THE YOUNG TRAIN MASTER

The Works of

Burton E. Stevenson

♣

The Quest for the Rose of Sharon $1.25

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The Young Section-Hand 1.50

The Young Train Dispatcher 1.50

The Young Train Master 1.50

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L. C. Page & Company, Publishers

New England Building———Boston, Mass.

THE

YOUNG TRAIN

MASTER

By BURTON E. STEVENSON

Author of “The Young Section-Hand,” “The

Young Train Dispatcher,” “The Quest

for the Rose of Sharon,” etc.

ILLUSTRATED BY

HENRY GOSS

Boston ❧ L. C. PAGE & COMPANY ❧

Mdccccix

Copyright, 1909

By L. C. Page & Company

(INCORPORATED)

All rights reserved

First Impression, August, 1909

Electrotyped and Printed by

THE COLONIAL PRESS

C.H. Simonds & Co., Boston, U.S.A.

TO

The “Beddy Magraw”

WHOM I KNEW

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

[“Leaped out into the darkness” Frontispiece]

[“The next instant it flashed into view around the curve” ]

[Time-chart]

[“Controlling it, as it were, by a movement of a finger, stood Jim”]

[“He explained the difficulty to the engineer”]

[“Then, with a hoarse yell of rage, hurled himself upon them”]

[“He heard the bullets sing past his head”]

THE

YOUNG TRAIN MASTER

CHAPTER I
OLD FRIENDS

Nestling among the hills of the Scioto valley, in the south-central portion of the state of Ohio, lies the little town of Wadsworth. Venerable in its age, proud of its history, the first capital of its state and the home of men famous in their time, it lives in the past rather than in the present, and life there moves in a quiet and dignified manner, conducive to peace but not to progress.

Its streets, shaded by the elms planted by the pioneers, show traces of those early days; one of the old inns, with its swinging sign still stands; no roar of traffic disturbs its Sabbath stillness. Just to the east of it rises Mount Logan, named for the Indian chieftain known to every train-service, and there is a legend that, standing on the summit of that hill, the day before his death, he cast a spell over the surrounding country, in order that the peace of his grave might never be disturbed. However that may be, certain it is that a dreamy influence pervades the atmosphere and gives to the town an air of leisure and calm deliberateness which nothing can dispel.

It had been founded more than a century before, when the country for a hundred miles around was an unbroken forest, by a little band of pioneers who, acquiring title to unnumbered acres by virtue of their service in the Revolution, pushed their way over the mountains from Virginia. Some of them brought their slaves with them, only to free them when they reached their new home. Other families from Virginia joined the little settlement and lent their hands to the battle with the wilderness. That southern flavour had never been lost, nor the southern deliberateness and dislike of innovation, nor the southern preference for agriculture rather than for manufacture.

By mere chance of geographical position, Wadsworth lies half way between Parkersburg, a hundred miles away to the east, and Cincinnati, a hundred miles away to the south-west; so, when the great P. & O. railway, looking for new fields to conquer, purchased the local line which connected those two cities, and which was fast degenerating into a “streak of rust,” it saw that Wadsworth must be the centre of the new division, since it was the most economical place from which to handle the business of the division and at which to maintain the division shops. All this, however, it carefully concealed from public view, but, expressing a supreme indifference as to whether the shops were placed at Wadsworth or somewhere else, offered to bring them there for a bonus of a hundred thousand dollars. After long delay and hesitation, the town was bonded for that amount, and the shops were formally established at the spot where they must, of necessity, have been placed.

Here also were the division offices, from which the business of the division was handled. They were upon the second floor of the dingy depot building which has been described more particularly in “The Young Train Dispatcher,” and need not be dwelt upon here, except to observe that the passing years had added to its dinginess and disreputable appearance.

From these offices there descended, one bright October evening, lunch-basket in hand, a young man, who, springing lightly across the branching tracks of the yards, reached the street beyond and turned eastward along it. It was noticeable that he seemed to know everyone employed around the yards and that they seemed to know him, and greeted him with a cordiality evidently genuine.

Ten minutes’ walk brought him to a trim cottage standing back from the street, amid a bower of vines. Its grounds were ample, and well-kept. At one side was a little orchard, whose trees showed the glint of ripening fruit. Farther back, near the barn, a cow was grazing, and the busy clatter of chickens came from an enclosure to the right. The place somehow gave the impression that those who lived within were happy and contented people; not rich, but able, by the labour of their hands, to assure themselves a comfortable livelihood—which is, perhaps, the happiest condition vouchsafed to human beings.

Through the gate of this house the young man turned, and went slowly up the walk leading to the door. But as he stretched out his hand to turn the knob, the door flew open and a girl of about sixteen fairly flung herself into his arms.

“Why, Mamie!” he cried. “Is it Mamie?” and he held her off for a moment’s inspection. “When did you get back?”

“On Number Three,” she answered. “I had a notion to wait for you, and then I thought it would be nicer to come home and surprise you.”

The words “Number Three” stamped both speakers as of the railroad. For who but one raised in the atmosphere of the road would know that “Number Three” was the west-bound flier?

“See how brown I am,” she added, holding her face up for his inspection.

“Yes,” he agreed, looking down at her, “you are. Did you have a good time?”

“Only so-so,” she answered, smiling up at him. “I can have the best time of all right here at home.”

“So can I,” he agreed. “It’s been a little lonesome with you away.”

“Has it, Allan?” she asked, quickly, her eyes shining with the glint of sudden tears. “It’s nice of you to say that.”

“Well, it’s true: and it won’t hurt to say it, now you’re back. But I didn’t dare tell you when I wrote. I wanted you to enjoy your visit. I thought you were going to stay till Tuesday.”

“Oh, I couldn’t stay any longer than to-day!” she protested, quickly.

“Why not?” he asked, looking at her in surprise. “What’s going to happen to-day?”

“Come in and you’ll see,” she answered, and led him triumphantly into the house.

Through the hall they went, into the dining-room beyond, where a bright-faced woman, just entering middle-age, was putting the finishing touches to a table immaculately spread.

“Oh, there ye are!” she cried, turning as they entered. “What kept you so long, Allan?”

“I’ve been out here gossiping with Mamie,” he explained, laughing.

“I was afeerd the supper would git stale,” she said. “I don’t like to keep things warmed up; they ain’t got the same taste they have when they’re cooked jest right and served right away.”

“You needn’t wait for me, if there’s company,” he said, seeing that an extra place had been laid.

“Oh, I reckon the company’s willin’ to wait,” she retorted, with a laugh. “Only don’t be no longer than ye kin help.”

“I won’t,” Allan promised and hurried away.

Five minutes later, he opened the door of the dining-room again, and saw who the visitor was.

“Why, Reddy!” he cried, going quickly forward, his hand outstretched. “How are you? I’m glad to see you.”

“The same here, Allan,” answered Reddy Magraw, warmly gripping the hand outstretched to him in his own honest palm. “An’ mighty glad I was when Jack asked me t’ be here t’-day.”

“To-day,” echoed Allan, glancing quickly around at the smiling faces. “Why, what day is it?”

“Don’t you know?” asked Jack, his face all one broad grin. “Don’t you know, boy?”

Mamie’s eyes were dancing, as she looked at Allan’s perplexed countenance.

“Oh, it’s a disgrace, Allan, if you don’t remember!” she cried.

“I’ll tell you what day it is, me boy,” said Reddy, his face beaming. “It’s jist eight year ago t’-day sence a little scalpeen named Allan West come along out there on Section Twinty-one an’ asked the foreman, Jack Welsh, fer a job. We’re meetin’ here t’-night t’ celebrate his good jedgment in givin’ ye one.”

“’Tis the thing in all my life I’m most proud of,” said Jack.

“An’ the thing that has made me happiest,” added Mary.

“And I’d never have forgiven him, if he hadn’t,” cried Mamie, at which they all laughed, a little uncertainly, and sat down, their hearts very tender.

“Can it really be eight years?” asked Allan, after a moment’s silence. “It doesn’t seem possible. And yet when one thinks what has happened—”

“They has a lot happened,” agreed Reddy. “An’ many a happy day we had out there on Section Twinty-one. Not that I don’t like the work now, Jack,” he added. “But my gang don’t seem t’ be loike the old one. Mebbe it’s because I’m gittin’ old an’ don’t see things with quite so much gilt on ’em as I used to.”

“Old! Nonsense!” cried Jack. “Why, you’re a young man, yet, Reddy.”

“No, I ain’t,” said Reddy. “I ain’t young by no means. An’ I’ve allers thought that that belt I got on the head from that runaway ingine had took some of the ginger out o’ me. But that’s all fancy, most likely,” he added, hastily, seeing Allan’s eyes upon him.

“Look here, Reddy,” said Allan, “do you think my hitting you that time had anything to do with it?”

“No, I don’t,” said Reddy. “I think that was the only thing that saved me. I’ve told ye already that I wouldn’t have complained if ye’d kilt me. Tell me about it ag’in, boy; I can’t hear that story too often.”

So Allan told again the story of that wild Christmas eve when, as track-walker, he had found a gang of wreckers tearing up the rails, and how the pay-car had been saved, and the lives of those in it.

“Oh, it must have been terrible!” cried Mamie, who had been listening with starting eyes, as though she had never before heard the story. “Think of creeping up alone on that gang of men! Weren’t you awfully frightened, Allan?”

“No,” answered Allan, smiling at her earnestness. “I didn’t have time to get frightened, somehow. But,” he added, laughing, “I don’t mind confessing, now, that two or three days later, as I lay in bed thinking the whole thing over, I was scared nearly to death. It’s a fact,” he went on, seeing their puzzled countenances. “I just turned kind of faint thinking about it.”

“An’ no wonder,” said Reddy. “’Twas enough t’ make anybody turn faint. I remember jest sich another case. You knowed Tom Spurling, Jack?” he added, turning to Welsh.

“Yes,” nodded Jack.

“Well, then you’ll remember what a hot-headed feller he was—he had a head o’ red hair, by the way, purty nigh as red as mine. Well, one evenin’ he was hurryin’ acrost the yards t’ git his train—he was conductor on the west-bound accommodation. He was carryin’ his cap an’ his dinner-bucket an’ his lantern an’ his little red tin dickey-box, an’ he was hittin’ it up lively, bein’ a minute or two late. It was a kind o’ foggy night, an’ jest as he got to the platform, Bill Johnson’s yard ingine come up behind an’ poked him in the legs with its footboard. Well, everybody expected t’ see Tom ground up in about two winks, but some way the ingine throwed him up on the platform, where he fell sprawlin’. Bill stopped the ingine an’ got down t’ see if Tom was hurted. Tom was settin’ up rubbin’ his head an’ glarin’ down at the lunch his missus had fixed up fer him an’ which was now scattered all over the platform and purty well mixed with cinders.

“‘Are ye hurted, Tom?’ asked Bill.

“‘Hurted!’ roared Tom. ‘No, o’ course not, ye blame fool! But look at them victuals!’

“‘Jumpin’ Jehosaphat!’ says Bill. ‘Ye ain’t worryin’ about them are ye?’

“‘Yes, I am!’ yells Tom, jumpin’ to his feet. ‘Why don’t ye look where ye’re goin’ with thet ole mud turtle o’ yourn? Fer jest about half a cent—’

“But some o’ the fellers got ’em apart, an’ Tom climbed on his train a minute later, still cussin’ Bill fer the loss o’ his lunch.

“Well, sir, he run his train down t’ Cinci all right, an’ next mornin’ started back with her, an’ they’d got as fer back as Midland City, when one o’ the passengers come an’ told the brakeman that the conductor was sick. An’ mighty sick he was, layin’ in a seat, white as a sheet, lookin’ like his last hour had come.

“‘Fer Heaven’s sake, Tom,’ says the brakeman, ‘what’s the matter?’

“‘Oh, I was nearly kilt!’ groans Tom, hoarse as a frog.

“‘Kilt!’ says the brakeman. ‘Where? Shall I holler fer a doctor? Mebbe they’s one on board.’

“‘No,’ says Tom. ‘I ain’t hurted.’

“The brakeman thought he’d gone crazy.

“‘What you talkin’ about, anyhow?’ he says.

“‘No,’ goes on Tom, ‘but it’s God’s providence I wasn’t chewed into mincemeat.’

“‘When?’ says the brakeman.

“‘Last night,’ says Tom, ‘by thet yard ingine at Wadsworth. It’s jest come to me what a narrer escape I had.’

“Well, the brakeman told me, Tom was about the sickest man he ever seen fer an hour or more, an’ then he peckered up a little, an’ finally was all right ag’in.”

“I can imagine just how he felt,” said Allan, amid the laughter caused by Reddy’s story. “I fancy it’s a good deal like seasickness. It just swoops down on you and takes the nerve out of you and leaves you limp as a rag.”

From one story, they passed to another—the wreck at Vinton, the fight at Coalville, Dan Nolan’s death—stories which have already been told in the earlier books of this series, and which need not be repeated here.

“Did ye ever hear anything more o’ that snake, Nevins, what I chased all over creation that night he tried t’ wreck the president’s special?” inquired Jack.

“Yes,” Allan answered, “I heard about him just the other day. Mr. Schofield told me that he had seen him at Cincinnati—passed him on the street.”

“What’s he doin’?” asked Jack, quickly.

“I don’t know. Earning an honest living, I hope. Mr. Schofield said he was well-dressed and seemed to be prosperous.”

“Well, mebbe he is earnin’ an honest livin’, but I doubt it,” said Jack. “I don’t think he knows how. That reminds me. I heard this arternoon that Hayes is goin’ to Springfield.”

“Yes,” said Allan. “He’s to be train master on the Illinois division.”

“Then that means that they’ll be a chief dispatcher to appoint here. Who’ll get it? Goodwood?”

“Yes; he’s next in line.”

“An’ that’ll make you senior dispatcher?”

“Yes.”

“When I think,” said Jack, “that eight year ago, this here felly was a kid lookin’ fer a job an’ that now he’s senior dispatcher, with a mighty good chance o’ bein’ superintindent some day, I begin t’ believe that a felly has a fair chance in this country, arter all. You know they’s allers sayin’ we’re all ground down by wealth; but I’ve noticed that the fellies who’s ground down are them that spends most o’ their time in some bar-room hollerin’ about it.”

“That’s true,” Allan agreed. “And don’t forget that you’ve gone up from section foreman to division roadmaster in the same time, and that you’re not done yet.”

“Yes, I am, me boy,” said Jack, gravely. “I haven’t got th’ eddication t’ go any furder. I’ve got the experience, but that’s only half the equipment a felly has to have to reach the top. I don’t know jest how it is, but eddication—the real thing—seems t’ kind o’ give a man a bigger grasp of things. He kin put two and two together quicker—he kin see furder.”

“Jack’s right,” said Reddy. “Now I’ve reached my limit in section foreman. It’s as fur as I kin go. I ain’t complainin’. I’m contented. But some of us is built fer speed, an’ some of us is built fer strength. Some of us has to pull freight, and some gits to pull polished Pullmans, but I reckon it all comes to th’ same thing in the end.”

“Yes,” said Allan, quietly, “passenger and freight all have the same destination. And you know, as well as I do, that it’s the freight that counts most when it comes to figuring results.”

The ringing of the telephone bell interrupted them, and Mamie ran to answer it. She was back in a moment.

“Somebody wants you, Allan,” she said. “Mr. Schofield, I think.”

Anxious eyes followed him, as he arose and went to the ’phone. A call from the superintendent might mean so many things—usually did mean disaster of some kind. He was gone a long time, and as the minutes lengthened, the shadow on the faces of those about the table deepened. They tried at first to keep up a semblance of conversation, but that finally dropped away and they sat silent. That it was something serious was evident.

But Allan came back at last, and as he caught sight of their anxious faces, he laughed outright.

“No, it’s not a wreck,” he said, “and I’m not fired.”

He sat down, and the others waited. If it was anything he could tell them, they knew he would. If it was official business, they did not wish to question him.

“The fact is,” he went on, slowly, Mamie’s face with evident amusement, “a very unusual thing has happened.”

“Oh, Allan!” Mamie burst out, “if you’re going to tell us, please hurry and do it.”

“A very unusual thing,” Allan proceeded with provoking deliberation. “You know I told you that Mr. Hayes is going to Springfield.”

“Yes,” said Mamie, encouragingly, bouncing in her seat.

“Ain’t he goin’?” asked Jack.

“Oh, yes; he’s going. He went this afternoon. But the fact is, Goodwood don’t want his job.”

“Why?”

“He says the hours are too long, and the added responsibility more than the added salary. He says he’s contented where he is.”

“Ho!” said Reddy. “Reached his limit jest like me, an’ knows it. Well, it’s a wise man that knows when to let well enough alone.”

But Mamie’s face suddenly gleamed with understanding, and she jumped from her seat and rushed around the table to Allan’s side.

“I know!” she cried. “I know! Oh, you stupid people! Don’t you see? Allan’s to be chief dispatcher!”

They were all on their feet now.

“What, Allan! Is it?” cried Jack, incoherently.

“Yes,” answered Allan, “I guess it is.”

Jack came over to him and put his hands on his shoulders.

“Eight year ago to-day,” he said, looking him in the eyes. “I’m proud of ye, me boy. But I don’t need t’ tell ye that.”

“And he’ll make the best chief this division ever had,” added Reddy with conviction. “Where’s my hat?”

“But you ain’t goin’!” protested Mrs. Welsh. “It’s early yet.”

“I know it is,” said Reddy. “But I can’t stay. Not with this news in my craw. I must tell the old woman and the boys. They ain’t a man on the division that won’t be glad.”

CHAPTER II
NEW DUTIES

Two days later, Allan West entered regularly upon his new duties as chief dispatcher of the Ohio Division of the P. & O. railway. Meantime, news of his promotion had got about, and it seemed as though every employee of the division, high or low, had made it a point to seek him out and congratulate him. For Allan, in the eight years he had been with the road, had endeared himself to everyone by kindness and considerateness, and even those engineers and conductors who had a standing grievance against all dispatchers had come to confess that he was the squarest one they had ever met.

The chief dispatcher’s office is a large and pleasant room, looking down over the busy yards, and is shared by Mr. Plumfield, the train master. A great desk stands between the front windows, one side of which belongs to the train master and the other to the chief dispatcher. On it two sounders clicked, and from the open door of the dispatchers’ office, at Allan’s back, came the incessant clamouring of other instruments.

To one unaccustomed to it, this ceaseless noise would have been perfectly distracting, but to the habitués of the offices it was scarcely noticeable. And yet, though they seemingly paid no heed to it, it had a meaning for them, and anything out of routine attracted their attention instantly. For telegraphers develop a sixth sense, which takes up and translates what the instruments are saying without interfering with any of the others.

Perhaps you have seen an engineer sitting beside his engine, reading a paper while the complicated mechanism whirls smoothly along at its appointed task. Suddenly, without cause so far as you can see, he starts up, snatches up an oil can or a wrench, and squirts a jet of oil upon a bearing or tightens a nut somewhere. No sign of trouble has been audible to you, but his trained ear, even though his brain was otherwise engaged, had caught an unaccustomed burr or rattle and had called his attention to it.

Such instances might be multiplied indefinitely. Everyone who works at a certain task, or goes through a certain set of motions, becomes, after a time, to some extent automatic. Physiologists call such motions “reflex,” and tell us that in time the brain passes on such volitions to the spinal cord and so frees itself for other work—one of the wise provisions of our bodily mechanism, whose wonder and perfection very few of us understand or appreciate.

Allan was, of course, acquainted, in a general way, with the duties of his new position, and he lost no time in further familiarizing himself with them. All of the operators along the line were under his control. He assigned them to their duties, promoted them or discharged them as occasion might arise, investigated any delinquency on their part, and held them accountable for the proper performance of their duties. In addition to this, he was required to see that empty freight cars were furnished the various agents along the line, as they needed them, and that loaded cars were taken up promptly and sent forward to their destinations. Every day, each agent wired in his car requirements, and it was the chief dispatcher’s business to see that these requirements were filled as speedily as possible. He was also expected to see that the dispatchers understood their duties, and to unravel any knotty point which any of them might not understand.

Further than that, the clerical duties of the position were very heavy. He must make daily reports of the amount of freight handled; and if any freight crew was kept on the road more than sixteen hours, a special report must be prepared for the Interstate Commerce Commission, giving the facts in the case, and explaining why the crew had been kept out so long; for it is unlawful to keep any crew on duty for more than that length of time. A wise provision, for before this law was enacted, in busy seasons, railroads sometimes kept their crews on duty for twenty-four, thirty-six and even forty-eight hours at a stretch—an abuse which inevitably resulted in accidents from the men going to sleep while on duty, or being so exhausted by the long hours as to grow careless and forgetful of orders.

These were the duties when everything was moving in regular order. At other times, the supreme duty of every one connected with the office was to get them back to regular order. For a great railroad system is like a complicated machine—no part can run smoothly unless all are running smoothly, and the throwing of the smallest cog out of gear cripples the entire mechanism. Although the train master was the “trouble man,”—in other words, the man whose especial duty it was to superintend the clearing away of wrecks, and the straightening out of traffic—whenever anything happened to interfere with it, all other work became subordinate to that of restoring traffic to its normal condition.

On this morning, however, everything was moving in regular order; the sounders clicked out the reports of trains on time; there were no calls for cars which could not be answered promptly and no freight along the line which the regular locals could not handle. Conductors came and registered, compared their watches with the big electric clock which kept official time for the division, and departed; others reported in; trainmen loitered before the bulletin board, or gossiped in their lounging-room across the hall; the typewriting machine of the train master’s stenographer clicked steadily away; and there was about the place a contented hum of industry, such as one hears about a bee-hive on a warm day in late spring when the apples are in bloom.

“I heard some bad news about Heywood, while I was in Cincinnati yesterday,” remarked Mr. Plumfield casually, in the course of the morning, referring to the general superintendent.

“Bad news?” questioned Allan, looking up quickly.

“I don’t believe he’s making good. Nothing definite, you know; just a general feeling of dissatisfaction with him. I shouldn’t be surprised if he lost out.”

“What’s the matter with him?”

“You knew his wife died?”

“Yes.”

“She was a mighty sweet woman, and I imagine had lots of influence on Heywood. Well, after her death, he seemed to go to pieces more or less. His daughter, Betty, was away at school, or somewhere, and didn’t know until she came home. You knew her?”

“Oh, yes; very well. I used to see her when they lived here.”

“Yes; I rather fancied, sometimes—”

“I thought a great deal of her and still do,” Allan interrupted.

Mr. Plumfield nodded.

“Well, she came home and tried to brace him up, and I dare say succeeded pretty well for a while—”

He stopped. There was no need that he should say anything more.

Allan, staring at the report before him, remembered how kind Mr. Heywood had been to him years before; remembered his first vision of Betty Heywood, as she came bursting into her father’s office, one day when he was there. He had not seen her for nearly four years—not since the night when she had ridden away on the east-bound flyer to go to school in the East. Had she changed, he wondered, or was she still the same warm-hearted, impulsive girl whom he had known?

The sounder on Allan’s desk began to call him, and he came back to the present with a start. He opened the key and replied with the quick .., .., which told that he was ready to receive the message.

“Chief dispatcher, Ohio Division,” clicked out the little instrument. “A special train consisting of combination coach and private car will leave Cincinnati east-bound about ten o’clock to-morrow morning. You will have your best engines ready to take it through to Wadsworth, and from there to Parkersburg. This special is to run without orders, its time to be governed only by the maximum speed of the engine, and is to be given a clear track with rights over everything. It must be expedited in every way possible.”

A. G. Round,

“General Manager”

Mr. Plumfield whistled softly, as the message ended.

“Who do you suppose it is?” he asked. “The Emperor of Germany?”

“That’s certainly an unusual order,” agreed Allan.

“I never saw but one like it before,” added Mr. Plumfield. “That was when the president of the road was somewhere in the west, and his wife was reported dying back at Baltimore. We gave him right of way then.”

“Did he get there in time?” asked Allan.

“Oh, she didn’t die. Maybe it was his presence saved her. Anyway, his train covered the two hundred miles from Cincinnati to Parkersburg at an average speed of fifty-three miles an hour. That was going some.”

“We’ll see if we can beat it to-morrow,” Allan answered, and turned to the task of clearing the track for the special.

As he knew only the approximate time that the special would leave Cincinnati, it was necessary to prepare several plans, the one to be adopted depending upon the exact time the train pulled out from the Grand Central depot. From Cincinnati to Loveland he had a double track to work with, but from Loveland east, only a single track, and it was necessary to so arrange the schedule that no train would interfere with the special and at the same time to provide that they be interfered with as little as possible. Another difficulty arose from the fact that it was impossible to tell exactly how fast the special would run, and Allan’s brow wrinkled perplexedly as he bent above the time-card.

“I tell you what I’m going to do,” he said, at last, “I’m going over the road with this train myself. I’m not going to take any chances.”

And that night, with the time-card in his pocket and his plans carefully laid, Allan boarded the accommodation for Cincinnati.

The man in whose behalf this extraordinary order had been issued was no less a personage than a candidate for the Presidency of the United States. His election had been thought fairly certain, but hinged upon New York State. This, he had been confidently assured by the party leaders, he would carry without difficulty; and he had not visited it except early in the campaign, for a few speeches. He had then devoted his attention to some doubtful states in the middle west, when, with the election only ten days off, he had received a message urging him to reach New York at the earliest possible moment, that unexpected opposition had developed there, and that every moment was precious. In this strait, he had appealed to the railroads, and they had leaped to his aid.

Not because of the man, nor because of the fact that he was a candidate for the greatest office within the gift of the people of this republic; but because they regarded his election as vital to their welfare. For the railroads had fallen among troublous times. The business regeneration of the past few years had affected them deeply. Whether rightly or wrongly, the American public, or a large portion of it, had come to believe that railroad management was corrupt and wasteful, that it discriminated against its patrons and used its wealth and influence to secure the passage of laws inimicable to public welfare. So severe measures had been taken to curtail this power, and to protect the interests of both the stockholders of the roads and of the people who gave them business. The issuing of passes had been forbidden; a commission had been established by the government to prevent and punish any discrimination in favour of any shipper of freight; laws had been passed curtailing the hours of railway employees; in many states the legal fare to be charged passengers had been reduced by act of legislature from three to two cents a mile, and there had sprung up a wide-spread demand that freight rates be also regulated by law. Many roads felt that ruin was staring them in the face, and an all-important question with them was the election of a president who would regard them with friendly eyes and who would throw his influence against any revolutionary measures which might be aimed at them.

It was not wonderful, then, that they should have rushed to the assistance of this man, since his opponent was pledged to work for the very measures which the roads dreaded; and that, when his election seemed in danger, they should have placed their resources absolutely at his disposal, and have given him right of way over everything. He had been hurried across the plains of Missouri, shot into Saint Louis, flung across the prairies of Illinois and Indiana, and now, at 9.45 o’clock in the morning, the train shot into the Grand Union station at Cincinnati, and came to a stop with a jerk.

Ten minutes before, Allan, able at last to time the exact minute of its arrival, had sent out the messages which would govern its movements from Cincinnati to Wadsworth. There were to be no stops, except one for water, and, if all went well, He was determined to cover the hundred miles in a hundred minutes. He knew his engine and knew the engineer—957, with Tom Michaels, lean, gray-haired, a bundle of nerves, a man to take chances if necessary, yet never to take one that was unnecessary; and he believed that the distance could be covered in that time.

Three minutes were allowed in which to change engines, and half a dozen men were waiting to make the change. The air-hose was uncoupled and the old engine backed away. While the 957 was run down and coupled up, four men with flaring torches had been making an examination of the coach and private car, and in just three minutes, or at 9.48 A. M., the conductor held up his hand and Michaels gently opened the throttle.

The old engineer’s face was gleaming. It was the first time in his long life at the throttle that he had ever been given a free track and told to go ahead. But he nursed her carefully over the network of tracks in the yards, out through the ditch and past the stock-yards before he really let her out. Then, slowly and slowly, he drew the throttle open, and with every instant the great engine gathered speed, while the fireman, equally interested and enthusiastic, nursed the fire until the fire-box was a pit of white-hot, swirling flame.

Allan had ensconced himself on the forward end of the fireman’s seat, and sat for a time, watch in hand. Then he looked over at Michaels and nodded. They were making their mile a minute.

“It’s like ridin’ on a shootin’ star,” the fireman shouted up, as he rested for a moment from his exertions, bracing himself, his feet wide apart, against the swaying of the engine. “Right through the middle of a white-hot comet,” he added, scraping the sweat from his forehead. “It surely is a hot day.”

Then he bent again to his task. Every thirty-five seconds he threw three scoops-full of coal into the fire-box, then closed the door for the same length of time. And always he kept his eye on the indicator, to see that the pressure never fell below the “popping-off” point. It may be that, for this occasion, Michaels had hung a little extra weight on the lever of his safety-valve. At any rate, no steam was wasted through it.

There was a block system as far as Loveland, but beyond that, they had to trust to the observance of orders issued from division headquarters. On and on sped the train, the speed creeping up to sixty-five miles an hour, and once to seventy-four on a long down-grade. The whistle seemed to shriek its warning almost continuously; stations seemed to crumble to pieces with a crash as the train leaped past them; farm houses fluttered by or wheeled in stately procession across the landscape. And always Michaels sat, his hand on the throttle, his eyes on the track ahead, swaying to the motion of the engine, as a rider sways to his steed; only moving from time to time to glance at his watch or at the steam and water gauge, to blow the whistle and open the injector which shot the water from the tank to the boiler of the engine. The track ahead seemed to be rushing toward them only to be swallowed up; the nearer landscape was merely a gray blur; the telegraph poles flashed by “like the teeth of a fine-tooth comb,” as the fireman remarked; and always there was the roar of the great machine, the crash and rumble as the engine hurled itself along the rails. It was a marvel that it kept them, or seemed so—a marvel that it did not hurtle away cross-country at its own sweet will.

At New Vienna they paused for water. Michaels, with the skill of a magician, brought his engine to a stop with the tank-opening exactly underneath the penstock beside the track. The fireman lowered it with a clang and the water rushed and foamed down into the almost empty tank. Then, as the penstock swung up into place, Michaels opened the throttle and they were off again.

Allan, glancing across at the engineer, saw how the sweat was pouring down his face; how his face had aged and lined under the strain; how the lips had tightened. It was a hot day, unusually hot for so late in the year, and the atmosphere was close with threatened storm—but it was not the heat alone which brought out the sweat upon the engineer, nor the discomfort which lined and aged his face. Yet he sat erect as ever, his eyes glancing from the track ahead to the gauges, and back again. Once he stooped from his seat to shout a warning word to the fireman, when the needle for an instant dropped a notch. Allan, glancing back, saw that the rear car was lost in a whirl of dust. It seemed as insignificant as a tail—a mere appendage to be whipped hither and thither as the engine willed. He had ridden in cabs before—many times—but never under such conditions as these. He knew the track—he knew the rattle of every target as they flashed past it, the roar of every bridge as they rushed through it; and suddenly he remembered the sharp curve just beyond Greenfield, and wondered if Michaels would slow up for it.

The huddle of roofs that marked the town flashed into sight ahead, grew and grew, was upon them. The rattle of switches told that they were in the yards, but yard-limit speed had no bearing upon this case. He caught a glimpse of the signal before the station, and saw with relief that it was set at safety. Everything was working well, then, as he had planned it. Twenty miles more and they would be at Wadsworth, with the first leg of the journey covered. There was no need that he should go further with the train—he had tested its capabilities—he would know how to provide for it. Then the curve was upon them, and he braced himself for the jar he knew must come as the engine struck it. Michaels, his face drawn and tense, sat staring ahead, but made no move toward closing the throttle, even a hair’s-breadth.

There was a mighty jolt, and the engine seemed to climb over the rails. Allan could feel it lift perceptibly, but the wheels held. A moment more—

And then, as they cleared the curve and caught a glimpse of the straight track beyond, he saw steaming toward them, under full headway, not a hundred yards away, another engine. Only for an instant he saw it; then, as Michaels closed the throttle and jerked on the brakes, he closed his eyes involuntarily, for he knew that no power on earth could stop the train in time.

CHAPTER III
THE MIRACLE AT GREENFIELD

Meanwhile, back in his private car, the great man, as was his custom in any circumstance, had made himself as comfortable as might be. It was a luxurious car, eighty feet in length, with bath, kitchen, lounging-room, bedrooms, dining-room—in fact, everything that a modern home could have, on a small and compact scale. Travel in this car was as luxurious as travel could be. And even at the wild rate of speed at which it was jerked forward, it maintained a long, steady roll, much like that of a ship on a calm sea. Only when one glanced out the windows at the blurred landscape was the speed apparent, unless, indeed, one kept one’s eyes on the needle, which flickered ceaselessly up and down on the speed-indicator.

Both of these things the great man studiously refrained from doing, but turning his back alike to the windows and to the indicator, he devoted his time to going through his correspondence, dictating to his secretary, and meditating ways and means for holding New York in the column of the “safe and sane.”

He sat up late into the night, as the train whirled across the Illinois prairies, smoking meditatively, a wrinkle of perplexed anxiety between his brows, for the path to the White House was proving more thorny than he had thought possible. Not the least of his unexpected tribulations was this record-breaking trip half across the continent. He was naturally a nervous man, and this hurtling through space distressed him acutely. He felt that he was being offered as a sacrifice upon the altar of his country, and the sensation was anything but pleasant. His only consolation was that his meteoric trip was being featured by the papers, both friendly and unfriendly, and would prove an excellent advertisement—more especially since the friendly papers were taking care to point out how lightly the great man considered his own comfort—nay, even his life—when his country called him! He smiled grimly to himself as he thought of those headlines, for he was thoroughly conscious that he was not in the least heroic, but merely an ordinary man with a faculty of making friends, a power of keeping his mouth shut when it was wise to do so, and a gift for rounded periods when rounded periods were demanded.

He went to bed, at last, long after midnight, and it was not until Cincinnati had been left far behind that he arose. He took his bath, dressed himself leisurely, and finally sat down to breakfast. Sitting thus, with his side to the window, he could not escape the vision of the landscape, which was rushing madly past. Involuntarily his eyes rested for an instant on the speed-indicator, and he started as he saw that the needle showed an hourly speed of seventy-two miles. He closed his lips firmly together and with a hand not altogether steady started to attack his grapefruit.

Then suddenly the car lurched heavily and the next instant it seemed to stand on end and buckle in the middle. The great man was thrown forward across the table, which overturned with a crash; a negro waiter, who was just entering with a tray of dishes, was hurled through a glass partition and disappeared with a yell of terror. Every movable thing in the car leaped toward the front end; what was breakable broke and the orderly interior was transformed in an instant to an appalling chaos.

Of what happened in the next minute or two, the great man never had any very definite recollection. He staggered to his feet at last and looked dazedly around. Had there been a wreck? Was he badly injured?

Then he realized that the car was moving, that the landscape was slipping past as rapidly as ever. His eyes fell again upon the needle of the indicator. It stood at sixty-eight. He glared at it for a moment, unable to believe his senses, then collapsed into a chair and buried his head in his hands.

And it was in that position that his secretary found him.

Bill Higgins, the engineer, always claimed it was because the agent at Roxabel had held him up for an hour waiting for a box-car to be loaded. The car was for a friend of the agent’s, Bill explained, or he never would have held the train. It wasn’t perishable goods, either—just some household stuff, which the friend was having moved in from Roxabel to Loveland.

Jim Burns, the conductor, said it was the heat—a really remarkable and enervating heat for October, presaging a great storm brewing somewhere. What the fireman said and the brakemen is immaterial, because when their superiors went to sleep, it was to be expected that they would do likewise. All of which came out when Train Master Plumfield had them “on the carpet” for the investigation which followed. What happened was really this:

Local freight west had started out from Wadsworth early in the morning, to make the trip in to Cincinnati, picking up such cars as were waiting for it along the way, and delivering others to the several stations. The day was hot—there was no question of that—and the work was heavy, for there was an unusual number of cars to deliver and pick up. Besides which, came the delay at Roxabel, where the agent did hold the train for a while, until the work of loading a car could be finished. The agent swore, however, that the delay on this account did not amount to more than fifteen minutes. At Lyndon, came an order for the freight to proceed to the gravel-pit siding east of Greenfield, and run in there and await the passage of a special.

“Don’t say how long we’ll have to wait,” said Burns, as he and the engineer compared notes. “Jest wait—time ain’t no object to nobody. We’ll be mighty lucky if we get into Cincinnati before midnight.”

“Them dispatchers don’t know their business, an’ never did!” protested Higgins, wiping the perspiration from his red face. “It’s an outrage to keep a train on the road the way they’re keepin’ us. The government ort t’ hear about it.”

“It sure ort,” agreed the conductor. “Well, I guess we’re ready,” and as the train rattled slowly out of the siding, he swung himself aboard the caboose, looked back to see that a yard-man closed the switch, and then, having made up his report as far as he could, calmly laid himself down in a berth and went to sleep.

The train rumbled on under the hot sun. The engineer, looking ahead, could see the waves of heat rising from the rails and the pitch oozing from the ties. Beside him, the fire beneath the boiler spat and roared; the sun beat down upon the great locomotive, until Higgins almost fancied it was turning red-hot before his eyes. The fireman, stripped to the waist, swung the fire-box door open and shut as he ladled in the coal, stopping now and then to dash the sweat from before his eyes or to spray himself with water from the tank. For they were travelling with the wind, not against it, and so lost the effect of any cooling breeze.

“Blamed if you’d think she’d need so much coal,” remarked the front brakeman, who was riding in the cab. “You’d think this heat would purty nigh git up steam without any help.”

“You don’t know this blamed old hog,” said the fireman, referring to the engine. “She eats up coal like a trans-Atlantic liner. I’ve thought sometimes they wasn’t no front end to her fire-box, an’ that I was jest shovellin’ coal out into creation. She’s a caution, she is!”

“Oh, she ain’t so bad,” put in Higgins, who like all engineers, loved his engine in spite of her faults. “You’re jest a-talkin’, Pinkey.”

“Huh!” grunted Pinkey. “You trade jobs with me awhile an’ see.”

But to this absurd proposal the engineer returned no answer. Instead, he tooted the whistle for a crossing, and, his hand on the throttle, watched a nervous farmer whip a team of horses across the track.

“Blamed fool!” he muttered. “Couldn’t wait till we got past! Well, there’s the sidin’,” he added, and stopped until the brakeman had run ahead and thrown the switch. Then he ran slowly in.

The brakeman closed the switch, and swung himself up into the caboose. He found the conductor and rear brakemen peacefully sleeping, and without disturbing them, clambered up into the cupola, intending to keep a lookout for the special, and open the switch after it had passed, so that the freight could pass out again upon the main track and proceed upon its way. For a few minutes, his eyes remained fixed upon the track ahead; then his lids gradually drooped, his head nodded, and finally fell forward upon his arms.

Forward in the engine, the engineer and fireman settled themselves upon their respective boxes.

“How long do we have t’ wait?” inquired the latter, after a few moments.

“Blamed if I know,” answered the engineer. “That fool dispatcher didn’t say. But it can’t be more’n ten minutes. If it had been, he’d have let us go on to Greenfield.”

The minutes passed; and, finally, lulled by the quiet breathing of the engine, the purr of insects, and the distant rattle of a mowing machine, both engineer and fireman nodded off.

Twenty minutes later, the engineer awoke with a start, just in time, as he thought, to hear the roar of a train fade away in the distance. He glanced at his watch, then got down from his seat, and shook the fireman with no gentle hand.

“Goin’ t’ stay here all day, Pinkey?” he asked. “An’ what’s the matter with them blame fools back there?” he added, savagely, and seizing the whistle cord, blew three shrill blasts. A moment later, the front brakeman, who had started awake at the first blast, came running forward over the train and clambered down into the cab.

“Why don’t some o’ you ijits open that there switch back there,” demanded Higgins, “so’s I kin back out? Or do you want t’ stay here the rest o’ your natural lives?”

“Why don’t you pull straight out?” asked the brakeman. “What’s th’ use o’ backin’ up?”

“Why, that there switch has been out o’ fix fer three months,” answered Higgins, savagely. “I’ve reported it a dozen times, but much good it does. Burns knows it. He knows we’ve got t’ back out. Why don’t he wake up? Is he deef?” and he jerked the whistle fiercely again.

Conductor and brakeman in the caboose were having a discussion of much the same tenor. Then Burns remembered about the broken switch.

“We’ve got t’ back out,” he said. “Higgins ’s right. Git her open,” and as the brakeman threw the switch, he signalled the engineer to back up.

The front brakeman, meanwhile, being of an inquiring disposition, had dropped off the engine and walked forward to the other switch, to see just what the matter was with it. To his surprise, he found it in perfect working order, for the section gang had repaired it the afternoon before. Chuckling to himself, he opened and closed it two or three times, thinking what a good joke he had on Burns and Higgins. Then, looking back, he saw that his train had passed out upon the main track and was steaming toward him.

“THE NEXT INSTANT IT FLASHED INTO VIEW AROUND THE CURVE.”

He closed the switch and was just about to lock it, when he heard another sound that made his heart stand still—the roar of a train approaching from the west. The next instant it flashed into view around the curve, running, as the brakeman afterwards expressed it, about three hundred miles a minute.

Without conscious thought, but seizing the one chance in a thousand to avoid a terrible accident, he threw the switch open again and then sprang aside as the special swept in upon the siding. He heard the screaming of the brakes and saw the train fairly buckling upon itself in an almost human effort to stop. But stop it could not, and out upon the main track again it swept, through the switch at the farther end of the siding, which the brakeman there had sense enough to open, and on toward Wadsworth.

Staring after it, they saw it pick up speed again, and disappear.

And it was a mighty solemn train crew that took that local freight in to Greenfield.

CHAPTER IV
AFTERMATH

Should Allan West live for a hundred years, he will never forget that instant in which he closed his eyes and braced himself for the terrific shock he knew must come. There was no time to think, no time even for the sensation of fear to make itself felt; only a sort of dim realization that the end was at hand.

Then he felt the engine give a mighty lurch, which almost tore it from the rails; a roar sounded in his ears, there was another lurch, and opening his eyes, at last, he saw only the straight track ahead of him, and felt the engine gradually gaining speed as Michaels released the brakes and slowly opened the throttle.

He sat erect with a gasp of amazement, and wiped the sweat from his forehead with shaking hand. He looked down at the fireman, who had phlegmatically resumed his duties; then over at the engineer, who was gazing straight ahead of him, his face set and gray.

“What happened?” he shouted, as the fireman closed the fire-box and stood resting for a moment.

“Blamed if I know,” the latter answered. “I was shovellin’ in coal, when Bill clapped on the brakes and purty nigh throwed me into the fire-box. Then we passed a freight an’ Bill let her out again. He must ’a’ thought she was on the same track.”

“She was on the same track,” said Allan.

“Well, we passed her, anyway,” retorted the fireman, philosophically, and returned to his duties.

Then Allan remembered the switch and understood dimly what had happened. But it was not until the investigation was held that he knew all the details.

The crew of the freight were, of course, hauled up “on the carpet.” The two brakemen who had opened the switches at the proper instant and shunted the special past were commended for their prompt action, and exonerated from blame, as the train was, of course, in charge of the conductor and engineer. The two latter worthies were suspended indefinitely without pay.

It was by no means the first time in the history of the road that a freight crew had gone to sleep on a siding and waked up to find that they no longer knew what their rights were. The proper thing to have done, of course, was either to have flagged in to the next station, or to have hunted up the nearest telephone and found out from the dispatchers’ office just what their rights were.

“That front brakeman will make a good railroad man,” remarked Mr. Plumfield, when the inquiry into the incident was over, taking a little red, leather-bound book from a drawer of his desk. “He’s quick-witted—no man ever lasted very long with a railroad who wasn’t.”

He ran down the index at the front of the book, turned to the names of the four men who had just been on the carpet, and wrote a short sentence after each of them. That record would stand to commend or condemn them so long as they were connected with the road. The record of every man was there, with all his merits and demerits. Train masters might forget—might be promoted or discharged—but that record always remained.

“Yes,” went on the train master, restoring the book to its drawer, “if a railroad man’s wits aren’t hung on hair-triggers and quicker than greased lightning in action, he’s usually knocked into Kingdom Come before he has a chance to realize he never was cut out for the work.”

And Mr. Plumfield was right. A railroad man must learn to act without stopping to think—he seldom has time to think. Perhaps if he had, he wouldn’t be so ready to risk his life as he is—for he risks his life a thousand times to a soldier’s once—but he always does it in a hurry. There is no long waiting under fire until the welcome order comes to charge—if there were, the railroad man would probably run away, and so would the soldier, but for the iron discipline that binds him. That’s what discipline is for—to hold men firm in the face of realized and long-continued danger—for there is nothing on earth more difficult than to make men stand still and be shot at. The railroad man never has to stand still—he has to jump, and jump quick. All men aren’t heroes, but their first impulse is usually to do the brave and necessary thing. Railroad men always act on that first impulse—and think about it and shiver over it and wonder at themselves afterwards.

Despite the misadventure, the special swept into Wadsworth on time, having covered ninety miles in ninety minutes—a record which has never been equalled, or even, for that matter, very nearly approached. For never since has a train been sent over the road under such orders.

A crowd had gathered at the Wadsworth station to receive the great man, confident that he would, at least, favour them with one of those scintillating three-minute talks for which he was so famous. So they gathered about the rear platform of his car yelling “Speech! speech!” For a time there was no response, then, finally, the door opened, but it was not the great man who appeared. It was his secretary, looking very white and shaky. He apologized for the great man in a thin and tremulous voice; the trip had been a very trying one, and the great man was suffering from the strain incident to the vigorous campaign he had been waging. He was lying down, endeavouring to get some much-needed rest, recognizing the necessity of saving himself for the final struggle which was to bring New York safe into line and assure an administration whose first effort it would be, etc., etc.

The crowd gave a few subdued cheers and melted away. Then the secretary leaped down the steps of the car and rushed up to Allan, who was watching the process of changing engines.

“Are you in charge here?” asked the secretary.

“I’m putting this special through, if that’s what you mean,” answered Allan.

“Well,” said the secretary, “you’re wanted in the private car at once.”

“Very well,” said Allan, and sprang up the steps behind him.

The great man was half-sitting, half-lying in a large chair. His face was gray and sunken and his eyes strangely bloodshot.

“This is the man in charge,” said the secretary, bringing Allan to a halt before the chair.

“I just want to tell you one thing,” said the great man, hoarsely, lifting a trembling finger, “and that is that if you’re all crazy out here I’m not! The man who brought us over that last stretch of road ought to be in an asylum.”

“We made the ninety miles in ninety minutes,” said Allan, with some pride.