man is a scrappy animal at best, and think that the constant strain under wh'ch the railroad employee works tends to make hiir especially irritable, as the constant watchfulness of his nature tends to make him suspicious of signals which are not perfectly plain to him. The railroad manager at his office, dictating letters, directing business, and hearing grievances, is a different man altogether when seen at the club, at the races, in Sunday-school, or at home ; but the less-experienced employee is always the same on and off duty. He has not yet learned how to forget his work, to p"*" 't aside, ami rest his weary brain. He railroads, not only earnestly, but all the time: on the rail, in the round-house, the barber-shop, and the boarding-house. When he wants his plate 266 Relations of Employee to Railroad. changed, he tells the waiter to "switch out the empty, and throw in a load." The little jealousies and animosities just described exist among the employees as well as between the man and the managers. For years the bitterest hatred existed between the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Fire- men. Until lately a member of the latter organiza- tion was not eligible to membership in the former. In the West, where promotion comes quick and easy, where the fireman of to-day is the engineer of to-morrow, where the world seems wider and ideas broaden, these narrow views found little favour. Indeed, it was the Western delegates in the conven- tion who caused these restrictions to be removed. There existed for years the bitterest hatred between the members of the Order of Railway Conductors and the Engineers' Brotherhood. So cordially did they hate each other that it was almost impossible to get good service. Railway managers made no frantic effort to bring about a reconciliation between these important branches of the train ser\ •. On the contrary, I am afraid some of them rejoiced in the strife, knowing well that so long a" labour -arred with labour, capital would have sm' .. sailing. When the Knights of Labour w rj in their glory, many railroad employees turne 1 to that organization as the coming Moses. This led up to a struggle between the Knights and the Brotherhoods. When Debs — often wrong, but always honest and earnest, I believe — conceived the idea of bring- ing all railroad employees together in one colossal ail Relations of Employee to Railroad. 267 Brotherhood, he found himself opposed by all the older organizations, including the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen, for whose advancement he had spent the best years of his life. Just as the different nations of the earth train their cannons on the other shore, so do the various labour organizations of the United States " lay " for one another. Happily, thoughtful me:., are beginning to regard all this as quite unnecessary, as b great waste of energy ; and a change is coming. Looking back over the fields where labour and capital have fought, we see only waste, want, desolation, and death. In struggles of this kind capital gains nothing, and the best labour can get is the worst of it. The great strikes of the past twenty years, including the last bitter struggle of 1894, must prove plainly to the thoughtful working man that he must rely mainly upon his own ability to make a place for himself in the world and to hold it. The struggle between the American Railwa\' Union and Mr. Pullman in the beginning, the rai' way companies of the country in the end, has proven two facts : to capital, that it is just as well t ; treat fairly and deal honestly with labour ; to labour that the country is not ready for anarchy. Few people believe that the acts of lawlessness committed at Chicago were the doings of working men. These outrages were committed mainly by idle loafers and criminals of every cast and from every country. Foreign working men, at best, appear to bring all their grievances, all their disrespect for law — in short, all they possess that is un-American — to America. 268 Relations of Employee to Railroad. In nearly all the labour disturbances the finger-marks of the foreigner are plainly visible. The long and lawless struggle at Cripple Creek was organized and officered wholly by foreigners, and their energies were directed mainly against one American — self-made as far as his fortune is concerned — who, in the panicky winter of 1893-4, advanced nearly 100,000 dollars to build a railroad to the great gold camp, thereby providing work for hundreds of men who were actually hungry. I find no fault with a man because he is a foreigner ; only, if he cares to live in the United States, he ought to respect the laws of the country. But when an American journal, or news- gathering association, will interview an anarchist upon the murder of the president of a republic, allowing him to rejoice in cold type over the death of a distinguished citizen of another country ; then, when Americans allow such a man (a murderer at heart) to live in the land. Uncle Sam becomes an accessory, and by his tolerance encourages anarchy. I have seen their emblems. Here, in Paris, not more than a mile from where I write, there is a corner in the graveyard set apart for these miserable people. The walls are all ablaze with red rings, a sort of bloody funeral harness, and on their shields, red with rust, are engraved the knife, the pistol, and the torch. It is not good for the young republic of France, with a new-made grave of a murdered presi- dent, to allow these things to hang here, with their breath of danger and hints of death. It is not difficult for one, even slightly acquainted with the history of the railroads of the United States, Relations of Employee to Railroad. 269 to pick out those that have been most prosperous ; and it is gratifying to note that those roads enjoying the greatest prosperity arc generally at peace with their employees. We have seen the unpleasant side of the employee — how, in the past, peace seemed to trouble his mind — and now we shall see the other side. He is not only capable of appreciating humane treatment, but is as loyal to the company employing him, when properly handled, as the highest officer can possibly be. Cross him, and he will fight for his manager. Ask his opinion, and he will show you how far the " Thunder-bird " of his line is ahead of the wretched and rickety old "Night-hawk" run by the opposition road. The enthusiasm of the earnest and industrious passenger-agent and his army of assistants seems to find its way down the line to the humblest employee. I don't pretend to say that such is always the case. A great deal — nearly everything, in fact — depends upon the character of the higher officials. A railway manager, the fingers of whose 'phone run down to the pool-rooms and the gilded palaces of painted women, will have a demoralizing influence upon the employees of the road. Turning restlessly in his office-chair, ever gazing out at the window to fields which he fancies clysium, ever impatient and anxious to get away from work, to return to play, he cuts everything short, and you will find his subordinates following in his footsteps. Take the manager who is thoroughly in earnest, honest and loyal to the company, and his influence 270 Relations of Employee to Railroad. will be felt. It is not difficult for a manager to win and hold the respect of the employees of a railway. If he but takes the trouble, and has the happy faculty of imparting a little human kindness to every employee with whom he comes in contact, he will soon win the respect of all his subordinates. In doing this he makes his own labours lighter, and at the same time adds to the happiness of the employees and the revenue of the road. The best service can be had only when all work harmoniously and with a will. Railway employees know when they are treated decently. They know, too, that an impartial judge, commonly known as " public opinion," will pass upon their cause, and they are learning rapidly that it is not good to kick unless they have a "kick comin'," as they express it. The best of them are not great readers, but they manage to acquire more knowledge of things in general, and railroads in particular, than the average citizen does. Go and mingle with a band of yardmen who are loafing round a switch-engine, and in a half-hour you will get a good bit of the history of American railroads, and much of the personal history of the leading railway officials of the country. You will find, too, that, if they "roast" some of them vigorously, they praise others enthu- siastically. It is always pleasant to say nice things of other people. It is pleasant to try to pick out the good things in the life of a man whom the public has regarded as bad. Jay Gould, for example. The employees of railroads commonly known as the " Gould Systems " were always sure of three things — good wages, decent treatment, and a good cheque for Relations of Employee to Railroad. 271 their money the moment they earned it. This respectful consideration for his employees, which was one of the noble traits in Mr. Gould's cliaracter, has been imparted to his assistants, and is distinguishable to this day. Not long ago, during an inquiry by the Government into the matter of wages of employees, the president of one of these roads was called to the .stand to testify. When the venerable railroader took his place and raised his hand to be sworn, his white hair falling like a halo about his head, the United States judge looked at him for a moment, and said : " You needn't swear." Perhaps the judge remembered that in that same city — then a wild outpost of civili- zation on the Western plains — this man had begun his railroad career as a humble employee, and that in iiW these years his honesty had never been questioned, and that was sufficient. Perhaps it was not much to take his testimony without swearing him, but to me it seems a delicate and touching compliment to this great good man. I know it is customary to preserve these little flowers for the grave, but I prefer to put this one here. It may serve as a "marker" to those who follow in his footsteps — a something to strive for, "a consum- mation devoutly to be wished." I never knew Tom Potter, never saw him, but I know he lived and died. I remember that for a year after his death it was impossible to open one of the many trade magazines, printed and supported by railway employees, without reading a line like this : " Send something to the Potter Monument Fund." I do not know that he ever got the monument, 272 Relations of Employee to Railroad. but I know he got its equivalent — a monument of devotion which can only be built on the foundation prepared for it in life. It proves that in the average railroad employee there is a pay-streak of gratitude ; and that ought to make up for a multitude of short- comings. But it is not necessary to die in order to receive his respect. During the hard times in the West, caused mainly by the closing of the silver mines, a very conscientious general manager called a number of employees together to discuss the matter of a reduction of wages. There were present re- presentatives from the various brotherhoods and labour organizations who had been sent to head- quarters instructed to submit to no reduction of wages. The manager made his case so clear — show- ing the delegates the utter impossibility of keeping all the trains then on the time-card running, and the folly of supposing that the owi, ^rs of the road would retain him as manager unless he made some effort to reduce operating expenses to fit in a measure the decrease and still decreasing earnings— that he at once won the respect of the delegation. When these poor fellows returned to their several homes and made the result of their deliberations known, there was a great row. Some of the more ignorant and unscrupulous employees openly accused the delegates of selling their constituency to the railroad. The manager heard all this in due time, and, having faith in the justice of his cause and the humanity of man, he submitted the question to a vote of all employees, with the promise that wages should be restored at the beginning of the following year. The Relations of Employee to Railroad. 273 men voted to submit to the proposed reduction ; but few of them ever knew what want and misery they saved by so doing, for, if the manager had been beaten, the force was to have been reduced, and thus many of them would have been thrown out of uork entirely at the beginning of a hard winter, when all the railroads in the country were dis- charging men. A less thoughtful, a less humane manager, would have ordered the reduction in wages which circum- stances certainly made necessary, and created a strike — won in the end, at the expense both of the employees and of the stock-holders. It is well to observe these things and the way they work. They all show that a straightforward, open, and honest policy will often save money for the people who hrve been enterprising enough to build railroads, and prevent the less-learned employees — the fretful children of the rail — from running blindly into danger. I happened to be in San Francisco when Mr. Stanford died, and I want to say a word for him. If you ask me how he managed to save twenty millions in twenty years, I cannot answer ; but there was something good and gentle in his nature. Poor Mr. Stanford ! Surrounded as he was with his miserable millions, with all his wretched riches, his going away was as ])eaceful and pathetic as the death of a nun. He knew, it seems, that he was going, and had selected his pall-bearers. They were the six oldest locomotive engineers in the employ of the cor,-.p;u-.y. Many times he had placed his life in T IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) ? ^ A :/. f/. ^^ 1.0 1^128 |2.5 ■^ Im III 2.2 t ■- HIM iiiim 1.4 1.6 l.i 1.25 i II ► ^ — — o V] <^ /^ ^;. d? / Phoiographic Sciences Corporation Ci; 0".^^\^> pi? 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. 14580 (716) 872-4503 %"^^ ^ 274 Relations of Employee to Railroad. their hands, and now at the end he wanted these strong, brave fellows to "handle his train" on the last sad run. As usual, they did their work well, walking upright with a firm step. Their eyes were tearless, their faces calm ; but if you looked closely, you would see them trying to swallow something. It was that hurt in the throat that comes to men- unfortunate men— who are not weak enough to weep. At the other end of the procession anothei band of employees walked, with bowed heads and tear- wet eyes — yellow men, whose homes and gods were at the other end of the earth, who found the paths at the Occident slippery ways ; but they had taken something of the tenderness of their gentle master, and so walked in his wake and wept. ad. these n the well, were losely, thing. nen — weep. band tear- > were paths taken naster, From the Cornfield to the Cab. Every boy, arrived at a certain age, wishes to take part in the work of the world which he sees going on about him. Many desire to become locomotive engineers, but few of these understand how hard and long is the way to gratification of that ambition. My experience is like the experience of many a man who has worked his way from the cornfield to the cab of a locomotive. My first railroading was in the humble capacity of a water-carrier for the graders on the Vandalia road, in Illinois, where my father had a small contract. Finally, the grade was completed, and the construc- tion train came along behind the first locomotive I had ever seen. Of course I was deeply impressed with its grandeur. Every boy gazes at a locomotive with rapture, partly compounded of fear. If boys playing football hear the whistle of an engine, they will stop and look. A boy swimming, who is supposed to forget everything, will turn and swim on his back and watch the train go by. Our farm lay near the railroad, just at the end of a ' ^p 276 From the Cornfield to the Cab. hard pull. From the field where I worked during my youthful years I could sec the fireman at his furnace, while the great black steed toiled slowly up the hill with half a mile of cars behind her. I never looked with envy at the engineer. If I could be a fireman, I thought, my cup of happiness would be full. It is not an easy matter, without influential friends, to get employment on a railroad, especially if the applicant happens to have hayseed in his hair, or milk on his shoes. When the brakeman, who is the paid elocutionist of the train crew, wishes to humiliate a fellow workman, he invariably calls him a farmer. No greater insult can be offered to a brakeman. I had lived a quarter of a century, and failed in half a dozen business ventures, when I decided tc go railroading, being prepared to accept the humblest position, so long as it was in the path that led to the throttle. I presented some strong letters to the Master Mechanic of the Denver and Rio Grande at Salida, Colorado ; a clerk wrote my name and address in a large book, saying that he would call me when I was wanted. I began to think I should not be wanted ; for I had waited a month or more when the caller came one evening and told me to report to the night foreman. First I joined the wipers — a gang of half a doztn men, whose business it is to clean the engines up when they come in from the road. This gang is made up of three classes — old men who are not strong enough to perform heavier work ; young and delicate youths ; ■J .ri ' mm^ From the Cornfield to the Cab. 277 strong young men who expect to become firemen when their names are reached. The wiper's work is not arduous, except for the long and dreary hours — from six in the evening to six in the morning. But it is disagreeable work. You have to get down in the pit under the locomotive reeking with oil, and wipe the machinery clean and dry with bunches of waste. All this time you are obliged to inhale the awful fumes of the torch you carry. If you are faithful and patient, you may be pro- moted to the day shift in six months. Here you perform the same work, but without the *orch, and you sleep of nights. By-and-by you are promoted again to the position of engine watchman. There are from twenty to fifty locomotives in the round-house, and it is the watchman's duty to keep water in the boilers, and enough steam up to move the engines in case one is wanted in a hurry. Before long the foreman, if he thinks you deserve to be encouraged, will put you on a yard-engine as fire- man. This will take you back to night-work, but it is one step forward, and the work is light. When there is a vacancy you will be given a day engine, and again you feel thankful : you see the sunlight ; it gives you courage ; you are glad to be free of night-work. I do not know of anything that will embitter a man's life and sour ' 3 dispo'jition so swiftly and surely as working week after week through the hours of darkness. From the day yard-engine you go out on the road, and now you are a real fireman. You are assigned T 3 278 From the Cornfield to the Cab. a regular locomotive, and you are expected to keep everything clean and in order ; that is, everything above the running board — that board which you will see on all locomotives, extending from the cab along the side of the boiler to the front end. On mountain roads, ten years ago, wipers, watch- men, and all round-house helpers were paid one dollar and seventy-five cents a day, firemen on yard- engines two dollars, and engineers t -ee. Firemen on road-engines received two dollars ai ! forty cents a day, and engineers four dollars ; but Eastern roads do not pay nearly so well. I know of a half-dozen railroad presidents who began at less than fifty cents a day. Another great advantage the men of the West had at that time was that they served, as a rule, less than three years as firemen, though now on Eastern roads men commonly fire from five to ten years. But the West was then developing rapidly, and new roads were being built every year. At the end, say, of three years, the fireman may be promoted to be hostler. The hostler takes the engines from the coal-track, side-track, or wherever the engineers leave them. He has them coaled up, the fire cleaned, and then runs them into the stalls in the round-house. In this work he becomes familiar with each and every engine on the division, and if he be observing, he -.yill retain this knowledge and uso it when he becomes an engineer. The next promotion takes the hostler back to the night yard-engine : this time as engineer. His pay is now three dollars a day, or ninety dollars a month ; From the Cornfield to the Cab. 279 may but he was making over a hundred dollars a month at two dollars and forty cents a day as fireman. Road enginemen are paid by the mile — forty- four mountain miles or eighty-five valley miles being a day's work. Thus, when business is good, the engine crew make forty and fifty, and once in a while sixty, days in a month. The man on the night yard-engine goes through the same stages of promotion that the fireman went through, until at last he finds himself at the throttle of a road engine, with another increase in pay and a corresponding increase in responsibility, but with less real hard work to perform. On some roads a man must, I believe, serve a time in the shops as helper and machinist before he can hope to be promoted to the position of engineer. This is not absolutely necessary, for the reason that the engineer is not required to keep the engine in repair. Most master mechanics will tell you that the machinist is not always the best "runner." There is a book called the work-book, where the engineer whose engine needs repair writes its number, what he wants done, and his name. If he is not quite sure about the disease, he may m.ake a report like this : " Examine right steam-chest." The foreman will set a machinist to work, who, nine times out of ten, will locate the trouble in a very short time. Even where promotion comes rapidly, it takes from four to six years to work from the wiping gang to the cab ; but these years are not wasted. Every day and every hour you become more and more acquainted with the various parts of the great iron ■WH ■IIW KSBmB^^^n^mm 280 From the Cornfield to the Cab. horse, till at last the knowledge picked up in these years of toil serves to make up the sum of your education as a locomotive engineer. The years seem surprisingly short, for there is always the hope that springs eternal to lure you on. The life of an engineer is fascinating, especially where the road lies along the banks of a beautiful stream, or over grand mountains. Here at every curve a new picture is spread before him. To reach the summit of some high mountain at sunrise ; to look down the winding trail which he must travel, and see the blue -jay cloud lying across the track ; to dash through the cloud and out into the glad sunlight again, the verdant valley stretching away below — the high hills lifting their hoary crests above — is apt to impress one with the awful grandeur of God's world, so that he will carry that impression through life. A very small percentage of locomotive engineers become railway officials. If promotion comes to the engineer, he is usually promoted to the office of travelling engineer. The duty of this officer is to go about over the road to see that the engines are made to work to their full capacity, and to see that the enginemen do not abuse the engines or waste the supplies. The travelling engineer usually recommends fire- men for promotion. While railway rules permit the promotion of firemen in accordance with the length of time they have served in that capacity, the rule is not always applied ; and it should not be. One man will learn as much in a year as another will in ten, pos From the Cornfield to the Cab. 281 and all men do not niakc good engineers. Then, again, if a man is given to dissipation, he is not, and should not, be promoted in his turn. There is a vast improvement from year to year in railway employees as a class, morally and intellec- tually. It is no longer considered necessary for a man to be " real tough " to be a good train or engine- man. As a class, the men who now enter the railway service are more intelligent than those who sought such employment fifteen or twenty years ago. The travelling engineer is often promoted to the position of master mechanic ; from that place to superintendent of motive power ; and sometimes he becomes superintendent of the road, or general manager. Among the boys who read this, there may be some who desire to become locomotive engineers. To such I would offer one bit of advice — do whatever you are assigned to do cheerfully ; and do it well. Never leave a piece of work half done. Try to be the best wiper in the gang ; the best fireman on the road ; but do not say you are so. The officials will find it out, if you are really deserving of recognition. Do not rely upon a grievance committee to hold your job ; take care of that yourself. Remember that it is easy to " kick " yourself out of a good place, but never into a better one. The official who promotes you is in a measure responsible for you ; see that he does not have to apologize to his superior for your failure. The moment you become dissatisfied with your position, quit. Think it over first, and see whether 282 From the Cornfield to the Cab. you can better your condition ; but do not drag others into your troubles ; learn to rely upon yourself. If you succeed in reaching the right-hand side of a locomotive, you will then be in a position to show your fellow workmen that a man may be a smooth runner without the excessive use of tobacco, liquor, or profanity. By pursuing this course, you may be regarded as a curiosity by some of the fraternity, but you will be respected by the men and the management, you will live longer, and you will be happier while you live. THE END. rRINTBU BY WILLIAM CXOVVKS AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLKS. b. )thers c of a show nooth iquor, led as u will t, you e you ^^^^i:^:^:^^^^::;^:?:^ Lst^i, 18974 LIST OF BOOKS PUBLISHED BY CHATTO & WINDUS III ST.MARTiN'S LANE, CHARING CROSS, LONDON, W.C. About (Euniond).~-The Fellah: An Egyptian Novel. Translated by Sir KANUAL KOUBRTS. Fosi Bvo, illusUated boardi, u. Adams (W. Davenport), Works by. 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The Shadow of a Orlm*. I Th* Deenutcr, A Bon of Hagar. By ANNE COATES. Bi*'( Diary. _ By MACLAREN COBBAN. Th* Bed Bnlten. I Th* Borden of IiabiL By WILKIB COLLINS Amadal*. | Aft*rDark. HttNam*. lAntonlna BaiU. I Hid* and Seek. Th* Dead Secret. Queen of Heart*. My MliceUaniei. Th* Woman In Whit*. Th* Moonston*. Man and WIf*. row Miss Finch. insicrltrs.t Th* Hew MMdalsa. f h* FroscB Dm*. TheTwoDeitlttie*. The Law and the Lady. The Haunted Hotel. The Fallen Leavea. Jazeb*!'* Daughter. Tha Black Robe. Heart and Sdanc*. ■ I Say No.- UtUe Novell. Th* Evil 0*nlM. Th* Legacy of Oaia. ARogu*'*Uf*. Blind hoye. By MORT. & FRANCES COLLINS. Tranimlgratlon. 1 From Midnight to Mid. Blackimith A Scholar. night. Th* VlUag* Comedy. | Tou Play m* Fall*. By B. H. COOPER. flaoSory Hamilton. By V. CECIL COTES. Two Olrls on a Barge. By C. EGBERT CRADDOCK. His Taniihed Star. By H. N. CRBLLIN. Bomaacei 01 the 01 J Seraglio. By MATT CRIM. Tha Adventnrei of a Fair Rebel. By S. R. CROCKETT and others. 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Ona by On*. I Ropee of Band. A Dog and hii Siiadow. Jack Doyle's Daughter, A R*al Qn**n. I Prefaced by Sir BARTLB FKERE. Paadurang Hart. BY EDWARD QARRETT. Th* Oap*l Oirls. By PAUL QAULOT. Th* B*d BhirU. By CHARLES QIBBON. Bobin Gray. I Of High Degree. Loving a Dream. I The Golden Shaft, By B. QLANVILLB. The Lost Halrau. 1 The Golden Rook. A Fair ColonUt, I Talc* from th* Veldt The Foulcker. I By B. J. GOODMAN. The Fate of H*rb«rt Wayo*. By Rev. S. BARINQ QOULO. R*d Spider. I Ev*. By CECIL QRIPFITH. 0or(9t^a llarasion. aS CHATTO & WINDUS, in St. Thb Piccadillv(i/6) Novels— foii/iiiKfi/. By SYDNI-Y QRUNDY. Tha Daji of hli Vanltr. By OWEN MALL. Tbe Track of • Storm. | Jetaam. By THOMAS HARDY. Undtr tb* Oresnwood Tr«*. By BRUT HARTE. A Prot<'g«« el Jkck Ha.nlln •. OUrenca. Marker I Luck. Devil « Ford, [calafor.' Tha Cruiadi of tha ' Ex- Three P»rtner». AWairoftha A Ward o( tha Ooldan Oata, IBprlngi. A Bappho of Oraen Col. Btarbottle ■ Client. Biuy. I 8all7 Oowi. BeU'Blngar of Angal'a. By JULIAN HAWTHORNE. Oarth. ElUca qnantla. Behaitian Btroma. Dait. Fortuna'i Fool. By Sir A Ivan da Blroa. By Agatha Page. By a K^job tha Juggler. Dorotby'i Double. By JOHN HILL. Tke Oonnnon Anc««tor, By Mrs. HUNQERPORD. Beatrix Randolph. David Folndoxter'i Dl» appearand. The Spectra o( the Camera. HE LI'S. HENDERSON. A. HENTY. I Tha Quean'i Ouy, Nora Oralna. An Anxloui Momant. April 1 ;. tdy. Patar'a Wife. Lady Verner'a Flight. Tha Red Houia Myitery Tha Three Oracea. ProfeMor'B Ezperlmeat A Point of Oooicl;' Ilea. By Mr». ALFRED HUNT. The teadan Caiket. I Self Condemned. That Other Prrion. Mra. Juliet By C. J. CUTCLIFFE HVNE. Honour of Thlayai. By R. ASHE KINQ. A Drawn Sana. By EDMOND LBPELLBTIER. Madame Bani O^na. By HARRY LINDSAY. Rhoda Xoberti. By HENRY W. LUCY. Qldeon Flevce. By B. LYNN LINTON. Patricia Kemball Under which LordT ' My Love 1 ■ | lona, Paaton Oaraw. Bowing the Wind. The Atonement of team Dundai. The World WeU Lcit. The Oni Too Many. Dulcle Everton. By JUSTIN McCarthy. A Fair Saxon. Llnley Bochford. Dear Lady Dlidata. Camlola Waterdale Ralghbonri, BIy Enemy'B Daughter. Uui Hltaothrope. Donna Quixote. Maid of Athens. The Comet of a Seaion. The Dictator. Red Dlamoudf. The Riddle King. T' a Three Oligracet. By JUSTIN H. MCCARTHY A London Legend. I The Royal Ohrlatopher. By OEORQE MACDONALD. Heather and Enow. | Fhantaates. By L. T. MEADB. A Soldier of Fortune. I The Voice of the lo an IruQ Grip. I Charmer. Uy L. T. MEADE and CLIFI'ORD HALIFAX, M.D. Dr. Rumiay'a Patient. By LEONARD MERRICK. Tbli Stage of Foolg. | Cynthta. By BERTRAM MITFORD. Tha Onn Runner. I The Klng'i Aisagal. The Luck of Qerard Renihaw Fannlng'i Rldgalay. Queit. By J. E. MUDDOCK. Maid Harlan and Robin Hood. BaiUa the Jertar, | Young LocblnrMr, Martin's Lane, Londrtn, W.C. By I). CHRIS fin MURRAV. A Life • Atonement. Joieph • Coat, Coale of Fire. Old Blazer a Hero. Val Strange. I Uaarti. A Model Father. By the Gate of the Sea. A Bit of Human Nature. 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The Myitery of Mir- By Proxv. [bridge. The Oanon'i Ward. Walter a Word. High Spirits. Under One Roof. Qlowworm Tales. Tha Talk of tha Towa. Holiday Taaka. For Cash Only. Tha Burnt Million. Tha Word and tha WUL Bunny Stories. A Trying Patient. By WILL PAYNE. Jerry tha Dreamer. By Mrs. CAMPIJRI.L PRAED. Outlaw and Lawmaker. I Mi a. Tregaiklsi. CUrlsttna Chard. | By E. C. PRICE. Valenttna. | Forelgnera. I Mra. Lancaster^ Rival. By RICHARD PRYCE. Mlas Maxwell's ASectiona. By CHARLES READB. Fez Woflliigton ; and 'Love Me Little, Lot* Chrlatle Johnstons. — - Hard Cash. Cloiater dt tha Hearth. Never Too Late to Mend The Conraa of Trus Love Never Did Run Smooth ; and Single- heart aiidDoublefacs. Autobiography of a Tlilef; Jack of all Trades ; A Hero and a Martyr ; and Tha Wandering Heir, Qrimth 3aunt, Me Long. The Double Marriage. Foul Play. Put Yourself lo His PUce. A Terrible Temptation. A Simpleton. A Woin.in Hater. The Jilt, >t: othcrStorics ; & Qood Storiea of Man and other Animals. A Perilous Secret. Re.Tdlana; and Blbl* Characters. By Mrs, J. H. RIODELL. Weird Stories. By AMELIE RIVES. Barbara Dering. 3y P. W. ROBINSON. The Hands of Justice. | Woman in the Dark. By DORA RUSSELL. A Country Bwaetbeort. | The DrUt of Fat*. Ti Ke In On A' Bo< Th- H An A ] Ott] Boi Ma Old The Dr. Wl( Tha Lon A I Tba AF( Tha Mae Tob Dor The Tha Tha Pros Thai Frai Art) Tha Can Bro< Mal( Blin Phil Strc Bab For tn a The The The Fhr Fett Lltt Beti Tha U( FoL Lies Bon CHATTO & WINDUS. iii St. Martin'* Lane. London. W.C. lAED. Thb Piccadiixv (vfi) Novri.R— fo« 8ik. The Plmntnm Denth. Il He the Man 7 Oood Ship Mohock.' The Convir-t Hhlp. Heart of Oak. The Tele of the Teii The Laat Entry, ST. JOHN. Rannt t6e Sailer Plre. In the Middle Watch. On th* Fokili Head. A Vojrace to the Cap*. Book for the Bammock. Myiteryof 'Ocean Iter' The Romanc* of Jenny Rarlowe. An Ocean Tt^ndy. By flAYLE A Lerantlne Family. Uy JOHN SAUNDERS, any Waterman. J The Two Oreameri. Bound to the Wheel. | Thu Lion In the Path. Hy KATHARINI2 SAUNOIiRS. Mari;aret and Elizabeth I Hrart Salvage, Oldeona Rorlt. Bcbaetlan. The HUh Mi lie. I Uy ADELINE SERGEANT. rr. Bndfcott I Experiment. Uy hawli:y smart. Wlthont Lotre or Licence. I The Outsider. Tho Maiter of Ratbkelly, Beatrice ft Benedick. Lonf fHiM. I A Racing Rubber. By T. W. SPEIGHT. A Beerat of (ho Sea. I TheMaeterof Treneno*. Tho Orey Monk. | A Minion or the Moon. By ALAN ST. AUBYN. By FRANCES E. TROI.LOPE. Like Sbipe upon the { tnne Fiirnnii. Sea. I Mabel ■ Piutrreis. By IVAN TURUENIUFI", &c. Storlei from Fo.eign Novellete. By MARK TWAIN. In Face of the World. Orchard Damer»I. The Tremlelt Diamondi. A rallow of Trinity. The Jiulor Dean. Matter of Bt.Benedlct'i, To Ui Own Muter. By JOHN STAFFORD. Dorli and I. By RICCARDO STEPHENS. The Oruclform Mark. By R. A. STERNDALE. Th* Affhan Knife. By R. LOUIS STEVENSON. The Butcid* Olub. By BERTHA THOMAS. Proud Maiile. j T\j Violin Player. By ANTHOr;V TROLLOPE. The Way we Uvr- Nor. I tkarLoroaphe Family. Fran Frohcanr. \ The Land LeaKueva. Tom SAK'ver Detectly*. PiKliI nhrad Wtlaon. The Olldeil ^ge. Prince and the Penrer. Life on the MlMxiflBlppl, The Adventurri of Huclileberrv Finn. A Yankee at the Court of King Arthur. Btolen White Elephant, i £1.000 0.« Banknote. Hark Twain • Choice Work a. Mark Twain'! Library of Humour. The Innocenta Abroad. Ronrhlng It ; .nnd The Innocent! at Home. A Tramp Abroad. TheAmerlcan Claimant. Adventur.iTomSawyer Tom Sawyer Abroad. By C. C. FRASER-TYTLER. MlitrcM Judith. By SARAH TYTLER. Lady Bell. 1 The Maodonild LaM. Burlprt Dlamon Children. By MARGARET WYNMAN. My FUitationa. By B. ZOLA. The Downfall. The Fat and the Tbtn. The Dream. Hli Excellency. Dr. Faecal, The Dram Skop. Money. I Leordei. Rome. l Farti. By 'Z. Z.' A Nineteenth Century Miracle. CHEAP EDITIONS OF POPULAR NOVELS. By ARTEMUS Arttmnt Ward Complete. By EDMOND ABOUT. The Fellah. By HAMILTON AIDE. Carr of Carrlyon. | Conlldencet, By MARY ALBERT. Brooke Flnchley e Dauphter. By Mrs. ALEXANDER. Maid. Wife or Widowt | Valerie i Fata, Blind Fate. By GRANT ALLEN Po<;t Svo, illustraic WARD. Phillttla. Strange Storlei. Babvlon. For Maimle'e Sak*. In all iihadei. The EeckonlnR Hand. Tho Devti's Die. The Tents of Shorn. By E. LESTER ARNOLD. Phra the Phoenician. BY FRANK BARRETT, The Qreat Taboo. Dumare.«q t DauRhter. Ducheas (m, Link hv Link Sttiplclon ArooMd. Dark Deedi. Riddlei Read. By DICK The Han-Hnnter. Tracked and Taken. Canght at Laet I Wanted t Who Foleontd Hetty Duncan T Man from Manchester. A Detective's Trlamphs The Mystery of Jamaica Terrace. By Mrs. ANNIE EDWARDBS. A Point of Honour. | Archie Lovell. By M. BETHAM-BDWARDS. Fellda. I Kitty. By EDWARD EQQLBSTON. Boxy, By O. MANVILLB FENN. The New Mistress. I The Tiger Lily. Witness to the Deed. | The White Vlrgla. FITZGERALD. By PERCY Bella Donna. Never Forgottea. Polly. Fatal Zero. Second Mrs. Tiliotson. Seventy ■ live Brooke Street. The Lady of Braatom* By P. PITZQERALD and others. strange Secrets. By ALBANY DE FONBLANQUB. Filthy Lucre. By R. e. FRANCILLON. King or Knave T Romances of the Law. Ropes of Sand. A Dog and hli Shadow. FREDERIC. Olympla. One by One, A Real Queen. Quee:i Cophetoa. By HAROLD Seth's Brother's Wife. I The Lawton Girl Prefaced by Sir BARTLB FRBRB. Pandarang Hari. By HAIN FRISWBLL. One of Two. By EDWARD QARRETT. The Capel Girls. By GILBERT QAUL. A Strange Manuscript. By CHARLES GIBBON. Robin Gray, Fancy Free. For Lack of Gold. What wlU World Bay t In Love and War. For the King. In Pattnres Green. Qneen of the Meadow, A Heart's Problem. The Dead Heart. In Honour Bound. Flower of the Forest The Braes of Tarrow. The Golden Shaft. Of High Degree. By Mead and Streaa. Loving a Dream. A Hard Knot. Heart's Delight. Blood-Money, By WILLIAM GILBERT. Dr. Anstin's Quests. I The Wizard of th* James Duke. | Mountain. By ERNEST GLANVILLB. The Lost Heiress, I The Fossicker, A Fair Colonist. | By Rev. S. BARING GOULD Red Spider. I Eve. By HENRY GREVILLB. A Hobl* Woman. | NIkanor. By CECIL GRIFFITH. Corlnthla Marazlon. By SYDNEY GRUNDY. The Days of his Vanity. By JOHN HABBERTON. Bmeton s Bavoo. | Country Luck. By ANDREW HALLIDAY. Every day Papers. By Lady DUPFUS HARDY. Fanl Wynter's Sacrlllca, By THOMAS HARDY. Under the Greenwood Tree, By J. BERWICK HARWOOD. The Tenth Eui. T. Oai BU Foi Mij ■el Dm Iva »«J AI Zaa Tre The The Twl Al InC Mai AM AH Thoi Tha rat4 My The 0*1< AD •Th Si Ma( The Pati The Vnd Pan IMJ XoBt •idi Dea Wal 5f! Unl Mr. Hm *•£ n* At CMATTO et WIWDL'S. in 8L Wttrtlft'i Uae. Loadda, W.C. ji of at TwO-SRILLtMO N0V«L8— eOH/»»«'i Ufie, Ldfldon, W.& Two-SuiLLiNO Hovei.s— continued. By JAMBS PAYN. Bcntlnck'i Tutor. — llDrphT'i MuUr. A County Ttmliy, At Her Mercy. CecU'i Tryit. The Clyff&rdi of Clyffe. Tlu) Faster Brother!. Found Dead. The Beet of Hnibuid*. Walter'! Word Balvei. Fallen Fortune!. Humoroua Storlei. £200 Reward. A Marine KeildMO*. Mirk Abbey By Proxy. Under One Roof, High Spirit!. Carlyon ■ Year. From Exile. Tut Cash Only, Kit. The Canon'i Ward. The Talk of the Tom. HoUday Tasks. A Perfect Treaaure. What He Coat Her. A Confidential Agont, Glowworm Talea. The Burnt Million. Bunny Btoriea. Lott Sir Massingberd. A Woman's VenKeance. The Family Bcapegraoe, OnrendoUne's Harvest. Like Father. Uke Bon. Married Beneath Him. Not Wooed, bat Won. Less Black than W«'M Painted. Bom* Private TIewi. > SrajH from a Thorn. The Hyetuy of 'Air- bridge. The Word and tb* V A Prince of the BI.k A Trying Patient. By CHARLES READB. It la Never Too Late to A Terrible Temptation. Foul Play. The Wandering Heir. HordCaah. Blngleheartand Donblo- face. Oood Storlei of Man and other Animals. Peg WofBngton. Orlffith Oaunt. A Periloua Secret. A Simpleton. Readiana. A Woman-Hater. H. RIDDELL. The Uninhabited Honse. The Mystery in Palace Gardens. The Run's Curie. Idle Tales. Mend. Christie Johnaton*. The Double Marriage. Put YouraeU In Hli Place Love Me Little, Lov* Me Long. The Cloiater and the Hearth. The Coarse of Trne Love. The Jilt. The Antoblograpby of a Thief. By Mr5. J. Weird Stories. Fairy Water. Her Motlier a Darling, The Prince of Wales's Qardeu Faity. By AMELIB RIVES. Sarbara Derlng. By F. W. ROBINSON. Women are Strange. | The Hands of Justio*. By JAMES RUNCIMAN. Skippers and Shellbacks. | Schools and Scholan. Grace Balmaign's Swertheart. By W. CLARK RUSSELL. Round^he Galley Fire. The Romance of Jenny Harlowe. An Ocean Tragedy. My Shipmate Loulae. Alone onWideWida Sra. The Good Ship 'Mo- hock.' The Phantom Death. RUSSELL. OntheFo'k'sle Head. In the Middle Watch. A Voyage to the Cape. A Book for the Ham- mock. The Mystery of the ■ Ocean Star.' By DORA A Country Sweetheart. By OEORQH AUGUSTUS SALA. OasUght and Daylight. By JOHN SAUNDERS. Guy Waterman. I The Lion in the Path. The Two Dreamers. I By KATHARINE SAUNDERS. Joan HerryweaUier. I Sebastian The High Blills. Margaret and Eliza- Heart Salvage. I beth. By qEORQB__R^ SIMS. The Btng o' Bells. Mary Jane's Memoirs, Mary Jane Married. Tales of To-day. Dramas of Lift. Tlnkletop's Crime. My Two Wives. Zeph. Memoirs ot a Landlady. Scenes from the Show, The 10 Oommandmenta. Dafonat Abroad. By J cf In By HAWLBY SMART. Without Love or Licenee. The Plunger. Beatrice and Benedick. By T. W. SPEIOHT. The Mysteries of Heron Dylie. The Golden Roop. Hoodwinked. By Devious Wajrs. By ALAN A Fellow of Trinity. The Junior Dean. Master of St. Benedict'! Back to Life. The LondwaterZra(«dy. Burgs'! Romance. Qnlttanoe in Pali. A Boilmnd from tli* 8*» ST. AUBV1«(. I To Hi! Own Master. Qroliard Damerel. I In tba rao* oftlieWM'Id. A Matcf In th» Diixk. By R. A. STBRNDALB. The Afghan Knife. By R. LOUIS STBVBNSON. Hew Arabian Nighta. By BBRTHA THOMAS. °' '■islda. I The Vioiin-Player. < ". Maisi*. I V WALTER THORNBURY. . M the Marines. | Old Stories Retold. Bv T. ADOLPHUS TROLLOPB. Die' >und Cut Diamond. By P. ELEANOR TROILOPflT Like Sliipi upon the I Anne Furness. Sea. I Mabel's Progress. By ANTHONY TROLLOPE /- F, an Frohmann. Marion Fay. , Kept in the Dark Jolin Caldigate. The Way We Live Row, The Land-Leaguers. The American Senator. Mr. Bcarborongli'! Family. OoldenLion of Qranpor* By J. T. TROWBRIDQB. Farnell's Folly. By iVAN TUROnNIEFP, &c Stories from Foreign Noveliita. By MARK TWAIN A Pleaanre Xrip on the Continent. The Gilded Age. Huckleberry Finn. MarkTwaln s Sketches. Tom Sawyer. A Tramp Abroad Stolen White EIruhsnt. By c. . :p.\ser-tytler. Mlstreu Jud Lira on the Ululasippt. The Prince and tne Pauper. A Yankee at the Courl of King Arthur. The £1,000,000 Bank Note. n TYTIER. The Huguenot Family. The Blaokhall Ghoata. What SheCameThrougb '^anty and the Beaat, f.'itoysnne Jaqueline. P ■ '--A »■: The Bt ide • : A«> Burled L'lv . ;. St. Mu:i V, -. . Lady Be.' Nobleaae Obli^j, Dlaappeared. ' By AL .^^' JPWARD. The Queen agalnal 0» -u. i j^rince of Balklstan. 'God Save the Queen 1' By AARON WATSON and LILLIAS WASSKRMANN. The Marqnia of Carabas. By WILLIAM Wi. TALL. Trust Money. By Mrs. F. H. WILLIAMSON. A Child Widow. By J. S. WINTER. Cavalry Life. | Regimental Legend*. By H. F. WOOD. The ?'. 'aenger from Scotland Yard. Ton liahman of the Rue Cain. By Lady WOOD. BacL. ' i !A PARKER WOOLLEY. ire '^ ; or I.ove .ind Thenlogy. Ly BUMUND YATBS. The Forlorn Hop*. 1 Castaway. Land at Last. I By I. ZANQWILL. abetto Tragedies, 0a9i,;«l tMALB KUl r^.\ LlMITIDi PUMTBMi QRBAT f 4rrilOII MILL) 1.01 RT. T. it. . «t«rTrag«dT- tmanc*. iaFnU. 1 from the 8m YN. I Mutw. Murtl. totth* World. lLB. I^SON. IAS. iFUytr. BURY. II K«told. iLLOPe. I.LOPft ntu. 'rogreu. LOPE. l-Leagnsrt. rlc»n Senator. U'borongli'i onofOrukpar* DOB. PP, &c IN. ,h« Hluiailppt. Inc* uut tna le »t the Court gr Arthur. .000,000 Bank YTLER. BR. tuenot Pftmlly. okhall Ohoeti. ieCuneThrou«h and the Beait. ne Jaquetlne. ARD. of BalUftan. »r Id LILLIAS N. lALL. lAMSON. "ER. ntal Legend*. )D. ard. In. >0. VOOLLEY. i Theology. ITES. '»y. LL. LL, 1,0.