The express messenger, and other tales of the rail

THE LIBRARY

OF

THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA

PRESENTED BY

PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND
MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID

THE EXPRESS MESSENGER

AND

OTHER TALES OF THE RAIL

THE EXPRESS MESSENGER

AND

flDtljer Caieg of t^e JRaii

BY

CY WARMAN

NEW YORK

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1897

Copyright, 1S07,
BY CHARLES SCRIBNEK'S SONS.

JHmbrrsitg
JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A.

TO

DANA CY WARMAN

WHOSE DIMPLED HANDS ARE KNOCKING AT MY DOOR

WHO STEALS INTO MY STUDY AND HINDERS

INTO MY HEART AND HELPS

CONTENTS

THE EXPRESS MESSENGER 3

THE LOCOMOTIVE THAT LOST HERSELF ... 41

A WILD NIGHT AT WOOD RIVER 71

WAKALONA 83

A LOCOMOTIVE AS A WAR CHARIOT .... 103

A GHOST TRAIN ILLUSION 119

THE STORY OF ENGINE 107 • *35

CATCHING A RUNAWAY ENGINE 153

A RAILWAY MAIL CLERK 161

THE MYSTERIOUS MESSAGE 177

SCRAPTOMANIA 22;

M315953

THE EXPRESS MESSENGER

roar and rumble of distant thunder had
been heard in the hills all the morning,
and along about noon a big black cloud came
creeping up over the crest of the continent
and listed a little, when a peak of one of the
hills caught the lower corner, ripped it open,
and let the water out. It did n't rain ; the
water simply fell out of the cloud, and went
rushing down the side of the mountain as it
rushes off the roof of a house in a hard April
shower.

The little fissures were filled first, then the
gorges, gullies, and rough ravines, and when
these emptied into the countless rills that ran
away toward the foot of the range, every rill
became a rushing river. Leaves and brush and
fallen trees were borne away on the breast of

THE EATRESS MESSENGER

the flood, that grew in volume and increased in
speed alarmingly. When all this water came
rushing down into the main canon, the song of
the stream that rippled there was hushed, the
bed of the creek was filled with big boulders
that had been rolled down by the flood, and
a great river went roaring toward the plain.
Up through this narrow, crooked canon a nar
row-gauge railroad ran to Silver Cliff. Silver
Cliff at one time had thirty thousand people,
then thirty hundred, and now not more than
thirty people live there, unless their business
compels them to do so. It produced some
silver, a sensational murder, one Congressman,
and petered out.

When the flood had gone a mile in the
main canon, and picked up eight or ten rail
road bridges and all the dead timber in the
gulch, it presented a rolling front twenty-five
feet high and reached from hill to hill.

Great spruce trees were uprooted, the track,
with the cross ties still hanging to the rails, was
ripped up, and the rails, bending like wire,
wound about the rolling de"bris and clogged the
canon. Then the welling flood would fill the

THE EXPRESS -MESSENGER

whole gorge, and roll on with such a mass of
bridge timber and fallen trees pushed in front of
it, that you could see no sign of water as the flood
bore down upon you, but only a tangled mass
of rails and ties and twisted trees. A couple
of prospectors heard the roar of it, and climbed
the canon wall just in time to save themselves,
while the little burros, with their packs on their
backs, went down to a watery grave. Next
came a long string of freight teams bringing
lumber down from a little mountain sawmill.
The rattle and noise of the heavy wagons made
it impossible for the freighters to hear the roar
of the flood, and, as they were coming down
the canon, they had their backs to it, and so
were overtaken in a narrow place. Some of
the men, leaping from their wagons, scrambled
up the steep hill out of the way of the water,
while others took to the tall trees, but when the
flood came, the stoutest trees in the gulch went
down like sunflowers in a cyclone's path, and
the luckless freighters mingled with the horses
and wagons and were washed away.

Fortunately for us, we were an hour late in
leaving the junction that day, and had not yet

THE EXPRESS MESSENGER

reached the narrow part of the canon. The
engineer had been watching the black cloud as
it came up over the range, and knew we were
due to run into a washout at any moment. The
very winds that came down the canon, fresh
and cool, seemed to have water in them. The
three day coaches were filled with a hetero
geneous herd pushing to the Cliff, which, like
many other camps, was then posing as "a
second Leadville." There were preachers and
play-actors, miners and merchants, cowboys
and confidence men ; and here and there gaunt-
faced girls with peachblow complexion and
wonderful hair, billed for the variety.

Up near the engine the express messenger
sat on a little iron safe. Upon either hip he
wore a heavy six-shooter, and across his lap lay
a Winchester rifle. He was as nearly contented
and happy as men may reasonably hope to be
on this earth. The refresh ing breeze that came
to him was sweet with the scent of summer.
The hills were green and his heart was glad.
But his heart was not in the hills. That very
Sunday morning he had given it into the keep
ing of the Warden's daughter as they walked

THE EXPRESS MESSENGER

without the walls of the gray prison down by
the junction. Almost within hearing of the
townspeople who passed up and down, to and
from the mineral springs that gushed from the
rocks at the entrance to the great canon, he
had told her the secret of his heart. The color,
coming to her face the while she heard the
tale, told him that she was listening. When
they had come to the corner of the wall, one
step beyond which would bring them into full
view of the Warden's residence, he had pressed
her for an answer. She could find no voice to
answer, but put out her hand as if she would
say good-by. He took it, and the touch of it
told him all he wished to know. Now he grew
so glad, thinking it all over, that he clasped his
hands together as a girl would do, and the
rifle, slipping from his lap, shot down into the
river that ran beside the track. The door at
his back, and next the canon wall, was closed
and barred. The opposite door, overlooking
the little river, was thrown wide open, and to
the messenger sitting there came the splash of
water and the smell of pine.

He remembered that the agent, running along-

THE EXPRESS MESSENGER

side of his car as he was leaving the junction,
had pointed to the iron safe and said : " Keep
your eye on the gun." The little safe held
$40,000 in paper, and over in one corner of
the car, in an old clay-stained ore sack, were
$10,000 in gold.

We were cutting across a little piece of high
ground in the bend of the river, when the awful
flood burst forth from the narrow canon just in
front of us. The engineer's first thought was
to back down and run away from the flood, but
the recollection that a double-headed freight
train was following us caused him to change his
mind. The trainmen hurried the passengers
all out, the messenger carried the mail and
express matter to a safe place, and every one
gazed in wonderment while the roaring flood
went by. The main force of it, following the
bed of the creek, hugged the opposite hill, but
none of our party was jealous. Broad as the
valley was here, it was soon filled, and the
water rose high enough to float the rear coach,
but the engine, being on higher ground, acted
as an anchor and held the train. In less than
five minutes the water had swept around and

THE EXPRESS MESSENGER

carried away the bridge which we had just
crossed, and there we were, on about three
hundred yards of track, and nothing before nor
behind us.

The freight train, having a clear track, backed
away to the junction, told the story of our dis
tress, and at midnight the company agent came
to the top of the canon with a white light, and
in a little while we were all taken out, and,
after tramping over a mountain trail for a half
hour, loaded into wagons and hauled back to
the junction.

II

" LET 's have a drink afore we go."
" Nary drink," said the dark man at the
head of the table, and one could see at a glance
that wherever he sat would be the head of the
table. " You promised me up in the gulch
that day that you 'd never get drunk again, an'
I promise you right now, Skinny, that if you
do you '11 never get sober, for I intend to have
you shot while yer happy."

Nobody replied to this. The man addressed
only glanced across the table, and then, drop-

10 THE EXPRESS MESSENGER

ping his eyes, brushed the ashes from his cigar
with the tip of his little finger. The man at
the speaker's right smiled quietly over at his
vis-a-vis, and then there was a silence for a
moment.

The freighter and the prospector, leaning on
the bar, paid no attention to the four men who
sat and smoked by the little pine table in a
dark corner of the log saloon. The "Lone
Spruce," as the place was called, had done a
rushing business in the boom days, but Ruby
Camp was dying, even as Silver Cliff, Gunnison,
and dozens of other camps have died since —
as Creede is dying to-day — and business was
slow. A drunken Ute reeled in and wanted to
play poker, shake dice, or shoot with any dog
of a white man in the place. When all the rest
had put him aside coldly he came over to the
corner, and the dark man, being deep in
thought and not wishing to be disturbed, arose,
and, picking his way between the two guns
which dangled from the hips of the noble red
man, kicked him along down the room and
out into the night.

Having done his duty in removing the red

THE EXPRESS MESSENGER II

nuisance — for he hated a drunkard — the dark
man bade the barkeeper good-night and passed
out by the back door. The three men at the
pine table followed him.

All this occurred in the last half of the
closing hour of the week. Thirty minutes later,
when the four mountaineers rode away from
the Black Bear Correl, it was Sunday, but the
people of Ruby Camp took no note of time.
When the sun came up on that beautiful Sun
day morning, it found the dark man and his
companions at the top of the range overlook
ing Wet Mountain Valley. Before they had
reached the foothills, the sun caught the two
threads of steel that stretched away across the
park and disappeared at the entrance of the
canon at the foot of the vale. All night they
had ridden single file, but now, as they entered
the broad valley, they bunched their horses and
conversed as they went along.

The dark man kept his eyes upon a barren
peak that stood at the foot of the valley, where
the railroad track, gliding smoothly over the
mesa, seemed to tumble into the canon as
swift Niagara tumbles over the falls. At that

12 THE EXPRESS MESSENGER

point the little party expected to dismount and
take the train for the Cliff. The leader, who
was able to read both print and writing, had
noticed a paragraph in the Denver " Tribune "
to the effect that the new Custer County Bank
would open for business at Silver Cliff on
July 10. He had been assured by his own
banker at Gunnison that the new institution
would be perfectly reliable, backed, as it was,
by the First National of Denver. Being a man
of good judgment, he reasoned that the neces
sary funds for the new bank would in all proba
bility leave Denver Saturday night, and go up
from the junction by the one daily train on
Sunday. That was why he wished to take the
train.

When they had crossed the valley and entered
the wilderness of pine and cedar, they began to
search for a side canon which would lead them
down to the main gulch. Having found a
proper ravine, they watered and grassed their
horses and had breakfast.

It was not yet noon, and the train, the dark
man made out from the time card which he
carried, would not leave the junction until

THE EXPRESS MESSENGER 13

2 P. M. It would probably be 3 or 3-15 when
it passed the mouth of the little rill upon which
they were encamped.

Having breakfasted and smoked, the men
stretched themselves upon the ground, all save
the dark man, and slept like tired children.

The leader, leaning against a moss-covered
spruce tree, watched a black storm that was
brewing in the hills to the north. Presently
he heard a sharp clap of thunder. In a few
minutes there came the roaring sound of a
waterfall, and the dark man knew that a cloud
had given way; but, as the main gulch was
between him and the storm, he gave the matter
no serious thought.

At last the hour arrived. The four men,
leaving their horses, descended to the main
gulch, only to find that there was no railroad
there. Skinny, still smarting from the effect of
the rather severe temperance lectures he* had
received the evening before, looked at the
leader and started to laugh, but the dark man
scowled and crushed him. He knew the coun
try and knew that the road had been there,
but was now washed away. A little way up the

14 7*77^ EXPRESS MESSENGER

canon they came to the torn end of the track,
and knew for a surety that no train would come
up the gulch that day.

The silent leader made no show of disap
pointment, but quietly dismissed his men and
watched them ride away toward the sunset,
with their broad hats tipped sidewise, and their
ever ready rifles resting across their saddles.
For himself he would have no rifle. " Only a
coward or bungler," he used to say, "will
carry a cannon to do the work of a forty-five."

When the others had passed out of sight, the
dark man reined his own horse down the canon,
intending, since he was so near, to visit his wife
at the junction. The recent washout had left
the bed of the gulch almost impassable, and it
was not until after midnight that the lone trav
eller came to the abandoned train, lying like a
living thing that had fallen asleep on its own
trail. Finding the express car locked, he
opened one of the doors with a coal pick which
he found on the engine. The little iron safe
was securely locked. Having removed all the
explosives from the car, this experienced moun
taineer quietly blew up the safe with a few

THE EXPRESS MESSENGER

sticks of dynamite, but there was no money in
it. By the light of the engineer's torch he
managed to read a letter that had been left
there by the messenger, and which was ad
dressed to the express agent. As the explorer
finished reading it he gave a low, soft whistle of
surprise, not much above a whisper, for he was
an undemonstrative man.

From the car he returned to the engine, and
with the clinker hook fished an old clay-stained
ore sack out of the tank. When he had cached
the sack in the bed of the river, he hurried away
in the direction of the junction, urging his
horse over the rough ground as though he were
bent upon a new and important mission.

. in

THERE was great excitement when we arrived
at the junction without the express messenger,
who acted as postal clerk as well.

When the local express agent learned that
the messenger was not with the rescued party,
that the conductor had been unable to find
him, and that no one could remember having

1 6 THE EXPRESS MESSENGER

seen him since we stopped, and he was seen
heading for the high land with his register pouch
and some packages of express matter bearing
red seals, he began to wire in all directions.
In a little while mounted men were dashing
out toward the hills, so as to be ready to take
the trail at dawn.

It was plain enough, the agent argued, that
the messenger had taken advantage of the
circumstances, and cleared out with the wealth
in his possession. A thousand dollars reward
was offered for the capture of the messenger.

A deputy Sheriff made up a posse of four,
including himself, and put out for the scene of
the robbery. They were among the first to leave
town, and as they all knew the country, were
soon upon the ground where the open and empty
safe left little to be explained. The safe, they
argued, had been blown up by the messenger
for a blind, but they would not be fooled.

The messenger, it would seem, had remained
in the vicinity of the washout until the train
was abandoned, and then set out upon a long
tramp through the trackless hills. He knew
the packages that were most valuable, and with

THE EXPRESS MESSENGER" 17

these he filled his pockets. The gold he must
leave, for the journey would be a tiresome one.
The country, which was new to him, was ex
tremely rough.

At times he found himself at the bottom of
a deep gorge, and again at the top of a steep
bluff, and saw before him a black and appar
ently bottomless abyss. There 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 gray cloud hung like a heavy fog on
the hills and shut out all the light from the
heavens and obscured the earth. Instead of
waiting for the mists to clear away, he kept on
going and was soon hopelessly 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 walking
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

iS THE EXPRESS MESSENGER

huge rock to rest. As he sat there, he thought
he heard a sound like that produced by horses
stepping about 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 in
sisted 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 '11 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

THE EXPRESS MESSENGER 19

been sitting bare headed, and that gave him
the bunchy look of a bear, but when he stood
up and clapped his bell-topped cap 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."

" Hold," said the Sheriff; " we must give
him a show to surrender."

When the four men had swung their guns
into position, the Sheriff commanded the mes
senger to throw up his hands. Instead of
obeying, 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 spot where the messenger had stood, there
was no messenger nor sign of messenger. An
ticipating 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

20 THE EXPRESS MESSENGER

the crest of the hill and recovered from their
surprise, the messenger was far up the moun
tain hiding among 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 gray dawn came out of the east
and revealed the peaks 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. De
lay was dangerous. The coming of dawn
meant death. The whispering winds, hurrying
away up the hill, reminded him of the approach
of day.

THE EXPRESS MESSENGER 21

His only hope was in reaching a point be
yond 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 depu
ties, 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 messen
ger'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 bound
ing away, dragging his rider, head down, over
the jagged rocks. The maddened animal ap
peared to be blind with rage. He crashed
through a low, broad cedar, and a moment later

22 THE EXPRESS MESSENGER

leaped over a precipice and went rolling down
the splintered side of a deep gorge ; and when
the Sheriff and his companions 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 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
in refilling one of his pistols when he was sur-

THE EXPRESS MESSENGER 23

prised by the sound of a gun almost directly
behind him, and not ten feet away. He turned
his revolver upon the newcomer, only to find
that the man was aiming at the deputies.
Without a word he turned again to the work
in hand, and at the next crack of the stranger's
pistol saw the left arm of the Sheriff fall limp
at his side, while the Winchester it was levelling
fell to the ground. " Now, damn you, fight
fair," shouted the stranger advancing. Follow
ing the fearless example of this man who had
so unexpectedly reinforced him, the messenger
came from shelter and began to advance upon
his assailants. One of the horses was hit by a
bullet and became almost unmanageable, 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 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

24 THE EXPRESS MESSENGER

wounded Sheriff and his bleeding companion
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 opened the messenger's shirt
(and he did it as deliberately as he had kicked
the Ute from the Lone Spruce saloon), exam
ined the shattered shoulder and then the broken
ankle, and asked, " Is that all ? "

" Yes," said the wounded man ; " is n't that
enough? "

" Not if they meant to kill you, for they
have n't found your vitals. What a lot of farm
ers to go shootin' a man in the foot — guess
they wanted you to dance. That top scratch
was n'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

THE EXPRESS MESSENGER 25

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.

"My God," said the messenger, "are you
shot there?"

" Yes — that was n't a bad shot, only on the
wrong side."

" But why don'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 excite
ment 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 and the money, too. But who are you, and
how did you happen to be here?" asked the
messenger eagerly.

26 THE EXPRESS MESSENGER

" 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
messenger remarked as he picked up his empty
gun and began to kick the shell out. " Hope
that was old Huerfano himself that went over
the bluff."

"The devil you do."

" Say ! are you bleeding inside ? " asked the
messenger, as his companion sank to the ground
with the air of a tired man.

" I reckon so. Can you set a hoss? "

" 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
now, 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

THE EXPRESS MESSENGER 2J

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 '11 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 dark 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 tak
ing her regular morning ride in the foothills.
There were no daily papers to spread the news
of the place, and she had heard nothing of the

28 THE EXPRESS MESSENGER

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 awak
ened 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 confused
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."

THE EXPRESS MESSENGER 2<)

" Yes, " said the Sheriff, " we made a mis
take 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 com
panions.

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 what she had heard. " In an hour
the whole town will be after him," — she re
peated 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 prayer 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 foot
hills, unable to find the correct pass. Her horse

30 THE EXPRESS MESSENGER

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 be
hind her. Presently she came to the dead
deputy and his horse, but the sight did not ap
pall her. Nothing could stop her now. Even
in the presence of these silent witnesses — the
horse and rider slain by the messenger — she
was able still to believe in his innocence. 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 hope of getting her horse beyond the
ghastly dead, she leaped to the ground and con
tinued on foot. The horse, having been trained
to follow her as a faithful dog follows his master,

THE EXPRESS MESSENGER 31

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 canon 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 wagons 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 be
ing 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

32 THE EXPRESS MESSENGER

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 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 won
dering 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.

THE EXPRESS MESSENGER 33

"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 canon 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 over 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." But the messenger appeared to
be utterly unable to answer or even to compre
hend her meaning.

She stood up and glanced toward the canon.

" He 's all right, gal — you 've made no mis
take," said the stranger.

"He saved my life," said the messenger,
pointing to his companion. " Why don't you
thank him ? "

34 THE EXPRESS MESSENGER

"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 smel
ter — she 's my wife ; you '11 find her ; and if
you '11 take the trouble to be kind to her I shall
die in your debt and remain so, so long as
I 'in 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 be
ginning to swarm from the canon.

"Are you mad? " shouted the Warden.

"Drop that gun," cried a 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.

THE EXPRESS MESSENGER 35

"Drop that gun," repeated the Sheriff. A
cowboy shied a rope at the dark man, but he
dodged it.

" One minute," said he, opening his shirt
and showing his death wound, " you '11 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 prin
cipal 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 '11 find where I cached it in the river oppo
site 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

36 THE EXPRESS MESSENGER

own wounds and the dead man down in the
gulch will show you."

The messenger, having regained conscious
ness, sat up and looked wildly about. The
agent, realizing at a glance what an awful mis
take had been made, fell upon the bewildered
messenger and wept like a woman. Every pass
ing second added to the general confusion and
excitement. Cries of " Hang them, hang them,"
came frequent and fast from the rapidly increas
ing 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.

" I don't believe it," said the Sheriff to his
companion.

" 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

THE EXPRESS MESSENGER 37

though it had been a sword with which he in
tended to run him through. When he was
within four or five feet of the wounded man, the
dark man struck 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 forward upon his face.

When they turned him over he was dead.

" My poor dead friend," the messenger al
most moaned, dragging himself toward the
prostrate form, " and I don't even know his
name."

" 1 do," said Sheriff Shone, who had just ar
rived upon the scene and pushed through the
crowd. " It 's Huerfano Bill, the bandit."

JLocomotite tljac

THE LOCOMOTIVE THAT LOST
HERSELF

T^NGINE 13 had been designed by a genius
who 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 not been, his design
would never have been accepted by the super
intendent of motive power and machinery. He
claimed that his new locomotive would steam
better, pull harder, and run faster than any
engine on the K. P. She was so constructed
that she could run farther 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

42 THE LOCOMOTIVE THA T LOST HERSELF

" catch " by the engineers of the Smoky-Hill
division. The genius who designed her had
been sejit East to the locomotive works, to
superintend her construction ; and long before
the engine was completed, the mechanics em
ployed upon her had arrived at the conclusion
that the Western engineer was as crazy as a
jack snipe.

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 contemplation
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-colored whiskers.

THE LOCOMOTIVE THA T LOST HERSELF 43

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 life
time. 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 lim
bered 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 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,

44 THE LOCOMOTIVE THAT LOST HERSELF

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 '11 run her my-

THE LOCOMOTIVE THAT LOST HERSELF 45

self, and I '11 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.

The train to which the 1 3 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
without 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

46 THE LOCOMOTIVE THAT LOST HERS EL I'"

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 such sprays of sparks came
from the drivers that they looked like living
flames.

Pushing Hansen and the fireman out of his
way, the engineer opened both injectors ; and
what with the cold water going in and the fire
going out, the mad machine 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-

THE LOCOMOTIVE THAT LOST HERSELF 47

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 re
fused 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 1 3
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

48 THE LOCOMOTIVE THAT LOST HERSELF

or gave him no attention at all. He rarely
washed now ; his yellow beard was dark with
coal dust, and his death-hued 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 in
ventor must not be allowed to go out on the
engine, which was to take out the fast freight, a
night run of some 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 foreman told him, as kindly as
he could, that no one would be allowed in the
cab of the 13 except the engineer and the fire
man, 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 chiefs desk, and informed the
head of the motive power department that
engine 1 3 would not go out on freight ; that

THE LOCOMOTIVE THAT LOST HERSELF 49

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
with the man, whom, up to now, he had avoided
or humored ; 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. Han-
sen raved like a madman, and all the clerks in
the office were unable to 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 fur
rows clown his face. It was not until the special
officer came with handcuffs that Hansen could
be controlled ; and as the 1 3 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

50 THE LOCOMOTIVE THAT LOST HERSELF

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 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

THE LOCOMOTIVE THAT LOST HERSELF 51

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 sent 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

52 THE LOCOMOTIVE THAT LOST HERSELF

the fast freight and 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 opened the switch at the farther end
of the siding to allow the 13 to go into the
ditch beyond the depot.

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. What
ever of speed he had lost by losing fire and
wasting steam, he now regained on the down
ward 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 depot,
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 the

THE LOCOMOTIVE THAT LOST HERSELF 53

roof of the low station, the roof was blown away
by the explosion, and Hansen was carried out
into the prairie. The special engine and crew
that followed upon her blazing trail found the
13 buried 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 farmers along the line, before
Hansen was able to walk out in the garden back
of the company's hospital. It seemed to him,
he said, that he had been ill all his life, and that
all he knew was the short life he had lived in
the 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 attend
ant 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
forgotten. What 's my other name, Oscar what ? "

54 THE LOCOMOTIVE THAT LOST HERSELF

The attendant was about to reply when the
surgeon, entering, gave sign Jor the man to be
quiet. " Restless," 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-sound
ing 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 im
proved rapidly enough now, but his mental con
dition continued 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, thinking, 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 one day, when the latter had
trailed him down in the garden.

THE LOCOMOTIVE THAT LOST HERSELF 55

" 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 one 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 will 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 ? Dot vos it.
Doc sais you must not told a man vat is crazy
dot he been crazy, for dot makes him some
times still more crazy yet again already. Dot
is it. So I vill not say anoder veard from
you."

Oscar thought a great deal over his conver
sation 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,

56 THE LOCOMOTIVE THAT LOST HERSELF

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
grapevines that grew 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 locomo
tives 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 off at an eating-station, and the
boarding boss took care of him. He said his

THE LOCOMOTIVE THAT LOST HERSELF 57

name was Oscar Reslis; and when he was
strong enough to work he was put into the
kitchen as dishwasher. 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 eccen
tricities 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 locomo
tive 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 an engineer
asked to be allowed to run her. After she had
been broken in again, and the travelling engi
neer 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

58 THE LOCOMOTIVE THA T LOST HERSELF

number of minor accidents were charged up to
her in the conductor'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 experi
enced engineers, but she made the same bad
record, if not a worse one ; and neither engi
neer 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 trainmen. 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 fol
lowed up by a machine-shop to keep her on
her wheels.

In time she came to be the talk of the whole

THE LOCOMOTIVE THAT LOST HERSELF 59

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 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 engi
neer 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 ex
pert 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 under
stand. He believed in the transmigration of
souls. Where he had lived, he said, he had
been deeply wronged and persecuted. He had

60 THE LOCOMOTIVE THAT LOST HERSELF

passed through a great sorrow, and to his ac
quaintances it seemed that he had been puri
fied 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 preach
ing. "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 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."

THE LOCOMOTIVE THAT LOST HERSELF 6 1

Suddenly there came through the open win
dows 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, and 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
yard men 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 permission 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.

62 THE LOCOMOTIVE THAT LOST HERSELF

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 pas
senger 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 bare-headed 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 locomo
tive, 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

THE LOCOMOTIVE THAT LOST HERSELF 63

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 did n'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.

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

64 THE LOCOMOTIVE TffA T LOST HERSELF

the man, glancing along the boiler and up at
the stack.

The engine began to roll and plunge fear
fully 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 lookout, 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 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.

THE LOCOMOTIVE THAT LOST HERSELF 65

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 to
gether, 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 clear water — was rip
pling through and around the wreck ; but the
locomotive was gone, and so was her driver,
and so was the Dane. The men stared at

66 THE LOCOMOTIVE THAT LOST HERSELF

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 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 run
ning 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 explained
away the smoke they had seen, and made it
plain to the crew of the work-train that their
engine had not escaped, but that she was some
where in the quicksand of the little stream.
It was some time before the crew and the pas
sengers of the express could bring themselves to
believe the story told by the bewildered freight
crew. They went down into the stream, waded

• THE LOCOMOTIVE THAT LOST HERSELF 67

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 had been ex
pended they gave it up. The lost locomotive
has never been found.1

1 The following letters, recently received by the
author, will be of interest to the reader : —

Office of the General Superintendent.

UNION PACIFIC RAILWAY COMPANY,

DENVER, COLORADO, March i, 1896.
CY WARMAN, Esq., Washington, D. C.

The lost locomotive of which you inquire went down
in Sand Creek, a few hours' run east of Denver ; and

68 THE LOCOMOTIVE THAT LOST HERSELF

although thousands of dollars have been expended by
the company, the engine has never been found.

Respectfully yours,
W. A. DEUEL, General Supt., U. P. Ry.

THE DENVER AND Rio GRANDB 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 of the D. 6° R. G. RR.

21 OTilD jliigtit at OTooU Mtfcer

A WILD NIGHT AT WOOD RIVER

" T^EEP that kid quiet," said Bankers in a
hoarse whisper.

" I 'm doing the best I can," said his wife,
trying to hush the little one who was sobbing
and moaning in her lap. In the baby's milk
wagon a bitter fight was going on between pare
goric 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 un
less you are ready to give up your chignon,"
said Bankers, without taking his eyes from the
crack through which he was peeping. Emma

72 A WILD NIGHT A T WOOD RIVER

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 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 armfuls of straw upon the floor.
Occasionally Bankers turned to glance at the
two women who were crouching 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

A WILD NIGHT A T WOOD RIVER 73

heads that formed a half circle around the
house like a feather boa about a woman's neck.
Half the band dismounted and made a rush for
the cottage. The door was broken, and the
red devils swarmed in. One of them took a
newspaper and lighted it at the open fireplace
to make a torch, and by the light of it the little
party in the stock car could see the Sioux run
ning, half crouching, from room to room, in
search of the occupants. Finding the place
deserted, and smarting under their disappoint
ment, 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 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

74 A WILD NIGHT AT WOOD RIl'ER

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 -calibre 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 be
hind the little iron safe, was still unhurt. An
Indian brought a torch from the burning cot
tage 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 ! " said an old buck, as
his rifle found something soft in one of the cars,
and Bankers felt a hurt in his short ribs. Lay
ing 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

A WILD NIGHT AT WOOD RIVER 75

attract a dozen redskins, against whom he could
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 straight
ened up when Bankers' s rifle barrel fell across
his feathered head, and he dropped like a beef.
The schoolma'am uttered a faint scream, and
that was the last sound that came from her
corner for some time. The Sioux never moved
a finger, and Bankers, having removed the war
rior's firearms and ammunition, gave the gun
over to his wife, and then covered the dead
Sioux with straw. Already the little frame
cottage had burned to the ground, and the rain
had nearly quenched the fire. Every attempt
made by the band to fire the station had ended

76 A U'lLD NIGHT AT H'OOD RIVER

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 agent sold his life so
bravely and so dearly to the Sioux, but there
were his wife and baby and the helpless school-
ma'am, who had been persuaded by the Bank-
erses to come to this wild region, and he felt it
his duty to protect them as best he could.
Presently Bankers felt the stock car vibrate per
ceptibly, as though it were being rolled slowly
along the rail. His first thought 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 ap
proaching train, and an instant later a great
dark object hove in sight and rolled past the
car. It was a locomotive 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.

A WILD NIGHT AT WOOD RIVER 77

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 Government
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 reen-
forcements were 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 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 sisrht

78 A IYJLD NIGHT AT H'OOD RIl'ER

of the house in ashes made him sick at heart,
but there was still hope ; they might have taken
refuge in the station, and, facing about, the
fearless conductor fought his way to the door.
By this time the Sioux were giving all their
attention 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,

A WILD NIGHT AT WOOD RIVER 79

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.

"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
friend, 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 con
ductor, 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

8o A WILD NIGHT A T WOOD RIVER

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 West
ern 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 tell
ing this story to me, and recalling the fact that
she had fainted in a stock car on that wild
night at Wood River.

OTafealona

WAKALONA

HpHE 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 mountain 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
gray, 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

84 WAKALONA

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 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 Mc-
Alaster, 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, grace
ful, willowy, and wild. It was a long while
before Slide, big, blonde, and handsome as he
was, could gain the confidence of the stately
princess. It was months before she would
allow him to walk with her, and even then the

WAKALONA 85

feathered head of a jealous buck could always
be seen peeping from the high grass and keep
ing 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 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 al
ways pause in her labors 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

86 WAKALONA

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 marvelously 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
did n'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 schoolma'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

WAKALONA 87

had learned to wait. As we pulled in over the
switches I glanced out into the field again,
feeling sorry for Slide and for his sweetheart as
well, but now she was nowhere to be seen.
When we had made the big brakeman comfort
able 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 sur
prised. 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,

88 WAKALONA

and when he straightened up he looked all
about him and said, ' Sioux.' I brought a
white light from the locomotive and, by the light
of it, the wily Indian 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 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

WAKALONA 89

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 knowing it, has been the means of mak
ing 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
Wakalona 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.

" 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 Wakalona.

90 WAKALONA

" How best to break the news to poor
McAlaster was a question over which I pon
dered 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 listened to a tale
such as I might tell, and I would 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 neighboring camp, the poor Prin
cess 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 expected 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

WAKALONA 91

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 misfor
tune 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 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 could n't make it out. CXily, she remem
bered that her teacher, the brakeman, had said
something about another world beyond the sky,
but he was still in this world and she was loath
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 : —

92 WAKALONA

1 When 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 and now must await another sunset.
She went down to the river and bathed her
face. Oh, the mystery of 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 toward the morning and would
carry her farther 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 she could not put out of her heart
the longing to live ; and, setting her face from

WAKALONA 93

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 earth, 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 pur
pose, a certain duty to perform, 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
quivering in the white glare of the noonday sun.
Away at the outer edge of this shipless sea,
the gray 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 re
member but dimly the events of the past ; and
so, half-dazed, she wandered on. Late in the
afternoon she came to a little station where

94 WAKALONA

there was a lone operator and a water tank.
The station agent gave her food and offered
her shelter, but she shook her head and asked
him where the river lay. The spectacle of
a woman wandering about half-crazed, half-
starved, and alone, was a sad one ; and the
operator, feeling his own utter loneliness, tried
to persuade her to stay. Pointing to the west,
she began to chant : —

' When 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, however, caused the agent to re
double his efforts to save the hapless maiden
from herself.

" After much coaxing he succeeded in get
ting her into his little room in the rear of the
telegraph office, 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-

WAKALONA 95

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 was voiceless, and he re
turned 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 in the door, and look
ing up beheld the sad face of the Indian, gaun
ter and sorrier than before. Again he gave
her food, and from his medicine chest, which
in those days was furnished by the company to
all agents and conductors, he brought medi
cated 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

96 WAKALONA

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 deter
mined 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 brakeman ; 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 down, she opened the door of her

WAKALONA

97

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 dark
ness. In a hoarse voice he uttered those omi
nous 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
darkness seemed reluctantly to leave the earth,
the sun remained behind the dark clouds, from
which the rain continued to fall in torrents. At

98 WAKALONA

noon the rain ceased, the sun came out,
meadow larks carolled free in the blue above,
but the hapless Wakalona lay fettered in a rain-
soaked tent. The story of her capture was
kept a profound secret, for the Indians knew
that the United States army officers would inter
fere if they learned that the Princess was to be
put to death. In the darkness of their igno
rance they believed that they were doing their
duty.

" 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 approached we could
see that they were waving their hands and put
ting 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

WAKALONA 99

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. Now the whole band
began to chant : —

' 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 little boat and he climbed aboard.
The Indian at the oar stood up and faced him.
The big brakeman swung his long right arm,
caught the Pawnee under the ear, and over he
went. Reaching down he lifted the other

100 WAKALONA

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. McAlas-
ter 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 east 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."

SI ilocomotifoe a0 a Wat Chariot

A LOCOMOTIVE AS A WAR CHARIOT

"OMOKY 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 our
selves 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 Kan
sas Pacific, and scarcely a day — never a week
— went by without a fight. At first they ap
peared to be awed by the locomotives, but in a
little while their superstitious fear had vanished,
and they were constantly setting lures to cap
ture the ' big hoss,' as they called the engine.

104 A LOCOMOTIVE AS A WAR CHARIOT

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 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 inter
vals 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 foreman of the gang, and
from him I was supposed to take my * tokens.'

A LOCOMOTIVE AS A WAR CHARIOT 105

" We had been in motion less than ten min
utes 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 furi
ously in a short circle. That was my notion
precisely. If they had prepared to ditch us,
we might as well go into the ditch as remain
on the tops of the cars to be picked off by the
Sioux, so I opened the throttle and began to
back away again as fast as possible. The In
dians 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

106 A LOCOMOTIVE AS A WAR CHARIOT

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 amusement 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 direc
tions. Some of them were thrown to the tops
of the cars and others flew into the mob of red
skins, 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 considerably
stunned by the fall, and, taking advantage of

A LOCOMOTIVE AS A WAR CHARIOT 107

his condition, the scouts seized and bound him
with a piece of bell-cord, taking care to remove
an ugly knife from his rawhide belt. The
band was so 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 Bear Foot, a noted and very
wicked chief. When the Sioux came to him
self and realized that he was a captive, he be
came 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 appreciating 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 that we

108 A LOCOMOTIVE AS A WAR CHARIOT

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 reenforcements. The fact
that their brave chief was himself a captive
would increase the wrath of the red men with
out, 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 morn
ing, but I dared not hint such a thing to the
captain, much less to the Pawnees.

"The four scouts, with their prisoner, were
placed 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 hun
dred 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-

A LOCOMOTIVE AS A WAR CHARIOT 109

house to be roasted alive. Then, again, I dis
liked fighting, — that 's what we fed and hauled
these soldiers around for. They were so in
fernally lazy in times of peace that I used
almost to pray for trouble, that they might have
an opportunity at least once a week to earn
their board and keep. Now that the oppor
tunity seemed to be at hand, I had no wish to
deprive them of the excitement 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 was repeated, and when
the same sound had been heard three or four
times, the lieutenant in command 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 creeping 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.

110 A LOCOMOTIVE AS A WAR CHARIOT

" 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 without. 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 their guns into the
sand.

"Presently, hearing no sound from within,
the attacking party ceased firing, and began to
prowl about the building in search of a weak
spot through which they might effect an en
trance. The fate of the three early callers who
had hogged it under the door, kept them from
fooling about that trap for the remainder 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

A LOCOMOTIVE AS A WAR CHARIOT III

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 whereabout,
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, 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 struc
ture 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

112 A LOCOMOTIl'E AS A WAR CHARIOT

off, or whether I must run over him. Now it
seemed that the whole band had thrown them
selves 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 un
derstood 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 redskins, 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 switches, which had already been set for her
before the fight began. The confusion caused

A LOCOMOTIVE AS A WAR CHARIOT 113

by the awful work of Big Hoss, which they
regarded as little less than the devil, was in
creased 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 prop
erly, 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

114 A LOCOMOTIVE AS A WAR CHARIOT

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 looking about I saw only
four Pawnees, and concluded that 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 inhabit a
place of that kind when a locomotive is making
a fly run over a new track. After much time

A LOCOMOTIVE AS A W 'A R CHARIOT 115

and labor had been lost fishing for the chief
with a clinker 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 pronounced him a good Indian."

3 <$i)0$t train allusion

A GHOST TRAIN ILLUSION

T17HEN 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 dur
ing 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 which 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 ma
chines " 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 commer-

120 A GHOST TRAIN ILLUSION

cial 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
lookout 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 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 mana
ger is an honor earnestly striven for by engi
neers, 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 are
always in favor 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 favor of the special engineer is the fact

A GHOST TRAIN ILLUSION 121

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 experi
enced 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 engi
neer. It was a clear, dry day in the early
autumn, the very best time 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 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,

122 A GHOST TRAIN ILLUSION

and only a minute to do it in. The throttle
was wide open, and the little engine was roll
ing so that the bell rang continually. The fire
man had put in his last fire, and was now strain
ing 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 and 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 of the col
lision, but to stop was out of the question.

The fireman on the light engine saw the

A GHOST TRAIN ILLUSION 123

special, and warned his companion, for they
were curving to the left and the driver could
not see, but the four men knew that 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
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 himself, 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 mind,
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
n mere trifle. Lafe Pence was in a wreck the
next day after his election to Congress, and, al
though he had been a Democrat, and had be
come a Populist, he gave no thought to the

124 A GHOST TRAIN ILLUSION

past nor the future, but said to himself, as the
sleeper plunged down an embankment, " 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-by that morning at their
home in Salt Lake, but he slipped, fell, and
hung there with a fence picket through the seat
of his first pair of trousers, and it was all so
funny that, now as the engineer recalled the
circumstance, he threw back his head and
laughed as heartily as he had ever laughed in
his life. The fireman, casting a farewell glance
at his companion, saw him laughing, and con
cluded, in his last moment, that the driver had
suddenly become insane, but as he glanced
ahead where death 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 mo
tion, and the speed of the train, which had been
but little checked, carried them away down
among the sand hills. The driver looked at

A GHOST TRAIN ILLUSION 125

the fireman and asked : " Did you see any
thing?"

" 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
fireman 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 officials in the special train felt the re
sistance of the engine when the engineer shut
off and reversed, and the general manager,
turning to the superintendent, asked, with sur
prise : " 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."

126 A GHOS T TRAIN ILL US ION

The superintendent was inclined to be funny,
but the Colonel, stroking his long gray PerTers,
remarked that he had seen a locomotive stand
ing at the point mentioned, and " as trains are
not in the habit of meeting and passing be
tween 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 have n't saw no engine : d'ain't
no sidin' 'cept Ci-ote spur, an' dat was clear."

" Send the conductor to me," said the offi
cial, and when the conductor came in the man
ager asked to look at the running orders.

" Run special to Grand Junction, avoiding all
regular trains. Extra engine 57 has until 5-55 to
make Coyote spur against you."

A GHOST TRAIN ILLUSION 12J

"What time did you pass the spur?" de
manded the Colonel.

" Precisely at 5-55," said the conductor,
now somewhat 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.

" Perhaps," said the Colonel, " there was not
when we went down, but there is now, for I
saw a locomotive standing there."

The conductor laughed as the superintendent
had done, but the Colonel offered to risk a case
of champagne that he had seen no ghost train,
and the superintendent took the bet as the easi
est 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

128 A GHOST TRAIN ILLUSION

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 embarrassment 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
superintendent of the fireman, who was staring
at the engineer. The fireman only closed his
eyes and shook his head slowly, as if he consid
ered them all crazy, and his long lashes, dark
with coal dust, lay upon his newly washed face
like the lashes of a chorus girl.

A GHOST TRAIN ILLUSION 129

" 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 be
lieve in ghosts."

" It will not be necessary for you to take out
63 [an accident report], but I wish you would
tell me 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
did n't whistle, open the sand valve, or set the
air — they wa n't no use — no time; but just
then I thought of little Sammie 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

130 A GHOST TRAIN ILLUSION

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, an' there was n'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 atten
tion of the company, and Tim Flarrity, 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 did n't mean something,"
he added, but the burst of laughter that fol
lowed 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
superintendent read : —

A GHOST TRAIN ILLUSION 131

" Engine 57 is off the track and nearly off the
right of way 1,000 yards east of Coyote spur, but
still on her feet."

That explained the ghost engine. At the
instant when the engineer shut off, the " sew
ing 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 sec
onds, and then came to a stop with the engine-
men still standing in the cab. The engine had
been working hard, and if the throttle had re
mained open, she might have made the curve
all right, but the sudden relaxation of all her
tension caused a jar 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 ordi
nary 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.

£>torp of CBngine 107

THE STORY OF ENGINE 107

O OME 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 con
nected 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, probably 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,

136 THE STORY OF ENGINE 107

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 sec
ond engine is made. There is no culling or
sorting, and 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 109, and at
tracted a great deal of attention from the engine-
men 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

THE STORY OF ENGINE 107 137

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 to 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 a new runner
was sure, at some of the corners, to shut off for
his own headlight. However, the 109 held the
rail and made a good record ; so 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 track at the
water tank and was got back barely in time to
take her train out.

" No man can call me superstitious," said

138 THE STORY OF ENGINE 107

the engineer. " But they ain't no sense in
temptin' Providence by takin' a new engine out
on a Friday."

" It '11 be midnight before you reach the
canon," 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 sky as they do in the daytime ;
a moon that shames the headlight, and shows
the twin threads of steel running away off yon
der 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

THE STORY OF ENGINE 107 139

and fireman since they started out, and now
they were swinging round the curves at a good
express gait. The new engine was rocking like
a light boat on a rough sea, but otherwise she
was riding as easily as a coach. It was n 150
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
fireman 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 fire
man 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

140 THE STORY OF ENGINE 107

she was put back on the run as soon as a few
slight injuries were repaired, for it was no un
usual 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 favorite 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 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 super
stitious standpoint. Not one railroad employee
in a dozen will admit that he is the least little
bit superstitious, but watch them when they see

THE STORY OF ENGINE 107 141

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 switchmen
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 onto 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 crip
pled the mail agent. The switch, upon exami
nation, 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 Rocka-
way being "unlucky" because she went out on
Friday, but when she was rebuilt she was trans
ferred and put on a less important run, with
not so many people behind her.

142 THE STORY OF ENGINE 107

11 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
with the silver there.

The unlucky engine was taking out the pay
train, consisting of two light cars. The first
day was uneventful, but at the close of the
second day, while they were rolling down the
Black Canon 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 bowlder 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

THE STORY OF ENGINE 107 143

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 she might be
allowed to remain there ; but the company, if
for no other reason than to prevent the em
ployees from becoming hopelessly superstitious,
put her into the shops, rebuilt and repainted
her, so that when she came out again to be lim
bered 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 division, the scene of her last es
capade. Her coming was not regarded as a
joyful event by the trainmen and enginemen
of the fourth division, and the division 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

144 THE STORY OF ENGINE 107

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- by 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 entertain
ing with his delightfully musical Irish accent,
was silent as he went about oiling and inspect
ing 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

THE STORY OF ENGINE 107 145

and blowing steam, with polished headlight and
new flags fluttering at her shoulders, glided back
ward, 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 off 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.

146 THE STORY OF ENGINE 107

Ryan smiled at " Noah" North and he smiled
back over the boiler head as they whistled for
Gunnison, but their smiles soon changed to sad
ness, for the despatcher came out with an order
for them to continue over another division.
This took them through the Black Canon, which
was then to trainmen 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 Canon 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
canon, and startled a lion or caused a band of
elk or deer to scamper away up a side canon.

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

THE STORY OF ENGINE 107 147

looked with their white faces where the moon
light 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 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
uninjured — the train stopped before the second
car had passed the point where the engine left

148 THE STORY OF ENGINE 107

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 roadraaster, 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 engine-
men 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? "

Tom, upon hearing the voice of his friend,
realized that he was really alive, and said coolly :
" Hurted, now why the devil should I be
hurted ? "

" That's so," said Hickey, whose wit was as
handy 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

THE STORY OF ENGINE 107 149

up slowly, and "Noah's" body floated to the
surface and was taken back to Salida and buried.
It would be absurd to say that the railroad com
pany was in any way responsible for the acci
dent, 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 ser
vice. 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 em
ployees 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 locomo
tive 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,

150 THE STORY OF ENGINE 107

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.

Catching a Hunatoap (Engine

CATCHING A RUNAWAY ENGINE

'T^HE grade on La Veta Mountain is over two
hundred feet to the mile, and when a
locomotive gets away it drops down the hill
much as a bucket drops down a well when the
rope breaks. Jakie Mover 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 becom
ing " 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 opera-

154 CA TCHING A R UNA WA Y ENGINE

tor, and began to fix himself for a comfortable
ride down the hill. The fireman banked his
fire, and made himself comfortable 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
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
who is " laying " for a show to distinguish him
self; but the opportunity usually comes when it
is least expected. It was so in this instance.
Jakie had barely 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 circum
stances, signifies that the engineer wants to
stop, but can't, and so publishes his embarrass
ment. 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

CATCHING A RUNAWAY ENGINE 155

at a lively gait, — too lively to make jumping
for Jakie less hazardous than dying at his post.
This statement 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 how 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 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 revolu-

156 CATCHING A RUN A IV AY ENGINE

tion 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 locomotive. Now
and then Jakie glanced back only to see the
rolling engine bearing down upon his unpro
tected 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, but 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

CATCHING A RUNAWAY ENGINE 157

from the mouth of a great cannon, and the next
moment she had Jakie's tank on her pilot.
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.

Climbing into the cab again, Jakie left the
fireman in charge of the 403, and undertook to
climb back over the tank and board the run
away. 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 they made, and
the second engine being put far down in the
back motion, the locomotives began to slow
down, and were finally brought to a standstill.

It was a great achievement, and Jakie was

1 58 CA TCH1NG A RUN A WA Y ENGINE

the hero of the day. " Windy " Davis said
afterward that Jakie stopped them because he
was unable to get off, 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 offi
cial — 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 stated all the way from two hun
dred to one thousand dollars. At all events,
it was enough to prove Jakie a good emer
gency man ; and when you cross La Veta
Mountain again, ask for Jakie Moyer, — he 's
the boy.

Mailtos^

A RAILWAY MAIL CLERK

"DAILWAY mail clerks are not railway em
ployees, although they are under the or
ders 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 coun
try, and ride ahead. On most roads their car
is coupled to the locomotive, and they take
whatever is left when the grim reaper has fin
ished 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 examination at a
rating of more than ninety per cent. Depart
ment employees at Washington are given thirty
days vacation each year, but the railway mail

1 62 A RAILWAY MAIL CLERK

clerk is called upon to face the dangers of mid
night 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 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 " climbing 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 '11 it cost?" I asked.

" Forty-nine dollars, second class, from St.
Louis to Denver."

A RAILWAY MAIL CLERK 163

" 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 have you got? "

" Have n't got any, but I got a job at Whiti-
cer's stable in Carr street, an' if you '11 go I '11
see that you never want. We can sleep in the
haymow and board around."

" How '11 we get to St. Louis? " I asked.

" Ride when we 're tired o' walkin' an' walk
when we can't ride," was his reply.

" 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 them
selves. 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

164 A RAILWAY MA IL CL ERK

night frightened me and I told Doc so, and so
we parted.

A few years later, when the west-bound train
stopped at a little bleak 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 wagon.

I went over to him at once, for I was lone
some. 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 con
tradicting 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.

" Nop," he said, " it 's the dry wind ; it 's
busted my lip so that I look like I 'in goin' to

A RAILWAY MAIL CLERK 165

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 sum
mer 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 morn
ing, 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

1 66 A RAILWAY MAIL CLERK

money, and became acquainted with a well
known detective. I think he said it was Billy
Pinkerton. It was like the Pinkertons to de
tect in this almost beardless boy a remark
ably 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.

If Doc had tried he could never have be
come a good dresser. Even clothes that were
made for him did n't fit, and he wore his hat
crosswise, like the leading man at a French
funeral. His appearance upon this occasion
was in his favor, and he was not long in form
ing the acquaintance of the 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

A RAILWAY MAIL CLERK 167

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."

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.

1 68 A RAILWAY MAIL CLERK

When the proceeds of Doc's raid had been
expended, together with the seven dollars re
ceived for the "jay's" watch, the gang deter
mined to rob a hardware store. The job had
been undertaken once, but had failed. The
time, at Doc's suggestion, was fixed for elec
tion 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 in, Doc ducked down be
hind 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 sheriffs
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

A RAILWAY MAIL CLERK 169

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 until they were encour
aged and trapped into it by the wicked young
detective.

Alas for the criminals ! One of the gang gave
up to the sheriff, 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
weakened, sent to Joliet, where they are still
receiving their mail.

Doc's remarkable success in this case en
couraged 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.

1 70 A RAILWAY MAIL CLERK

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
in the West, when you are under thirty and
new, comparatively, at the business?"

" Hard luck," said Doc, smiling sadly, cough
ing and thumping his chest.

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 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 me to find out more from a
mutual friend, and to verify the information
by some of the reports and correspondence
which I was afterward permitted to see. I
found that his loyalty, bravery, and devotion to
duty had been warmly commended in auto
graph letters from the highest officials in the
mail service.

A RAILWAY MAIL CLERK 171

It was, indeed, hard luck that brought him
promotion 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 railroading was not safe
as it is now. Once there was a head- end col
lision, 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 canon, they
showed Doc lying upon his mail bags appar
ently 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 Fe" 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

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 en
gine drowned all other sounds, and made it im
possible for the men to hear the cries of the
imprisoned 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 unfortunate.

Gradually the voice of the prisoner grew
fainter and fainter, and before the rescuers
reached him it hushed entirely.

A RAILWAY MAIL CLERK 173

At last, just as they were about to give him
up, as he was now apparently dead, they suc
ceeded 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, that gave him the important
position of 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 "j 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

174 A RAILWAY MAIL CLERK

" 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

A NY one could see by the air of industry
that pervaded 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

178 THE MYSTERIOUS MESSAGE

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 des-
patcher's office to talk with the train-master
about a meeting point for No. 8 and the Presi
dent's special. This was the new President,
who, with the chairman of the Board of Direct
ors, was making his first tour of inspection.
Every 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 made upon this occasion.
He must have his department in good shape
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 important office to his illiterate
men. This slow signal would indicate, also,
that they had been doing something to the
track. The road-master had gone out that
morning occupying a camp stool on the rear
platform of No. 8.

THE MYSTERIOUS MESSAGE 179

All these things combined to show to the
most casual observer that something was up.
In the face of every officer of the road at this
particular point there was a look of anxiety, as
though he might be repeating : —

" He '11 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 excep
tion 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 unnecessary noise.
The train-master was of a different caste. He
was as nervous as a maiden lady in 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

I So THE MYSTERIOUS MESSAGE

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 information 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 keep her out of trouble. The man at
the key said he would endeavor to find a place
for her, but he positively refused to be respon
sible for her. " Then, sir," said the superin
tendent, " 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

THE MYSTERIOUS MESSAGE l8l

despatcher, who now turned to the key to send
the order for the meeting.

Still smarting from the effect of the tilt with
his 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 Look
out siding and when he answered, the des
patcher shot 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 des
patcher turned and saw her, and when he real-

1 82 THE MYSTERIOUS MESSAGE

ized that she must have overheard the quarrel
between the superintendent and himself, his
anger rose against the innocent young woman ;
and the other official, seeing their embarrass
ment, quit the room by a side door.

" Mr. Goodlough, you Ve made a great mis
take," said the girl.

" Have I ? " shouted the train-master, " and
do you expect a 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 '11 be a collision in less than ten min
utes. You '11 be a murderer if you fail to save
those trains."

" You 're about as crazy as they get," said
the despatcher; 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

THE MYSTERIOUS MESSAGE 183

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 stand
ing 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 the key

184 THE MYSTERIOUS MESSAGE

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 instruments.

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 look
ing 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 des-
patcher'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

THE MYSTERIOUS MESSAGE 185

and fell forward upon his desk ; then the super
intendent 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 East-
creek ; and now there was nothing to do but
wait for the collision which, in the narrow,
crooked canon, was sure to come.

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

l86 THE M\'STERIOUS MESSAGE

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 re
turning to her widowed mother with the news of
her failure to secure work. The superintend
ent 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 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

THE MYSTERIOUS MESSAGE 187

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 super
intendent. "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
other's faces, and listened constantly for a call
from Eastcreek 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,

1 88 THE AH'STERIOUS MESSAGE

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 canon at sixty
miles an hour. It was awful even to think of
it. Now there came a message from the gen
eral 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 color came to the white faces
in the despatched 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

THE MYSTERIOUS MESSAGE 189

wanted. He answered at once and got this
in return : " Hold No. 8, — lap order." The
last two words assured him that compliance
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 in
stant. 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. The driver, with
out 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 passenger
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

190 THE MYSTERIOUS MESSAGE

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-mas
ter 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

THE MYSTERIOUS MESSAGE 191

was near enough to whistle the other engines
"down," and the enginemen pulling the pas
senger 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 accordingly. 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-mas
ter reached for the rope and signalled the engi
neers 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 glan
cing 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 with-

THE MYSTERIOUS MESSAGE

out 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 re
gardless 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 flagman, and was now backing away for
Westcreek at a frightful pace. His fireman,
still at the switch, let him in on the siding ;
No. 8 dropped in after him, and just as the
operator and conductor had forced the stub
born rails back to the main line, 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 No. 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 engi
neers, the road-master and operator, wasted five
minutes reading, checking, comparing, and ex
amining the orders they had received. They

THE MYSTERIOUS MESSAGE 193

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 remembered that Good-
lough 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 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
prevented the collision and doubtless saved

194 THE MYSTERIOUS MESSAGE

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 mo
ment when the " mysterious message " flashed
over the wire, and whose business it was to
investigate the whole matter. As the investi
gation 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 " mysterious message " became the leading
topic in shops, cabs, way-cars, and boarding-
houses. To say that the clocks were at vari
ance would not satisfy a railroad man, for they
had taken time at 9 A. M., only a half hour be
fore 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 va
ried one second. Not a few of the employees
refused to become excited or even interested

THE MYSTERIOUS MESSAGE 195

in the matter. Such things were constantly
occurring, they argued. Women had wept fur
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
Canon, giving not only the day and hour, but
the exact moment in which it occurred, de
scribing 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 get the operator, that
the force of his mind had, in some way (which
was not quite clear, even to the clerk) , trans
mitted the message to the wire, so that when
the operator at Westcreek 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 ar
gued, 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 mes
sage " came to the ears of the President at
Boston, and as his life had been saved by the

196 THE MYSTERIOUS MESSAGE

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 ac
counting for all that had occurred. It fell out
later that the treasurer's clerk was also a mem
ber 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 mid
night till morning.

"You may go now," said Mr. Creamer to
the girl, 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

THE MYSTERIOUS MESSAGE 197

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 promote 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, pre
fixing the word " Acting " when signing as
train-master. So it came about that the fa
miliar " T. J. G.," the initials of the unfortu
nate 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 wire, cutting off the officials, and
discuss the new despatcher. Not a few of them
felt that they were entitled to promotion, and

198 THE MYSTERIOUS MESSAGE

were in favor of sending a grievance committee
in at once. " Who is the new guy?" asked
the operator at Lookout one 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 off.

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
despatcher had gained something of a reputa
tion as an expert handler of trains. Many an
operator who had indorsed the new despatcher
upon divers occasions 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

THE MYSTERIOUS MESSAGE 199

to gray-haired conductors 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 de
parted on time, the " mysterious message "
was still a mystery, and the girl stayed at her
post. The superintendent was quietly proud
of his prote'ge'e and Mr. Creamer was enthusias
tic. She knew the joad, 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, 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 whis
pered : "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

200 THE m'STERIOUS MESSAGE

that he had a friend somewhere. He remem
bered afterwards that the smell of roses was
the first thing that was quite clear to him.

" Have I been ill? " he asked of the attend
ant 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 been of a nature that required
close attention. At times he had been a rav
ing 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 wan
dered 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. Vaguely he began to recall the
past and all that had happened. He wondered
how many were killed, but he dared not ask.

THE MYSTERIOUS MESSAGE 2OI

The few people that he saw seemed so cheer
ful, and the chief surgeon was 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, and
somebody cared for him still. At the end of
another week the superintendent came in to
see him, and he, 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
speaker's eyes filled with tears as they rested
on the vase.

" He 's here now," said the superintendent,
touched deeply by the tears and tenderness of
the sick man. " Every morning for nearly a
month he has called here to ask after you. I

202 THE MYSTERIOUS MESSAGE

shall send him to you at once, and now you
must brace up — good-by."

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
immediately.

It was nearly a week before any more visi
tors were admitted to the sick room. Only
the flowers 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 explained, "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

THE MYSTERIOUS MESSAGE 2 03

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 Westcreek 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 '11 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 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

204 THE MYSTERIOUS MESSAGE

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 mys
tery. 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

THE MYSTERIOUS MESSAGE 2 05

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, 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 dismissed 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 cir
cumstances I should feel it my duty to discharge
you, but in consideration of your excellent
record and other extenuating circumstances, the
confusing nature of the numbers of the loco-

206 THE MYSTERIOUS MESSAGE

motives 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 careless
ness in giving a wrong order. It is more your
misfortune than your fault, however, that you
have lost these forty days, therefore your suspen
sion will date from the twentieth of December."
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 instruments, and the slow, measured

THE MYSTERIOUS MESSAGE 2OJ

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 Good-
lough was to resume his office a connecting
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 com
petent 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 with Miss

208 THE MYSTERIOUS MESSAGE

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
promotion, 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 favors. 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 won
dered, 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.

THE MYSTERIOUS MESSAGE 2OQ

When the two despatchers who had received
notice of promotion came into the train-mas
ter's office, they did not appear over joyous.
The man who had thus honored 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 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 management. However, if you gentle
men are disposed to do the gallant, the young
lady can remain where she is. She is thor
oughly 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

210 THE MYSTERIOUS MESSAGE

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, discovered, when it was too
late, that he was slowly but surely losing his
own. Up to now he had been too much occu
pied 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 the secret from the other, but while
Cupid held his hands over their eyes the world
looked on and laughed.

THE MYSTERIOUS MESSAGE 21 T

Soon the summer came with moonlight ex
cursions 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 des
patcher erased the arrival and put him in ten
minutes later, so that the engineer might not

212 THE MYSTERIOUS MESSAGE

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 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 super
intendent the true story of the " mysterious
message." For a long time he had guessed
that she knew something about it, but had re
frained from calling her up for fear of forcing

THE MYSTERIOUS MESSAGE 213

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 honor and
urged her to clear up a mystery, which was
really no mystery, according to his belief, and
thus prevent the employees from growing super
stitious and relying too much upon an unseen
power to take care of trains, she saw the wis
dom 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 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 singing bells, and the
low squeak of iron sleigh shoes upon the white

214 THE MYSTERIOUS MESSAGE

carpet of the earth, for Goodlough, after hours,
was tightening 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
himself at a disadvantage, " and I have but one
regret, and that is — "

" That I am a woman."

" Never," he 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 —

THE MYSTERIOUS MESSAGE 215

now I am thinking only of you. I liked your
work, but I — I love you."

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 radi
antly 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 me down to-day it means a million
times more to me. It means a life of joy or
one of sorrow ; all happiness — even the faint
est hope of it — aye, life itself."

She was still silent, but he had begun in
stinctively 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 seri
ous. Liquor makes some men sad, others it
makes silly, and so it is with the intoxication of
love. Goodlough was almost foolishly glad,
and yet she had given him no word of encour-

2 1 6 THE ~MYS TERIO US MESS A GE

agement. 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. Ex
press wagons came down laden with boxes and
packages — bundles of sunshine — that would
find their way to hundreds of homes, and glad
den the hearts of thousands of people. Every
body 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 despatches worked, he heard
Miss Morgan calling Westcreek, and when
Westcreek answered, heard her say : —

" Train No. 8, Conductor Smith, will take sid
ing for special west engine 88, at Eastcreek."

She was making a meeting point for the
President's special which, by a strange coin
cidence, was coming over the division again on
the 20th of December. A year ago to the hour
— almost to the minute — he had endeavored

THE MYSTERIOUS MESSAGE 217

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 everything? "

"On time," said Miss Morgan, still working
the key.

After glancing about for a few minutes,
Goodlough 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 bulle
tin named the second trick man to be day
despatcher " to succeed Miss Morgan, assigned
to other duties."

He had barely finished this pleasant task,
when the superintendent came in with the
President, whom Goodlough had never met.

2l8 THE MYSTERIOUS MESSAGE

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 Good-
lough, 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 Westcreek to hold No. 8, although your ini
tials 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 '11 let you gentlemen
into the secret. The ' mysterious message ' is
no longer a mystery. When Miss Morgan saw,
or rather heard, your mistake, she endeavored
to convince you that you were in error, but
failed. Despairing, she left the building. She
was almost wild with grief and alarm. I saw
her face as she hurried down the stair, and it

THE MYSTERIOUS MESSAGE 2IQ

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 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.
1 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 inspired the agent with the idea of follow
ing 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

220 THE MYSTERIOUS MESSAGE

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 re
sumed 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.

" Brave girl ! " cried the President, rising and
beginning to pace the floor, for he was deeply
affected by the story of how a young woman,
who, but a day before had been refused em
ployment 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 check for 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,"

THE MYSTERIOUS MESSAGE 221

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 question
ing the wisdom and justice of his order.

" Are you a married man? " asked the train
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.

222 THE MYSTERIOUS MESSAGE

" She is to be Mrs. Goodlough," said the
train-master with a stern, calm face.

" Accept my congratulations," said the Pres
ident, holding out his hand. " This is the
second time, then, she has saved your life," he
continued as Goodlough took his hand ; " and I
hope you will allow her to accept my personal
check 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 superintendent of the road.
He kept clear of the despatched 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 re
vealed it only at the earnest request of the
superintendent, who, since the family's mis
fortune, had been almost a father to her. He
had helped her establish her mother at this
place, where they were now living comfortably.

THE MYSTERIOUS MESSAGE 22 3

That evening, when Minnie's mother had
retired to her room, and the lovers were left
alone together in the little lamp-lit parlor, they
looked at each other in silence for a moment.

" What distresses you? " asked Miss Morgan.

"And you?" inquired the train-master.

" Order No. 76," was her reply. " I Ve lost
my place."

" And found a friend, a lover, — aye, a hus
band and happiness, I hope."

"And what have you found? "

" The sender of the * mysterious message,' "
said Goodlough, advancing to where his sweet
heart sat.

"Did he tell you?"

" 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 short
ening your office hours, and — well, if anything
more occurs to me I '11 tell you later."

"Then you did send the message?"

224 THE MYSTERIOUS 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.

§>craptomania

SCRAPTOMANIA

T^VERY man who has railroaded for a single
day on 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 en
gineer. There is scarcely a flag station on the
entire system that has not at some time or
another been his battlefield.

The most interesting feature in 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

228 SCR A P TOM A NIA

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 railroading ; how many have you
had?"

" ' 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.

SCR A P TO MA NIA 229

" Say," said Jones, rolling his thumb and twirl
ing 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 ham
mer, 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 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 lick-

230 SCRAl'TOMAXIA

ing, 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 complimen
tary letter to the general master mechanic at
Denver. Jones went up and told the whole
story, not even attempting to justify his own
actions, and he was reemployed 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

SCR A P TO MA NIA 231

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 I knew he was within reach 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
plumb 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 breath
ing 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

232 SCRAPTOMANIA

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 embar
rassed. 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 out
side only listened to catch a word that would
give them some idea as to how the fight was

SCRAPTOMANIA 233

going, but there was no talk. At times one
would fancy that a football team was perform
ing 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 throwing 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, bleed
ing 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
travelling engineer waited upon him to say that
the master mechanic had ordered that the
belligerent engineer be discharged at the con
clusion 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 meet-

234 SCRAPTOMANIA

ing the T. E., and at once assured the official
that he appreciated the leniency of the manage
ment j that they had all been very 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 is n'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 cap
tain," 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

SCRAPTOMANIA

235

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
cleaned 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 brake man, who
boasted that he was off the stormy division of
the " Q," and that he had not yet met an en
gineer 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 '11 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

236 SCRAPTOMANIA

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 con
ductor, 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
transferred 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 cin
ders, and, like the industrious fireman that he
was, he got up and began to sweep them off in
the long snow shed at Marshall Pass.

SCRAPTOMANIA 237

The superintendent's private car was stand
ing near by, but Jones did not notice it in the
smoky shed, and the first swipe of his broom
sent a flood of cinders over the superin
tendent, 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
am? " asked the official.

" No, and I don't care so long as you 've got
gray hair."

" I 'm the superintendent."

"Well, you, don't you me again,"

said Jones, and he got back on his engine, and
the superintendent, who was himself a high-
spirited man, remarked 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

238 SCRAPTOMANIA

Kentucky where he was born, had married the
little girl who had been his playmate in child
hood, and I presume she and I were about the
only close friends he had whom he had never
thrashed.

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