THE

LAST SPIKE

AND OTHER

RAILROAD STORIES

BY

CY WARMAN

NEW YORKCHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS1906

_Copyright, 1906_, BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

Published February, 1906

THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A. 

CONTENTS

 PAGE

THE LAST SPIKE 1

THE BELLE OF ATHABASCA 31

PATHFINDING IN THE NORTHWEST 49

THE CURÉ'S CHRISTMAS GIFT 61

THE MYSTERIOUS SIGNAL 85

CHASING THE WHITE MAIL 107

OPPRESSING THE OPPRESSOR 119

THE IRON HORSE AND THE TROLLEY 135

IN THE BLACK CAÑON 151

JACK RAMSEY'S REASON 165

THE GREAT WRECK ON THE PÈRE MARQUETTE 181

THE STORY OF AN ENGLISHMAN 193

ON THE LIMITED 211

THE CONQUEST OF ALASKA 219

NUMBER THREE 237

THE STUFF THAT STANDS 253

THE MILWAUKEE RUN 273

THE LAST SPIKE

"Then there is nothing against him but his poverty?"

"And general appearance. "

"He's the handsomest man in America. "

"Yes, that is against him, and the fact that he is always _in_ America. He appears to be afraid to get out. "

"He's the bravest boy in the world, " she replied, her face still to thewindow. "He risked his life to drag me from under the ice, " she added, with a girl's loyalty to her hero and a woman's pride in the man sheloves. 

"Well, I must own he has nerve, " her father added, "or he never wouldhave accepted my conditions. "

"And what where these conditions, pray?" the young woman asked, turningand facing her father, who sat watching her every move and gesture. 

"First of all, he must do something; and do it off his own bat. His oldfather spent his last dollar to educate this young rascal, to equip himfor the battle of life, and his sole achievement is a curve that nobodycan find. Now I insist he shall do something, and I have given him fiveyears for the work. "

"Five years!" she gasped, as she lost herself in a big chair. 

"He is to have time to forget you, and you are to have ample opportunityto forget him, which you will doubtless do, for you are not to meet orcommunicate with each other during this period of probation. "

"Did he promise this?"

"Upon his honor. "

"And if he break that promise?"

"Ah, then he would be without honor, and you would not marry him. " Amoment's silence followed, broken by a long, deep sigh that ended inlittle quivering waves, like the faint ripples that reach theshore, --the whispered echoes of the sobbing sea. 

"O father, it is cruel! _cruel! cruel!_" she cried, raising a tearfulface to him. 

"It is justice, stern justice; to you, my dear, to myself, and this fineyoung fellow who has stolen your heart. Let him show himself worthy ofyou, and you have my blessing and my fortune. "

"Is he going soon?"

"He is gone. "

The young woman knelt by her father's chair and bowed her head upon hisknee, quivering with grief. 

This stern man, who had humped himself and made a million, put a hand onher head and said:

"Ma-Mary"--and then choked up. 

II

The tent boy put a small white card down on General Dodge's desk onemorning, upon which was printed:

 J. BRADFORD, C. E. 

The General, who was at that time chief engineer in charge of theconstruction of the first Pacific Railroad, turned the bit of pasteboardover. It seemed so short and simple. He ran his eyes over a printedlist, alphabetically arranged, of directors, promoters, statesmen, capitalists, and others who were in the habit of signing "letters ofrecommendation" for young men who wanted to do something and begin wellup the ladder. 

There were no Bradfords. Burgess and Blodgett were the only B's, and theGeneral was glad. His desk was constantly littered with the "letters" oftenderfeet, and his office-tent filled with their portmanteaus, holdingdress suits and fine linen. 

Here was a curiosity--a man with no press notices, no character, onlyone initial and two chasers. 

"Show him in, " said the General, addressing the one luxury his hoganheld. A few moments later the chief engineer was looking into the eye ofa young man, who returned the look and asked frankly, and withoutembarrassment, for work with the engineers. 

"Impossible, young man--full up, " was the brief answer. 

"Now, " thought the General, "he'll begin to beat his breast and haul outhis 'pull. '" The young man only smiled sadly, and said, "I'm sorry. Isaw an 'ad' for men in the _Bee_ yesterday, and hoped to be in time, " headded, rising. 

"Men! Yes, we want men to drive mules and stakes, to grade, lay track, and fight Indians--but engineers? We've got 'em to use for cross-ties. "

"I am able and willing to do any of these things--except theIndians--and I'll tackle that if nothing else offers. "

"There's a man for you, " said the General to his assistant as Bradfordwent out with a note to Jack Casement, who was handling the graders, teamsters, and Indian fighters. "No influential friends, no baggage, nocharacter, just a man, able to stand alone--a real man in corduroys andflannels. "

Coming up to the gang, Bradford singled out the man who was swearingloudest and delivered the note. "Fall in, " said the straw boss, andBradford got busy. He could handle one end of a thirty-foot rail withease, and before night, without exciting the other workmen or making anyshow of superiority, he had quietly, almost unconsciously, become theleader of the track-laying gang. The foreman called Casement'sattention to the new man, and Casement watched him for five minutes. 

Two days later a big teamster, having found a bottle of fire-water, became separated from his reasoning faculties, crowded under an olddump-cart, and fell asleep. 

"Say, young fellow, " said the foreman, panting up the grade to whereBradford was placing a rail, "can you skin mules?"

"I can drive a team, if that's what you mean, " was the reply. 

"How many?"

"Well, " said Bradford, with his quiet smile, "when I was a boy I used todrive six on the Montpelier stage. "

So he took the eight-mule team and amazed the multitude by haulingheavier loads than any other team, because he knew how to handle hiswhip and lines, and because he was careful and determined to succeed. Whatever he did he did it with both hands, backed up by all theenthusiasm of youth and the unconscious strength of an absolutelyfaultless physique, and directed by a remarkably clear brain. When thetimekeeper got killed, Bradford took his place, for he could "readwritin', " an accomplishment rare among the laborers. When the bookkeepergot drunk he kept the books, working overtime at night. 

In the rush and roar of the fight General Dodge had forgotten the youngman in corduroys until General Casement called his attention to theyoung man's work. The engineers wanted Bradford, and Casement hadkicked, and, fearing defeat, had appealed to the chief. They sent forBradford. Yes, he was an engineer, he said, and when he said it theyknew it was true. He was quite willing to remain in the store departmentuntil he could be relieved, but, naturally, he would prefer field work. 

He got it, and at once. Also, he got some Indian fighting. In less thana year he was assigned to the task of locating a section of the linewest of the Platte. Coming in on a construction train to make his firstreport, the train was held up, robbed, and burned by a band of Sioux. Bradford and the train crew were rescued by General Dodge himself, whohappened to be following them with his "arsenal" car, and who heard atPlumb Creek of the fight and of the last stand that Bradford and hishandful of men were making in the way car, which they had detached andpushed back from the burning train. Such cool heroism as Bradforddisplayed here could not escape the notice of so trained an Indianfighter as General Dodge. Bradford was not only complimented, but wasinvited into the General's private car. The General's admiration for theyoung pathfinder grew as he received a detailed and comprehensive reportof the work being done out on the pathless plains. He knew the worth ofthis work, because he knew the country, for he had spent whole monthstogether exploring it while in command of that territory, where he hadbeen purposely placed by General Sherman, without whose encouragementthe West could not have been known at that time, and without whose helpas commander-in-chief of the United States army the road could not havebeen built. 

As the pathfinders neared the Rockies the troops had to guard themconstantly. The engineers reconnoitered, surveyed, located, and builtinside the picket lines. The men marched to work to the tap of the drum, stacked arms on the dump, and were ready at a moment's notice to fallin and fight. Many of the graders were old soldiers, and a little fightonly rested them. Indeed there was more military air about this workthan had been or has since been about the building of a railroad in thiscountry. It was one big battle, from the first stake west of Omaha tothe last spike at Promontory--a battle that lasted five long years; andif the men had marked the graves of those who fell in that fierce fighttheir monuments, properly distributed, might have served as mile-postson the great overland route to-day. But the mounds were unmarked, mostof them, and many there were who had no mounds, and whose home nameswere never known even to their comrades. If this thing had been done onBritish soil, and all the heroic deeds had been recorded and rewarded, asmall foundry could have been kept busy beating out V. C. 's. They couldnot know, these silent heroes fighting far out in the wilderness, what aglorious country they were conquering--what an empire they were openingfor all the people of the land. Occasionally there came to the men atthe front old, worn newspapers, telling wild stories of the failure ofthe enterprise. At other times they heard of changes in the Board ofDirectors, the election of a new President, tales of jobs and looting, but they concerned themselves only with the work in hand. No breath ofscandal ever reached these pioneer trail-makers, or, if it did, itfailed to find a lodging-place, but blew by. Ample opportunity they hadto plunder, to sell supplies to the Indians or the Mormons, but no oneof the men who did the actual work of bridging the continent has everbeen accused of a selfish or dishonest act. 

During his second winter of service Bradford slept away out in theRockies, studying the snowslides and drifts. For three winters they didthis, and in summer they set stakes, keeping one eye out for Indians andthe other for wash-outs, and when, after untold hardships, privation, and youth-destroying labor, they had located a piece of road, out of thepath of the slide and the washout, a well-groomed son of a politicianwould come up from the Capital, and, in the capacity of Governmentexpert, condemn it all. Then strong men would eat their whiskers and theweaker ones would grow blasphemous and curse the country that affordedno facilities for sorrow-drowning. 

Once, at the end of a long, hard winter, when spring and the Sioux came, they found Bradford and a handful of helpers just breaking camp in asheltered hollow in the hills. Hiding in the crags, the warriors waiteduntil Bradford went out alone to try to shoot a deer, and incidentallyto sound a drift, and then they surrounded him. He fought until his gunwas unloaded, and then emptied his revolver; but ever dodging andcrouching from tree to rock, the red men, whose country he and hiscompanions had invaded, came nearer and nearer. In a little while thefight was hand to hand. There was not the faintest show for escape; tobe taken alive was to be tortured to death, so he fought on, clubbinghis revolver until a well-directed blow from a war club caught the gun, sent it whirling through the top of a nearby cedar, and left thepathfinder empty-handed. The chief sprang forward and lifted his hatchetthat had caused more than one paleface to bite the dust. For thefaintest fraction of a second it stood poised above Bradford's head, then out shot the engineer's strong right arm, and the Indian lay flatsix feet away. 

For a moment the warriors seemed helpless with mingled awe andadmiration, but when Bradford stooped to grab his empty rifle they cameout of their trance. A dull blow, a sense of whirling round swiftly, asudden sunset, stars--darkness, and all pain had gone!

III

When Bradford came to they were fixing him for the fun. His back wasagainst a tree, his feet pinioned, and his elbows held secure by arawhide rope. He knew what it meant. He knew by the look of joy on thefreshly smeared faces at his waking, by the pitch-pine wood that hadbeen brought up, and by the fagots at his feet. The big chief who hadfelt his fist came up, grinning, and jabbed a buckhorn cactus againstthe engineer's thigh, and when the latter tried to move out of reachthey all grunted and danced with delight. They had been uneasy lest thewhite man might not wake. 

The sun, sailing westward in a burnished sea of blue, seemed to standstill for a moment and then dropped down behind the range, as if toescape from the hellish scene. The shadows served only to increase thegloom in the heart of the captive. Glancing over his shoulder toward theeast, he observed that his captors had brought him down near to the edgeof the plain. Having satisfied themselves that their victim had plentyof life left in him, the Indians began to arrange the fuel. With thereturn of consciousness came an inexpressible longing to live. Suddenlyhis iron will asserted itself, and appealing to his great strength, surged until the rawhide ropes were buried in his flesh. Not for amoment while he stood on his feet and fought them on the morning of thatday had hope entirely deserted him. Four years of hardship, ofprivation, and adventure had so strengthened his courage that to give upwas to die. 

Presently, when he had exhausted his strength and sat quietly, theIndians went on with the preliminaries. The gold in the west grewdeeper, the shadows in the foothills darker, as the moments sped. Swiftly the captive's mind ran over the events of the past four years. This was his first failure, and this was the end of it all--of theyears of working and waiting. 

Clenching his fists, he lifted his hot face to the dumb sky, but nosound escaped from his parched and parted lips. Suddenly a light shoneon the semicircle of feather-framed faces in front of him, and he heardthe familiar crackling of burning boughs. Glancing toward the ground hesaw that the fagots were on fire. He felt the hot breath of flame, andthen for the first time realized what torture meant. Again he surged, and surged again, the cedars crackled, the red fiends danced. Anothereffort, the rawhide parted and he stood erect. With both hands freed hefelt new strength, new hope. He tried to free himself from the pyre, buthis feet were fettered, and he fell among his captors. Two or three ofthem seized him, but he shook them off and stood up again. 

But it was useless. From every side the Indians rushed upon him and borehim to the ground. Still he fought and struggled, and as he fought theair seemed full of strange, wild sounds, of shouts and shots andhoof-beating on the dry, hard earth. He seemed to see, as through aveil, scores of Indians, Indians afoot and on horseback, naked Indiansand Indians in soldier clothes. Once he thought he saw a white facegleam just as he got to his feet, but at that moment the big chief stoodbefore him, his battle-axe uplifted. The engineer's head was whirling. Instinctively he tried to use the strong right arm, but it had lost itscunning. The roar of battle grew apace, the axe descended, the left armwent up and took the blow of the handle, but the edge of the weaponreached over and split the white man's chin. As he fell heavily to theearth the light went out again. 

 * * * * *

Save for the stars that stood above him it was still dark when Bradfordwoke. He felt blankets beneath him, and asked in a whisper: "Who'shere?"

"Major North, me call him, " said the Pawnee scout, who was watching overthe wounded man. 

A moment later the gallant Major was leaning over Bradford, encouraginghim, assuring him that he was all right, but warning him of the dangerof making the least bit of noise. 

IV

With all his strength and pluck, it took time for Bradford torecuperate. His next work was in Washington, where, with notes and maps, his strong personality and logical arguments, he caused the Governmentto overrule an expert who wanted to change an important piece of road, and who had arbitrarily fixed the meeting of the mountains and plainsfar up in the foothills. [1]

When Bradford returned to the West he found that the whole country hadsuddenly taken a great and growing interest in the transcontinentalline. Many of the leading newspapers had dug up their old warcorrespondents and sent them out to the front. 

These gifted prevaricators found the plain, unvarnished story of eachday's work as much as they cared to send in at night, for the builderswere now putting down four and five miles of road every working day. Such road building the world had never seen, and news of it now ranround the earth. At night these tireless story-tellers listened to thestrange tales told by the trail-makers, then stole away to their tentsand wrote them out for the people at home, while the heroes of thestories slept. 

The track-layers were now climbing up over the crest of the continent, the locaters were dropping down the Pacific slope, with the prowlingpathfinders peeping over into the Utah Valley. Before the road reachedSalt Lake City the builders were made aware of the presence, power, andopposition of Brigham Young. The head of the church had decreed that theroad must pass to the south of the lake, and as the Central Pacific hadsurveyed a line that way, and General Dodge had declared in favor of thenorthern route, the Mormons threw their powerful influence to theSouthern. The Union Pacific was boycotted, and all good Mormonsforbidden to aid the road in any way. 

Here, again, the chief engineer brought Bradford's diplomacy to bear onBrigham and won him over. 

While the Union Pacific was building west, the Central Pacific had beenbuilding east, and here, in the Salt Lake basin, the advance forces ofthe two companies met. The United States Congress directed that therails should be joined wherever the two came together, but the bonus($32, 000 to the mile) left a good margin to the builders in the valley, so, instead of joining the rails, the pathfinders only said "Howdy do!"and then "Good-bye!" and kept going. The graders followed close upon theheels of the engineers, so that by the time the track-layers met the twogrades paralleled each other for a distance of two hundred miles. Whenthe rails actually met, the Government compelled the two roads to coupleup. It had been a friendly contest that left no bad blood. Indeed theywere all willing to stop, for the iron trail was open from the Atlanticto the Pacific. 

V

The tenth day of May, 1869, was the date fixed for the driving of thelast spike and the official opening of the line. Special trains, carrying prominent railway and Government officials, were hurrying outfrom the East, while up from the Golden Gate came another trainbringing the flower of 'Frisco to witness, and some of them to take anactive part in, the celebration. The day was like twenty-nine other Maydays that month in the Salt Lake Valley, fair and warm, but with a coolbreeze blowing over the sagebrush. The dusty army of trail-makers hadbeen resting for two days, waiting for the people to come in clean storeclothes, to make speeches, to eat and drink, and drive the golden spike. Some Chinese laborers had opened a temporary laundry near the camp, andwere coining money washing faded blue overalls for their white comrades. Many of the engineers and foremen had dressed up that morning, and a fewhad fished out a white shirt. Judah and Strawbridge, of the Central, hadlittle chips of straw hats that had been harvested in the summer of '65. Here and there you saw a sombrero, the wide hat of the cowboy, and thebig, soft, shapeless head cover of the Mormon, with a little bunch ofwhiskers on his chin. General Dodge came from his arsenal car, thatstood on an improvised spur, in a bright, new uniform. Of the specialtrains, that of Governor Stanford was first to arrive, with itsstraight-stacked locomotive and Celestial servants. Then the U. P. Enginepanted up, with its burnished bands and balloon stack, that reminded youof the skirts the women wore, save that it funnelled down. When theladies began to jump down, the cayuses of the cowboys began to snort andside-step, for they had seen nothing like these tents the women stood upin. 

Elaborate arrangements had been made for transmitting the news of thecelebration to the world. All the important telegraph offices of thecountry were connected with Promontory, Utah, that day, so that the blowof the hammer driving the last spike was communicated by the click ofthe instrument to every office reached by the wires. From the Atlanticto the Pacific the people were rejoicing and celebrating the event, butthe worn heroes who had dreamed it over and over for five years, whilethey lay in their blankets with only the dry, hard earth beneath them, seemed unable to realize that the work was really done and that theycould now go home, those who had homes to go to, eat soft bread, andsleep between sheets. 

Out under an awning, made by stretching a blanket between a couple ofdump-carts, Bradford lay, reading a 'Frisco paper that had come byGovernor Stanford's special; but even that failed to hold his thoughts. His heart was away out on the Atlantic coast, and he would be hurryingthat way on the morrow, the guest of the chief engineer. He had lost hismother when a boy, and his father just a year previous to hisbanishment, but he had never lost faith in the one woman he had loved, and he had loved her all his life, for they had been playmates. Now allthis fuss about driving the last spike was of no importance to him. Theone thing he longed for, lived for, was to get back to "God's country. "He heard the speeches by Governor Stanford for the Central, and GeneralDodge for the Union Pacific; heard the prayer offered up by the Rev. Dr. Todd, of Pittsfield; heard the General dictate to the operator:

"All ready, " and presently the operator sang out the reply from the farEast:

"All ready here!" and then the silver hammer began beating the goldenspike into the laurel tie, which bore a silver plate, upon which wasengraved:

 "The Last Tie Laid in the Completion of the Pacific Railroads. May 10, 1869. "

After the ceremony there was handshaking among the men and some kissingamong the women, as the two parties--one from either coast--mingled, andthen the General's tent boy came under the blanket to call Bradford, forthe General wanted him at once. Somehow Bradford's mind flew back to hisfirst meeting with this boy. He caught the boy by the arms, held himoff, and looked at him. "Say, boy, " he asked, "have I changed as much asyou have? Why, only the other day you were a freckled beauty inhigh-water trousers. You're a man now, with whiskers and a busted lip. Say, have I changed, too?"

"Naw; you're just the same, " said the boy. "Come now, the Gen'swaitin'. "

"Judge Manning, " said General Dodge, in his strong, clear voice, "youhave been calling us 'heroes'; now I want to introduce the one hero ofall this heroic band--the man who has given of muscle and brain all thata magnificent and brilliant young man could give, and who deserves thefirst place on the roll of honor among the great engineers of our time. "

As the General pronounced the Judge's name Bradford involuntarilyclenched his fists and stepped back. The Judge turned slowly, lookingall the while at the General, thrilled by his eloquent earnestness, andcatching something of the General's admiration for so eminent a man. 

"Mr. Bradford, " the General concluded, "this is Judge Manning, ofBoston, who came to our rescue financially and helped us to completethis great work to which you have so bravely and loyally contributed. "

"Mr. _Bradford_, did you say?"

"Well, yes. He's only Jim Bradford out here, where we are in a hurry, but he'll be Mr. Bradford in Boston, and the biggest man in town when hegets back. "

All nervousness had gone from Bradford, and he looked steadily into thestrong face before him. 

"Jim Bradford, " the millionnaire repeated, still holding the engineer'shand. 

"Yes, Judge Manning, I'm Jim Bradford, " said the bearded pathfinder, trying to smile and appear natural. 

Suddenly realizing that some explanation was due the General, the Judgeturned and said, but without releasing the engineer's hand: "Why, I knowthis young man--knew his father. We were friends from boyhood. "

Slowly he returned his glance to Bradford. "Will you come into my car inan hour from now?" he asked. 

"Thank you, " said Bradford, nodding, and with a quick, simultaneouspressure of hands, the two men parted. 

VI

Bradford has often since felt grateful to the Judge for that five years'sentence, but never has he forgotten the happy thought that prompted thecapitalist to give him this last hour, in which to get into a fresh suitand have his beard trimmed. Bradford wore a beard always now, notbecause a handsome beard makes a handsome man handsomer, but because itcovered and hid the hideous scar in his chin that had been carved thereby the Sioux chief. 

When the black porter bowed and showed Bradford into Mr. Manning'sprivate car, the pleasure of their late meeting and the Judge's kindlygreeting vanished instantly. It was all submerged and swept away, obliterated and forgotten in the great wave of inexpressible joy thatnow filled and thrilled his throbbing heart, for it was Mary Manning whocame forward to greet him. For nearly an hour she and her father hadbeen listening to the wonderful story of the last five years of theengineer's life. When the wily General caught the drift of the younglady's mind, and had been informed of the conditional engagement of theyoung people, he left nothing unsaid that would add to the fame andglory of the trail-maker. With radiant face she heard of his heroism, tireless industry, and wonderful engineering feats; but when thenarrator came to tell how he had been captured and held and tortured bythe Indians, she slipped her trembling hand into the hand of herfather, and when he saw her hot tears falling he lifted the hand andkissed it, leaving upon it tears of his own. 

The Judge now produced his cigar case, and the General, bowing to theyoung lady, followed the great financier to the other end of the car, leaving Mary alone, for they had seen Bradford coming up the track. 

The dew of her sweet sorrow was still upon her face when Bradfordentered, but the sunshine of her smile soon dried it up. The hands hereached for escaped him. They were about his face; then their great joyand the tears it brought blinded them, and the wild beating of theirhappy hearts drowned their voices so that they could neither see norhear, and neither has ever been able to say just what happened. 

On the day following this happy meeting, when the consolidated specialwas rolling east-ward, while the Judge and the General smoked in thelatter's car, the tent boy brought a telegram back to the happy pair. Itwas delivered to Miss Manning, and she read it aloud:

 "WASHINGTON, May 11, 1869. 

 "GENERAL G. M. DODGE:

"In common with millions I sat yesterday and heard the mystic taps ofthe telegraph battery announce the nailing of the last spike in theGreat Pacific Road. All honor to you, to Durant, to Jack and DanCasement, to Reed and the thousands of brave followers who have wroughtout this glorious problem, spite of changes, storms, and even doubts ofthe incredulous, and all the obstacles you have now happily surmounted!

 "W. T. SHERMAN, "_General_. "

"Well!" she exclaimed, letting her hands and the telegram fall in herlap, "he doesn't even mention my hero. "

"Oh, yes, he does, my dear, " said Bradford, laughing. "I'm one of the'thousands of brave followers. '"

Then they both laughed and forgot it, for they were too happy to botherwith trifles. 

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: The subsidy from the Government was $16, 000 a mile on theplains, and $48, 000 a mile in the mountains. ]

THE BELLE OF ATHABASCA

Athabasca Belle did not burst upon Smith the Silent all at once, like arainbow or a sunrise in the desert. He would never say she had beenthrust upon him. She was acquired, he said, in an unguarded moment. 

The trouble began when Smith was pathfinding on the upper Athabasca forthe new transcontinental. Among his other assets Smith had two campkettles. One was marked with the three initials of the new line, which, at that time, existed only on writing material, empty pots, and equallyempty parliamentary perorations. The other was not marked at all. It wasthe personal property of Jaquis, who cooked for Smith and his outfit. The Belle was a fine looking Cree--tall, strong, _magnifique_. Jaquiswarmed to her from the start, but the Belle was not for Jaquis, himselfa Siwash three to one. She scarcely looked at him, and answered himonly when he asked if she'd _encore_ the pork and beans. But she lookedat Smith. She would sit by the hour, her elbow on her knee and her chinin her hand, watching him wistfully, while he drew crazy, crooked linesor pictured mountains with rivers running between them--all of which, from the Belle's point of view, was not only a waste of time, but hadabsolutely nothing to do with the case. 

The Belle and her brown mother came to the camp of the Silent first oneglorious morn in the moon of August, with a basket of wild berries and apair of beaded moccasins. Smith bought both--the berries for Jaquis, outof which he built strange pies, and the moccasins for himself. He calledthem his night slippers, but as a matter of fact there was no night onthe Athabasca at that time. The day was divided into three shifts, onelong and two short ones, --daylight, dusk, and dawn. So it was daylightwhen the Belle first fixed her large dark eyes upon the strong, handsomeface of Smith the Silent, as he sat on his camp stool, bent above a maphe was making. Belle's mother, being old in years and unafraid, cameclose, looked at the picture for a moment, and exclaimed: "Him JasperLake, " pointing up the Athabasca. 

"You know Jasper Lake?" asked the engineer, glancing up for the firsttime. 

"_Oui_, " said the old woman (Belle's step-father was half French); "know'im ver' well. "

Smith looked her over as a matter of habit, for he allowed no man orwoman to get by him with the least bit of information concerning thecountry through which his imaginary line lay. Then he glanced at Bellefor fully five seconds, then back to his blue print. Nobody but ahe-nun, or a man already wedded to the woods, could do that, but to thecredit of the camp it will go down that the chief was the only man inthe outfit who failed to feel her presence. As for Jaquis, the alloyedSiwash, he carried the scar of that first meeting for six months, andmay, for aught I know, take it with him to his little swinging grave. Even Smith remembers to this day how she looked, standing there on hertwo trim ankles, that disappeared into her hand-turned sandals or fadedin the flute and fringe of her fawn skin skirt. Her full bosom rose andfell, and you could count the beat of her wild heart in the throb ofher throat. Her cheeks showed a faint flush of red through the darkolive, --the flush of health and youth, --her nostrils dilated, like thoseof an Ontario high-jumper, as she drank life from the dewy morn, whileher eye danced with the joy of being alive. Jaquis sized and summed herup in the one word "magnific. " But in that moment, when she caught thekeen, piercing eye of the engineer, the Belle had a stroke that comessooner or later to all these wild creatures of the wilderness, but comesto most people but once in a lifetime. She never forgot the gleam ofthat one glance, though the Silent one was innocent enough. 

It was during the days that followed, when she sat and watched him athis work, or followed him for hours in the mountain fastnesses, that theBelle of Athabasca lost her heart. 

When he came upon a bit of wild scenery and stopped to photograph it, the Belle stood back of him, watching his every movement, and when hepassed on she followed, keeping always out of sight. 

The Belle's mother haunted him. As often as he broke camp and climbed alittle higher upstream, the brown mother moved also, and with her theBelle. 

"What does this old woman want?" asked the engineer of Jaquis oneevening when, returning to his tent, he found the fat Cree and herdaughter camping on his trail. 

"She want that pot, " said Jaquis. 

"Then for the love of We-sec-e-gea, god of the Crees, " said Smith, "giveit into her hands and bid her begone. "

Jaquis did as directed, and the old Indian went away, but she left thegirl. 

The next day Smith started on a reconnoissance that would occupy threeor four days. As he never knew himself when he would return, he nevertook the trouble to inform Jaquis, the tail of the family. 

After breakfast the Belle went over to her mother's. She would havelunched with her mother from the much coveted kettle, but the Belle'smother told her that she should return to the camp of the white man, whowas now her lord and master. So the Belle went back and lunched withJaquis, who otherwise must have lunched alone. Jaquis tried to keep her, and wooed her in his half-wild way; but to her sensitive soul he wasrepulsive. Moreover, she felt that in some mysterious manner her motherhad transferred her, together with her love and allegiance, to Smith theSilent, and to him she must be true. Therefore she returned to the Creecamp. 

As the sinking sun neared the crest of the Rockies, the young Indianwalked back to the engineer's camp. As she strode along the new trailshe plucked wildflowers by the wayside and gathered leaves and wove theminto vari-colored wreaths, swinging along with the easy grace of a wilddeer. 

Now some women would say she had not much to make her happy, but she washappy nevertheless. She loved a man--to her the noblest, most god-likecreature of his kind, --and she was happy in abandoning herself to him. She had lived in this love so long, had felt and seen it grow fromnothing to something formidable, then to something fine, until now itfilled her and thrilled her; it overspread everything, outran herthoughts, brought the far-off mountains nearer, shortened the trailbetween her camp and his, gave a new glow to the sunset, a new glory tothe dawn and a fresher fragrance to the wildflowers; the leaveswhispered to her, the birds came, nearer and sang sweeter; in short itwas her life--the sunshine of her soul. And that's the way a wild womanloves. 

And she was to see him soon. Perhaps he would speak to her, or smile onher. If only he gave a passing glance she would be glad and content toknow that he was near. Alas, he came not at all. She watched with thestars through the short night, slept at dawn, and woke to find Jaquispreparing the morning meal. She thought to question Jaquis, but herinterest in the engineer, and the growing conviction that his own starsank as his master's rose, rendered him unsafe as a companion to a youngbride whose husband was in the hills and unconscious of the fact that hewas wedded to anything save the wilderness and his work. 

Jaquis not only refused to tell her where the engineer was operating, but promised to strangle her if she mentioned his master's name again. 

At last the long day died, the sunset was less golden, and the starssang sadder than they sang the day before. She watched the west, intowhich he had gone and out of which she hoped he might return to her. Another round of dusk and dawn and there came another day, with itshours that hung like ages. When she sighed her mother scolded and Jaquisswore. When at last night came to curtain the hills, she stole out underthe stars and walked and walked until the next day dawned. A lone wolfhowled to his kith, but they were not hungry and refused to answer hiscall. Often, in the dark, she fancied she heard faint, feline footstepsbehind her. Once a big black bear blocked her trail, staring at her withlifted muzzle wet with dew and stained with berry juice. She did notfaint nor scream nor stay her steps, but strode on. Now nearer andnearer came the muffled footsteps behind her. The black bear backed fromthe trail and kept backing, pivoting slowly, like a locomotive on aturntable, and as she passed on, stood staring after her, his small eyesblinking in babylike bewilderment. And so through the dusk and dark anddawn this love-mad maiden walked the wilderness, innocent of arms, andwith no one near to protect her save the little barefooted bowman whomthe white man calls the God of Love. 

Meanwhile away to the west, high in the hills, where the Findlay flowinginto the Pine makes the Peace, then cutting through the crest of thecontinent makes a path for the Peace, Smith and his little army, isolated, remote, with no cable connecting them with the great cities ofcivilization, out of touch with the telegraph, away from the warcorrespondent, with only the music of God's rills for a regimental band, were battling bravely in a war that can end only with the conquest of awilderness. Ah, these be the great generals--these unheralded heroeswho, while the smoke of slaughter smudges the skies and shadows the sun, wage a war in which they kill only time and space, and in the end, without despoiling the rest of the world, win homes for the homeless. These are the heroes of the Anglo-Saxon race. 

 * * * * *

Finding no trace of the trail-makers, the Belle faced the rising sun andsought the camp of the Crees. 

The mysterious shadow with the muffled tread, that had followed herfrom the engineer's camp, shrank back into the bush as she passed downthe trail. That was Jaquis. He watched her as she strode by him, uncertain as to whether he loved or hated her, for well he knew why shewalked the wilderness all night alone. Now the Gitche in his unhappyheart made him long to lift her in his arms and carry her to camp, andthen the bad god, Mitche, would assert himself and say to the savagethat was in him, "Go, kill her. She despises her race and flings herselfat the white man's feet. " And so, impelled by passion and stayed bylove, he followed her. The white man within him made him ashamed of hisskulking, and the Indian that was in him guided him around her and homeby a shorter trail. 

That night the engineers returned, and when Smith saw the Cree in thecamp he jumped on Jaquis furiously. 

"Why do you keep this woman here?" he demanded. 

"I--keep? Me?" quoth Jaquis, blinking as bewildered as the black bearhad blinked at the Belle. 

"Who but you?--you heathen!" hissed the engineer. 

Now Jaquis, calling up the ghosts of his dead sires, asserted that itwas the engineer himself who was "keeping" the Cree. "You boughther--she's yours, " said Jaquis, in the presence of the company. 

"You ill-bred ----" Smith choked, and reached for a tent prop. The nextmoment his hand was at the Indian's throat. With a quick twist of hiscollar band he shut off the Siwash's wind, choking him to the earth. 

"What do you mean?" he demanded, and Jaquis, coughing, put up his hands. "I meant no lie, " said he. "Did you not give to her mother the campkettle? She has it, marked G. T. P. "

"And what of that?"

"_Voilà_, " said Jaquis, "because of that she gave to you the Belle ofAthabasca. "

Smith dropped his stick, releasing the Indian. 

"I did not mean she is sold to you. She is trade--trade for the emptypot, the Belle--the beautiful. From yesterday to this day she followedyou, far, very far, to the foot of the Grande Côte, and nothing harmedher. The mountain lion looked on her in terror, the timber wolf took tothe hills, the black bear backed from the trail and let her pass inpeace, " said Jaquis, with glowing enthusiasm. It was the first time hehad talked of her, save to the stars and to We-sec-e-gea, and he glowedand grew eloquent in praise of her. 

"You take her, " said Smith, with one finger levelled at the head of thecook, "to the camp of the Crees. Say to her mother that your master ismuch obliged for the beautiful gift, but he's too busy to get marriedand too poor to support a wife. "

 * * * * *

From the uttermost rim of the ring of light that came from theflickering fire la Belle the beautiful heard and saw all that had passedbetween the two men. She did not throw herself at the feet of the whiteman. Being a wild woman she did not weep nor cry out with the pain ofhis words, that cut like cold steel into her heart. She leaned againstan aspen tree, stroking her throat with her left hand, swallowing withdifficulty. Slowly from her girdle she drew a tiny hunting-knife, herone weapon, and toyed with it. She put the hilt to the tree, the pointto her bare breast, and breathed a prayer to We-sec-e-gea, god of theCrees. She had only to throw the weight of her beautiful body on theblade, sink without a moan to the moss, and pass, leaving the campundisturbed. 

Smith marked the faintest hint of sarcasm in the half smile of theIndian as he turned away. 

"Come here, " he cried. Jaquis approached cautiously. "Now, you skulkingson of a Siwash, this is to be skin for skin. If any harm comes to thatyoung Cree you go to your little hammock in the hemlocks--youunderstand?"

"_Oui, Monsieur_, " said Jaquis. 

"Very well, then; remember--skin for skin. "

Now to the Belle, watching from her shelter in the darkness, there wassomething splendid in this. To hear her praises sung by the Siwash, thento have the fair god, who had heard that story, champion her, to takethe place of her protector, was all new to her. "Ah, good God, " shesighed; "it is better, a thousand times better, to love and lose himthan to waste one's life, never knowing this sweet agony. "

She felt in a vague way that she was soaring above the world and itswoes. At times, in the wild tumult of her tempestuous soul, she seemedto be borne beyond it all, through beautiful worlds. Love, for her, hadtaken on great white wings, and as he wafted her out of the wildernessand into her heaven, his talons tore into her heart and hurt like hell, yet she could rejoice because of the exquisite pleasure that surpassedthe pain. 

"Sweet We-sec-e-gea, " she sighed, "good god of my dead, I thank thee forthe gift of this great love that stays the steel when my aching heartyearns for it. I shall not destroy myself and distress him, disturbinghim in his great work, whatever it is; but live--live and love him, eventhough he send me away. "

She kissed the burnished blade and returned it to her belt. 

When Jaquis, circling the camp, failed to find her, he guessed that shewas gone, and hurried after her along the dim, starlit trail. When hehad overtaken her, they walked on together. Jaquis tried now to renewhis acquaintance with the handsome Cree and to make love to her. Sheheard him in absolute silence. Finally, as they were nearing the Creecamp, he taunted her with having been rejected by the white man. 

"And my shame is yours, " said she softly. "I love him; he sends me away. You love me; I send you from me--it is the same. "

Jaquis, quieted by this simple statement, said good-night and returnedto the tents, where the pathfinders were sleeping peacefully under thestars. 

And over in the Cree camp the Belle of Athabasca, upon her bed ofboughs, slept the sleep of the innocent, dreaming sweet dreams of herfair god, and through them ran a low, weird song of love, and in herdream Love came down like a beautiful bird and bore her out of this lifeand its littleness, and though his talons tore at her heart and hurt, yet was she happy because of the exquisite pleasure that surpassed allpain. 

PATHFINDING IN THE NORTHWEST

It was summer when my friend Smith, whose real name is Jones, heard thatthe new transcontinental line would build by the way of Peace River Passto the Pacific. He immediately applied, counting something, no doubt, onhis ten years of field work in Washington, Oregon, and other westernstates, and five years pathfinding in Canada. 

The summer died; the hills and rills and the rivers slept, but whilethey slept word came to my friend Smith the Silent, and he hurriedlypacked his sleds and set out. 

His orders were, like the orders of Admiral Dewey, to do certainthings--not merely to try. He was to go out into the northern nightcalled winter, feel his way up the Athabasca, over the Smoky, follow thePeace River, and find the pass through the Rockies. 

If the simple story of that winter campaign could be written out itwould be finer than fiction. But it will never be. Only Smith theSilent knows, and he won't tell. 

Sometimes, over the pipe, he forgets and gives me glimpses into thewinter camp, with the sun going out like a candle: the hastily made campwith the half-breed spotting the dry wood against the coming moment whennight would drop over the forest like a curtain over a stage; the"lean-to" between the burning logs, where he dozes or dreams, barelybeyond the reach of the flames; the silence all about, Jaquis pulling athis pipe, and the huskies sleeping in the snow like German babies underthe eiderdown. Sometimes, out of the love of bygone days, he tells oflong toilsome journeys with the sun hiding behind clouds out of which anavalanche of snow falls, with nothing but the needle to tell where hehides; of hungry dogs and half starved horses, and lakes and riversfifty and a hundred miles out of the way. 

Once, he told me, he sent an engineer over a low range to spy out apass. By the maps and other data they figured that he would be gonethree days, but a week went by and no word from the pathfinder. Ten daysand no news. On the thirteenth day, when Smith was preparing to go insearch of the wanderer, the running gear of the man and the framework ofthe dogs came into camp. He was able to smile and say to Smith that hehad been ten days without food, save a little tea. For the dogs he hadhad nothing. 

A few days rest and they were on the trail again, or on the "go" rather;and you might know that disciple of Smith the Silent six months or sixyears before he would, unless you worked him, refer to that ten days'fast. They think no more of that than a Jap does of dying. It's all inthe day's work. 

Suddenly, Smith said, the sun swung north, the days grew longer. The sungrew hot and the snow melted on the south hills; the hushed rivers, rending their icy bonds, went roaring down to the Lakes and out towardsthe Arctic Ocean. And lo, suddenly, like the falling of an Arctic night, the momentary spring passed and it was summer time. 

Then it was that Smith came into Edmonton to make his first report, andhere we met for the first time for many snows. 

Joyously, as a boy kicks the cover off on circus morning, this Northlandflings aside her winter wraps and stands forth in her glorious garb ofsummer. The brooklets murmur, the rivers sing, and by their banks andalong the lakes waterfowl frolic, and overhead glad birds, that seem tohave dropped from the sky, sing joyfully the almost endless song ofsummer. At the end of the long day, when the sun, as if to make up forits absence, lingers, loath to leave us in the twilight, beneath theirwings the song-birds hide their heads, then wake and sing, for the sunis swinging up over the horizon where the pink sky, for an hour, hasshown the narrow door through which the day is dawning. 

The dogs and sleds have been left behind and now, with Jaquis thehalf-breed "boy" leading, followed closely by Smith the Silent, we godeeper and deeper each day into the pathless wilderness. 

To be sure it is not all bush, all forest. At times we cross widereaches of wild prairie lands. Sometimes great lakes lie immediately infront of us, compelling us to change our course. Now we come to a wideriver and raft our outfit over, swimming our horses. Weeks go by and webegin to get glimpses of the Rockies rising above the forest, and wepush on. The streams become narrower as we ascend, but swifter and moredangerous. 

We do not travel constantly now, as we have been doing. Sometimes wekeep our camp for two or three days. The climbing is hard, for Smithmust get to the top of every peak in sight, and so I find it "goodhunting" about the camp. 

Jaquis is a fairly good cook, and what he lacks we make up with goodappetites, for we live almost constantly out under the sun and stars. 

Pathfinders always lay up on Sunday, and sometimes, the day being long, Smith steals out to the river and comes back with a mountain trout aslong as a yardstick. 

The scenery is beyond description. Now we pass over the shoulder of amountain with a river a thousand feet below. Sometimes we trail forhours along the shore of a limpid lake that seems to run away to thefoot of the Rockies. 

Far away we get glimpses of the crest of the continent, where the PeaceRiver gashes it as if it had been cleft by the sword of the Almighty;and near the Rockies, on either bank, grand battlements rise that seemto guard the pass as the Sultan's fortresses frown down on theDardanelles. 

Now we follow a narrow trail that was not a trail until we passed. Acareless pack-horse, carrying our blankets, slips from the path and goesrolling and tumbling down the mountain side. A thousand feet below liesan arm of the Athabasca. Down, down, and over and over the pack-horsegoes, and finally fetches up on a ledge five hundred feet below thetrail. "By damn, " says Jaquis, "dere is won bronco bust, eh?"

Smith and Jaquis go down to cut the cinches and save the pack, and lo, up jumps our cayuse, and when he is repacked he takes the trail as goodas new. The pack and the low bush save his life. 

In any other country, to other men, this would be exciting, but it's allin the day's work with Smith and Jaquis. 

The pack-pony that had been down the mountain is put in the leadnow--that is, in the lead of the pack animals; for he has learned hislesson, he will be careful. And yet we are to have other experiencesalong this same river. 

Suddenly, down a side cañon, a mountain stream rushes, plunging into theAthabasca, joyfully, like a sea-bather into the surf. Jaquis calls thisside-stream "the mill-tail o' hell. " Smith the Silent prepares to cross. It's all very simple. All you need is a stout pole, a steady nerve, andan utter disregard for the hereafter. 

When Smith is safe on the other shore we drive the horses into thestream. They shudder and shrink from the ice-cold water, but Jaquis andI urge them, and in they plunge. My, what a struggle! Their wet feet onthe slippery boulders in the bottom of the stream, the swift currentconstantly tripping them--it was thrilling to see and must have beenagony for the animals. 

Midway, where the current was strongest, a mouse-colored cayuse carryinga tent lost his feet. The turbulent tide slammed him up on top of agreat rock, barely hidden beneath the water, and he got to his feet likea cat that has fallen upon the edge of an eave-trough. Trembling, thecayuse called to Smith, and Smith, running downstream, called back, urging the animal to leave the refuge and swim for it. The pack-horseperched on the rock gazes wistfully at the shore. The waters, breakingagainst his resting-place, wash up to his trembling knees. About him thewild river roars, and just below leaps over a ten-foot fall into theAthabasca. 

All the other horses, having crossed safely, shake the water from theirdripping sides and begin cropping the tender grass. We could have heardthat horse's heart beat if we could have hushed the river's roar. 

Smith called again, the cayuse turned slightly, and whether he leapeddeliberately or his feet slipped on the slippery stones, forcing him toleap, we could not say, but he plunged suddenly into the stream, uttering a cry that echoed up the cañon and over the river like the cryof a lost soul. 

The cruel current caught him, lifted him, and plunged him over the drop, and he was lost instantly in the froth and foam of the falls. 

Far down, at a bend of the Athabasca, something white could be seendrifting towards the shore. That night Smith the Silent made an entry inhis little red book marked "Grand Trunk Pacific, " and tented under thestars. 

THE CURÉ'S CHRISTMAS GIFT

 "A country that is bad or good, Precisely as your claim pans out; A land that's much misunderstood, Misjudged, maligned and lied about. "

When the pathfinders for the New National Highway pushed open the sidedoor and peeped through to the Pacific they not only discovered a shortcut to Yokohama, but opened to the world a new country, revealing thelast remnant of the Last West. 

Edmonton is the outfiling point, of course, but Little Slave Lake is thereal gateway to the wilderness. Here we were to make our first stop (wewere merely exploring), and from this point our first portage was to thePeace River, at Chinook, where we would get into touch once more withthe Hudson's Bay Company. 

Jim Cromwell, the free trader who was in command of Little Slave, madeus welcome, introducing us _ensemble_ to his friend, a former H. B. Factor, to the Yankee who was looking for a timber limit, to the"Literary Cuss, " as he called the young man in corduroys and a widewhite hat, who was endeavoring to get past "tradition, " that has damnedthis Dominion both in fiction and in fact for two hundred years, and dosomething that had in it the real color of the country. 

At this point the free trader paused to assemble the Missourian. Thisiron-gray individual shook himself out, came forward, and gripped ourhands, one after another. 

The free trader would not allow us to make camp that night. We weresentenced to sup and lodge with him, furnishing our own bedding, ofcourse, but baking his bread. 

The smell of cooking coffee and the odor of frying fish came to us fromthe kitchen, and floating over from somewhere the low, musical, wellmodulated voice of Cromwell, conversing in Cree, as he moved about amonghis mute and apparently inoffensive camp servants. 

The day died hard. The sun was still shining at 9 P. M. At tenit was twilight, and in the dusk we sat listening to tales of the farNorth, totally unlike the tales we read in the story-books. Smith theSilent, who was in charge of our party, was interested in the country, of course, its physical condition, its timber, its coal, and its mineralpossibilities. He asked about its mountains and streams, its possibleand impossible passes; but the "Literary Cuss" and I were drinkingdeeply of weird stories that were being told quite incautiously by thefree trader, the old factor, and by the Missourian. We were likechildren, this young author and I, sitting for the first time in atheatre. The flickering camp fire that we had kindled in the open servedas a footlight, while the Gitch Lamp, still gleaming in the west, glanced through the trees and lit up the faces of the three great actorswho were entertaining us without money and without price. The Missourianwas the star. He had been reared in the lap of luxury, had run away fromcollege where he had been installed by a rich uncle, his guardian, andjumped down to South America. He had ridden with the Texas Rangers andwith President Diaz's Regulators, had served as a scout on the plainsand worked with the Mounted Police, but was now "retired. "

All of which we learned not from him directly, but from the stories hetold and from his bosom friend, the free trader, whose guests we were, and whose word, for the moment at least, we respected. 

The camp fire burned down to a bed of coals, the Gitch Lamp went out. Inthe west, now, there was only a glow of gold, but no man moved. 

Smith the Pathfinder and our host the free trader bent over a map. "Butisn't this map correct?" Smith would ask, and when in doubt Jim wouldcall the Missourian. "No, " said the latter, "you can't float down thatriver because it flows the other way, and that range of mountains is twohundred miles out. "

Gradually we became aware that all this vast wilderness, to the worldunknown, was an open book to this quiet man who had followed the buffalofrom the Rio Grande to the Athabasca where he turned, made a last stand, and then went down. 

When the rest had retired the free trader and I sat talking of the LastWest, of the new trail my friends were blazing, and of the wonderfullyinteresting individual whom we called the Missourian. 

"He had a prospecting pard, " said Jim, "whom he idolized. This man, whose name was Ramsey, Jack Ramsey, went out in '97 between the CoastRange and the Rockies, and now this sentimental old pioneer says he willnever leave the Peace River until he finds Ramsey's bones. 

"You see, " Cromwell continued, "friendship here and what goes forfriendship outside are vastly different. The matter of devoting one'slife to a friend or to a duty, real or fancied, is only a trifle tothese men who abide in the wilderness. I know of a Chinaman and a Creewho lived and died the most devoted friends. You see the Missourianhovering about the last camping-place of his companion. Behold thefactor! He has left the Hudson Bay Company after thirty years because hehas lost his life's best friend, a man who spoke another language, whosereligion was not the brand upon which the factor had been brought up inEngland; yet they were friends. "

The camp fire had gone out. In the south we saw the first faint flushof dawn as Cromwell, knocking the ashes from his pipe, advised me to goto bed. "You get the old factor to tell you the story of his friend thecuré, and of the curé's Christmas gift, " Cromwell called back, and Imade a point of getting the story, bit by bit, from the florid factorhimself, and you shall read it as it has lingered in my memory. 

When the new curé came to Chinook on the Upper Peace River, he carried asmall hand-satchel, his blankets, and a crucifix. His face was drawn, his eyes hungry, his frame wasted, but his smile was the smile of a manat peace with the world. The West--the vast, undiscovered CanadianWest--jarred on the sensitive nerves of this Paris-bred priest. And yet, when he crossed the line that marks what we are pleased to call"civilization, " and had reached the heart of the real Northwest, wherethe people were unspoiled, natural, and honest, where a handful of RoyalNorthwest Mounted Police kept order in an empire that covers a quarterof a continent, he became deeply interested in this new world, in thepeople, in the imperial prairies, the mountains, and the great widerivers that were racing down to the northern sea. 

The factor at the Hudson's Bay post, whose whole life since he had leftcollege in England had been passed on the Peace River, at York Factory, and other far northern stations over which waved the Hudson's Baybanner, warmed to the new curé from their first meeting, and the curéwarmed to him. Each seemed to find in the other a companion that neitherhad been able to find among the few friends of his own faith. 

And so, through the long evenings of the northern winter, they sat inthe curé's cabin study or by the factor's fire, and talked of the thingswhich they found interesting, including politics, literature, art, andIndians. Despite the great gulf that rolled between the two creeds inwhich they had been cradled, they found that they were in accord threetimes in five--a fair average for men of strong minds and inherentprejudices. At first the curé was anxious to get at the real work of"civilizing" the natives. 

"Yes, " the factor would say, blowing the smoke upward, "the Indianshould be civilized--slowly--the slower the better. "

The curé would pretend to look surprised as he relit his pipe. Once thecuré asked the factor why he was so indifferent to the welfare of theCrees, who were the real producers, without whose furs there would be notrade, no post, no job for the ruddy-faced factor. The priest wassurprised that the factor should appear to fail to appreciate theimportance of the trapper. 

"I do, " said the factor. 

"Then why do you not help us to lift him to the light?"

"I like him, " was the laconic reply. 

"Then why don't you talk to him of his soul?"

"Haven't the nerve, " said the factor, shaking his head and blowing moresmoke. 

The curé shrugged his shoulders. 

"I say, " said the florid factor, facing the pale priest. "Did you see medecorating the old chief, Dunraven, yesterday?"

"Yes, I presume you were giving him a _pour boire_ in advance to securethe greater catch of furs next season, " said the priest, with his usualsad yet always pleasant smile. 

"A very poor guess for one so wise, " said the factor. "_Attendez_, " hecontinued. "This post used to be closed always in winter. The tent doorswere tied fast on the inside, after which the man who tied them wouldcrawl out under the edge of the canvas. When winter came, the snow, banked about, held the tent tightly down, and the Hudson's Bay businesswas bottled at this point until the springless summer came to wake thesleeping world. 

"Last winter was a hard winter. The snow was deep and game scarce. Oneday a Cree Indian found himself in need of tea and tobacco, and more inneed of a new pair of trousers. Passing the main tent one day, he wassorely tempted. Dimly, through the parchment pane, he could see greatstacks of English tweeds, piles of tobacco, and boxes of tea, but thetent was closed. He was sorely tried. He was hungry--hungry for a hornof tea and a twist of the weed, and cold, too. Ah, _bon père_, it ishard to withstand cold and hunger with only a canvas between one and thecomforts of life!"

"_Oui, Monsieur!_" said the curé, warmly, touched by the pathos of thetale. 

"The Indian walked away (we know that by his footprints), but returnedto the tent. The hunger and the cold had conquered. He took hishunting-knife and slit the deerskin window and stepped inside. Then heapproached the pile of tweed trousers and selected a large pair, puttingdown from the bunch of furs he had on his arms to the value of eightskins--the price his father and grandfather had paid. He visited thetobacco pile and helped himself, leaving four skins on the tobacco. Whenhe had taken tea he had all his heart desired, and having still a numberof skins left, he hung them upon a hook overhead and went away. 

"When summer dawned and a clerk came to open the post, he saw the slitin the window, and upon entering the tent saw the eight skins on thestack of tweeds, the four skins on the tobacco, and the others on thechest, and understood. 

"Presently he saw the skins which the Indian had hung upon the hook, took them down, counted them carefully, appraised them, and made anentry in the Receiving Book, in which he credited'Indian-cut-the-window, 37 skins. '

"Yesterday Dunraven came to the post and confessed. 

"It was to reward him for his honesty that I gave him the fur coat andlooped the big brass baggage check in his buttonhole. _Voilà!_"

The curé crossed his legs and then recrossed them, tossed his head fromside to side, drummed upon the closed book which lay in his lap, andshowed in any number of ways, peculiar to nervous people, his amazementat the story and his admiration for the Indian. 

"Little things like that, " said the factor, filling his pipe, "make metimid when talking to a Cree about 'being good. '"

 * * * * *

When summer came, and with it the smell of flowers and the music ofrunning streams, the factor and his friend the curé used to take longtramps up into the highlands, but the curé's state of health was ahandicap to him. The factor saw the telltale flush in the priest's faceand knew that the "White Plague" had marked him; yet he never allowedthe curé to know that he knew. That summer a little river steamer wassent up from Athabasca Lake by the Chief Commissioner who sat in thebig office at Winnipeg, and upon this the factor and his friend tookmany an excursion up and down the Peace. The friendship that had grownup between the factor and the new curé formed the one slender bridgethat connected the Anglican and the Catholic camps. Even the "heathenCrees" marvelled that these white men, praying to the same God, shoulddwell so far apart. Wing You, who had wandered over from Ramsay's Campon the Pine River, explained it all to Dunraven: "Flenchman andEnglishman, " said Wing. "No ketchem same Glod. You--Clee, " continued thewise Oriental, "an' Englishman good flend--ketchem same Josh; you call'im We-sec-e-gea, white man call 'im God. "

And so, having the same God, only called by different names, the Creestrusted the factor, and the factor trusted the Crees. Their businessintercourse was on the basis of skin for skin, furs being the recognizedcoin of the country. 

"Why do you not pay them in cash, take cash in turn, and let them havesomething to rattle?" asked the curé one day. 

"They won't have it, " said the factor. "Silver Skin, brother toDunraven, followed a party of prospectors out to Edmonton last fall andtried it. He bought a pair of gloves, a red handkerchief, and a pound oftobacco, and emptied his pockets on the counter, so that the clerk inthe shop might take out the price of the goods. According to his ownstatement, the Indian put down $37. 80. He took up just six-thirty-five. When the Cree came back to God's country he showed me what he had leftand asked me to check him up. When I had told him the truth, he walkedto the edge of the river and sowed the six-thirty-five broadcast on thebroad bosom of the Peace. "

And so, little by little, the patient priest got the factor'sview-point, and learned the great secret of the centuries of successthat has attended the Hudson's Bay Company in the far North. 

And little by little the two men, without preaching, revealed to theIndians and the Oriental the mystery of Life--vegetable life atfirst--of death and life beyond. They showed them the miracle of thewheat. 

On the first day of June they put into a tiny grave a grain of wheat. They told the Blind Ones that the berry would suffer death, decay, butout of that grave would spring fresh new flags that would grow and blow, fanned by the balmy chinook winds, and wet by the dews of heaven. 

On the first day of September they harvested seventy-two stalks andthreshed from the seventy-two stalks seven thousand two hundred grainsof wheat. They showed all this to the Blind Ones and they saw. The curéexplained that we, too, would go down and die, but live again in anotherlife, in a fairer world. 

The Cree accepted it all in absolute silence, but the Oriental, with hislarge imagination, exclaimed, pointing to the tiny heap of golden grain:"Me ketchem die, me sleep, byme by me wake up in China--seventhousand--heap good. " The curé was about to explain when the factor putup a warning finger. "Don't cut it too fine, father, " said he. "They'regetting on very well. "

That was a happy summer for the two men, working together in the gardenin the cool dawn and chatting in the long twilight that lingers on thePeace until 11 P. M. Alas! as the summer waned the factor sawthat his friend was failing fast. He could walk but a short distance nowwithout resting, and when the red rose of the Upper Athabasca caught thefirst cold kiss of Jack Frost, the good priest took to his bed. WingYou, the accomplished cook, did all he could to tempt him to eat andgrow strong again. Dunraven watched from day to day for an opportunityto "do something"; but in vain. The faithful factor made daily visits tothe bedside of his sick friend. As the priest, who was still in thespringtime of his life, drew nearer to the door of death, he talkedconstantly of his beloved mother in far-off France--a thing unusual fora priest, who is supposed to burn his bridges when he leaves the worldfor the church. 

Often when he talked thus, the factor wanted to ask his mother's nameand learn where she lived, but always refrained. 

Late in the autumn the factor was called to Edmonton for a generalconference of all the factors in the employ of the Honorable Company ofgentlemen adventurers trading into Hudson's Bay. With a heavy heart hesaid good-bye to the failing priest. 

When he had come within fifty miles of Chinook, on the return trip, hewas wakened at midnight by Dunraven, who had come out to ask him tohurry up as the curé was dying, but wanted to speak to the factor first. 

Without a word the Englishman got up and started forward, Dunravenleading on the second lap of his "century. "

It was past midnight again when the _voyageurs_ arrived at the river. There was a dim light in the curé's cabin, to which Dunraven led them, and where the Catholic bishop and an Irish priest were on watch. "Soglad to see you, " said the bishop. "There is something he wants fromyour place, but he will not tell Wing. Speak to him, please. "

"Ah, _Monsieur_, I'm glad that you are come--I'm weary and want to beoff. "

"The long _traverse_, eh?"

"_Oui, Monsieur_--_le grand voyage_. "

"Is there anything I can do for you?" asked the Englishman. The dyingpriest made a movement as if hunting for something. The bishop, toassist, stepped quickly to his side. The patient gave up the quest ofwhatever he was after and looked languidly at the factor. "What is it, my son?" asked the bishop, bending low. "What would you have the factorfetch from his house?"

"Just a small bit of cheese, " said the sick man, sighing wearily. 

"Now, that's odd, " mused the factor, as he went off on his strangeerrand. 

When the Englishman returned to the cabin, the bishop and the prieststepped outside for a breath of fresh air. Upon a bench on the narrowveranda Dunraven sat, resting after his hundred-mile tramp, and on theopposite side of the threshold Wing You lay sleeping in his blankets, soas to be in easy call if he were wanted. 

When the two friends were alone, the sick man signalled, and the factordrew near. 

"I have a great favor--a very great favor to ask of you, " the priestbegan, "and then I'm off. Ah, _mon Dieu!_" he panted. "It has been hardto hold out. Jesus has been kind. "

"It's damned tough at your time, old fellow, " said the factor, huskily. 

"It's not my time, but His. "

"Yes--well I shall be over by and by. "

"And those faithful dogs--Dunraven and Wing--thank them for--"

"Sure! If _I_ can pass, " the factor broke in, a little confused. 

"Thank them for me--for their kindnesses--and care. Tell them toremember the sermon of the wheat. And now, good friend, " said thepriest, summoning all his strength, "_attendez_!"

He drew a thin, white hand from beneath the cover, carrying a tinycrucifix. "I want you to send this to my beloved mother by registeredpost; send it yourself, please, so that she may have it before the endof the year. This will be my last Christmas gift to her. And the onethat comes from her to me--that is for you, to keep in remembrance ofme. And write to her--oh, so gently tell her--Jesus--help me, " hegasped, sitting upright. "She lives in Rue ---- O Mary, Mother of Jesus, "he cried, clutching at the collar of his gown; and then he fell backupon his bed, and his soul swept skyward like a toy balloon when thethin thread snaps. 

When the autumn sun smiled down on Chinook and the autumn wind sighed inby the door and out by the open window where the dead priest lay, Wingand Dunraven sat on the rude bench in the little veranda, going over itall, each in his own tongue, but uttering never a word, yet each to theother expressing the silence of his soul. 

The factor, in the seclusion of his bachelor home, held the little crossup and examined it critically. "To be sent to his mother, she lives inRue ---- Ah, if I could have been but a day sooner; yet the bishop mustknow, " he added, putting the crucifix carefully away. 

The good people in the other world, beyond the high wall that separatedthe two Christian Tribes, had been having shivers over the factor andhis fondness for the Romans; but when he volunteered to assist at thefuneral of his dead friend, _his_ people were shocked. In that scantsettlement there were not nearly enough priests to perform, properly, the funeral services, so the factor fell in, mingling his deep fullvoice with the voices of the bishop and the Irish brother, and grievingeven as they grieved. 

And the Blind Ones, Wing and Dunraven, came also, paying a last tearlesstribute to the noble dead. 

When it was all over and the post had settled down to routine, thefactor found in his mail, one morning, a long letter from the ChiefCommissioner at Winnipeg. It told the factor that he was in bad repute, that the English Church bishop had been grieved, shocked, andscandalized through seeing the hitherto respectable factor going over tothe Catholics. Not only had he fraternized with them, but had actuallytaken part in their religious ceremonies. And to crown it all, he hadcarried, a respectable Cree and the Chinese cook along with him. 

The factor's placid face took on a deep hue, but only for a moment. Hefilled his pipe, poking the tobacco down hard with his thumb. Then hetook the Commissioner's letter, twisted it up, touched it to the tinyfire that blazed in the grate, and lighted his pipe. He smoked insilence for a few moments and then said to himself, being alone, "Huh!"

"Ah, that from the bishop reminds me, " said the factor. "I must runover and see the other one. "

When the factor had related to the French-Canadian bishop what hadpassed between the dead curé and himself, the bishop seemed greatlyannoyed. "Why, man, he had no mother!"

"The devil he didn't--I beg pardon--I say he asked me to send this tohis mother. He started to tell me where she lived and then the callcame. It was the dying request of a dear friend. I beg of you tell mehis mother's name, that I may keep my word. "

"It is impossible, my son. When he came into the church he left theworld. He was bound by the law of the church to give up father, mother, sister, brother--all. "

"The church be--do you mean to say--"

"Peace, my son, you do not understand, " said the bishop, lifting thelittle cross which he had taken gently from the factor at the beginningof the interview. 

Now the factor was not in the habit of having his requests ignored andhis judgment questioned. 

"Do you mean to say you will _not_ give me the name and address of thedead man's mother?"

"It's absolutely impossible. Moreover, I am shocked to learn that ourlate brother could so far forget his duty at the very door of death. No, son, a thousand times no, " said the bishop. 

"Then give me the crucifix!" demanded the factor, fiercely. 

"That, too, is impossible; that is the property of the church. "

"Well, " said the factor, filling his pipe again and gazing into theflickering fire, "they're all about the same. And they're all right, too, I presume--all but Wing and Dunraven and me. "

THE MYSTERIOUS SIGNAL

As Waterloo lingered in the memory of the conquered Corsican, soAshtabula was burned into the brain of Bradish. Out of that awful wreckhe crawled, widowed and childless. For a long time he did not realize, for his head was hurt in that frightful crash. 

By the time he was fit to leave the hospital they had told him, littleby little, that all his people had perished. 

He made his way to the West, where he had a good home and houses to rentand a hole in the hillside that was just then being changed from aprospect to a mine. 

The townspeople, who had heard of the disaster, waited for him to speakof it--but he never did. The neighbors nodded, and he nodded to them andpassed on about his business. The old servant came and asked if sheshould open the house, and he nodded. The man-servant--the woman'shusband--came also, and to him Bradish nodded; and at noon he hadluncheon alone in the fine new house that had just been completed a yearbefore the catastrophe. 

About once a week Bradish would board the midnight express, ride downthe line for a few hundred miles, and double back. 

When he went away they knew he had gone, and when he came back they knewhe had returned and that was as much as his house-keeper, his agent, orthe foreman at the mines could tell you. 

One would have thought that the haunting memory of Ashtabula would havekept him at home for the rest of his life; but he seemed to travel forthe sake of the ride only, or for no reason, as a deaf man walks on therailroad-track. 

Gradually he extended his trips, taking the Midland over into Utah; andonce or twice he had been seen on the rear end of the California Limitedas it dropped down the western water-shed of Raton Range. 

One night, when the Limited was lapping up the landscape and the Desertwas rushing in under her pilot and streaking out below the last sleeperlike tape from a ticker, the danger signal sounded in the engine cab, the air went on full, the passengers braced themselves against the seatsin front of them, or held their breath in their berths as the train cameto a dead stop. 

The conductor and the head man hurried forward shouting, "What's thematter?" to the engineer. 

The driver, leaning from his lofty window, asked angrily, "What inthunder's the matter with you? I got a stop signal from behind. "

"You'd better lay off and have a good sleep, " said the conductor. 

"I'll put you to sleep for a minute if you ever hint that I was notawake coming down Cañon Diablo, " shouted the engineer, releasing hisbrakes. As the long, heavy train glided by, the trainmen swung up likesailors, and away went the Limited over the long bridge, five minutes tothe bad. 

A month later the same thing happened on the East end. The engineer wassignalled and stopped on a curve with the point of his pilot on a highbridge. 

This time the captain and the engineer were not so brittle of temper. They discussed the matter, calling on the fireman, who had heardnothing, being busy in the coal-tank. 

The head brakeman, crossing himself, said it was the "unseen hand" thathad been stopping the Limited on the Desert. It might be a warning, hesaid, and walked briskly out on the bridge looking for dynamite, ghosts, and things. 

When he had reached the other end of the bridge, he gave the go-aheadsignal and the train pulled out. As they had lost seven minutes, it wasnecessary for the conductor to report "cause of delay;" and that was thefirst hint the officials of any of the Western lines had of the "unseenhand. "

Presently trainmen, swapping yarns at division stations, heard of themysterious signal on other roads. 

The Columbia Limited, over on the Short Line, was choked with her headover Snake River, at the very edge of Pendleton. When they had pulled inand a fresh crew had taken the train on, the in-coming captain and hisdaring driver argued over the incident and they each got ten days, --notfor the delay, but because they could not see to sign the call-book nextmorning and were not fit to be seen by other people. 

The next train stopped was the International Limited on the Grand Trunk, then the Sunset by the South Coast. 

The strange phenomenon became so general that officials lost patience. One road issued an order to the effect that any engineer who heardsignals when there were no signals should get thirty days for the firstand his time for the second offence. 

Within a week from the appearance of the unusual and unusually offensivebulletin, "Baldy" Hooten heard the stop signal as he neared a littleJunction town where his line crossed another on an overhead bridge. 

When the signal sounded, the fireman glanced over at the driver, whodived through the window up to his hip pockets. 

When the engine had crashed over the bridge, the driver pulled himselfinto the cab again, and once more the signal. The fireman, amazed, stared at the engineer. The latter jerked the throttle wide open; seeingwhich, the stoker dropped to the deck and began feeding the hungryfurnace. Ten minutes later the Limited screamed for a regular stop, tenmiles down the line. As the driver dropped to the ground and begantouching the pins and links with the back of his bare hand, to see ifthey were all cool, the head brakeman trotted forward whisperinghoarsely, "The ol' man's aboard. "

The driver waved him aside with his flaring torch, and up trotted theblue-and-gold conductor with his little silver white-light with afrosted flue. "Why didn't you stop at Pee-Wee Junction?" he hissed. 

"Is Pee-Wee a stop station?"

"On signal. "

"I didn't see no sign. "

"_I_ pulled the bell. "

"Go on now, you ghost-dancer, " said the engineer. 

"You idiot!" gasped the exasperated conductor. "Don't you know the oldman's on, that he wanted to stop at Pee-Wee to meet the G. M. Thismorning, that a whole engineering outfit will be idle there for half aday, and you'll get the guillotine?"

"Whew, you have _shore_ got 'em. "

"Isn't your bell working?" asked a big man who had joined the groupunder the cab window. 

"I think so, sir, " said the driver, as he recognized the superintendent. "Johnny, try that cab bell, " he shouted, and the fire-boy sounded thebig brass gong. 

"Why didn't you take it at Pee-Wee?" asked the old man, holding histemper beautifully. 

The driver lifted his torch and stared almost rudely into the face ofthe official in front of him. "Why, Mr. Skidum, " said he slowly, "Ididn't hear no signal. "

The superintendent was blocked. 

As he turned and followed the conductor into the telegraph office, thedriver, gloating in his high tower of a cab, watched him. 

"He's an old darling, " said he to the fire-boy, "and I'm ready to diefor him any day; but I can't stop for him in the face of bulletin 13. Thirty days for the first offence, and then fire, " he quoted, as heopened the throttle and steamed away, four minutes late. 

The old man drummed on the counter-top in the telegraph office, and thenpicked up a pad and wrote a wire to his assistant:--

"Cancel general order No. 13. "

The night man slipped out in the dawn and called the day man who was thestation master, explaining that the old man was at the station andevidently unhappy. 

The agent came on unusually early and endeavored to arrange for a lightengine to carry the superintendent back to the Junction. 

At the end of three hours they had a freight engine that had left itstrain on a siding thirty miles away and rolled up to rescue the strandedsuperintendent. 

Now, every railway man knows that when one thing goes wrong on arailroad, two more mishaps are sure to follow; so, when the rescuingcrew heard over the wire that the train they had left on a siding, having been butted by another train heading in, had started back downgrade, spilled over at the lower switch, and blocked the main line, theybegan to expect something to happen at home. 

However, the driver had to go when the old man was in the cab and theG. M. With a whole army of engineers and workmen waiting for him atPee-Wee; so he rattled over the switches and swung out on the main linelike a man who was not afraid. 

Two miles up the road the light engine, screaming through a cut, encountered a flock of sheep, wallowed through them, left the track, andslammed the four men on board up against the side of the cut. 

Not a bone was broken, though all of them were sore shaken, the engineerbeing unconscious when picked up. 

"Go back and report, " said the old man to the conductor. "You look afterthe engineer, " to the fireman. 

"Will you flag west, sir?" asked the conductor. 

"Yes, --I'll flag into Pee-Wee, " said the old man, limping down the line. 

To be sure, the superintendent was an intelligent man and not the leastbit superstitious; but he couldn't help, as he limped along, connectingthese disasters, remotely at least, with general order No. 13. 

In time the "unseen signal" came to be talked of by the officials aswell as by train and enginemen. It came up finally at the annualconvention of General Passenger Agents at Chicago and was discussed bythe engineers at Atlanta, but was always ridiculed by the easternelement. 

"I helped build the U. P. , " said a Buffalo man, "and I want to tell youhigh-liners you can't drink squirrel-whiskey at timber-line withoutseein' things nights. "

That ended the discussion. 

Probably no road in the country suffered from the evil effects of themysterious signal as did the Inter-Mountain Air Line. 

The regular spotters failed to find out, and the management sent toChicago for a real live detective who would not be predisposed to acceptthe "mystery" as such, but would do his utmost to find the cause of aphenomenon that was not only interrupting traffic but demoralizing thewhole service. 

As the express trains were almost invariably stopped at night, theexpert travelled at night and slept by day. Months passed with only twoor three "signals. " These happened to be on the train opposed to theone in which the detective was travelling at that moment. They broughtout another man, and on his first trip, taken merely to "learn theroad, " the train was stopped in broad daylight. This time the stopproved to be a lucky one; for, as the engineer let off the air andslipped round a curve in a cañon, he found a rock as big as a box carresting on the track. 

The detective was unable to say who sounded the signal. The train crewwere overawed. They would not even discuss the matter. 

With a watchman, unknown to the trainmen, on every train, the officialshoped now to solve the mystery in a very short time. 

The old engineer, McNally, who had found the rock in the cañon, hadboasted in the lodge-room, in the round-house and out, that if ever hegot the "ghost-sign, " he'd let her go. Of course he was off his guardthis time. He had not expected the "spook-stop" in open day. And rightglad he was, too, that he stopped _that_ day. 

A fortnight later McNally, on the night run, was going down CrookedCreek Cañon watching the fireworks in the heavens. A black cloud hungon a high peak, and where its sable skirts trailed along the range thelightning leaped and flashed in sheets and chains. Above the roar ofwheels he could hear the splash, and once in a while he could feel thespray, of new-made cataracts as the water rushed down the mountain side, choking the culverts. 

At Crag View there was, at that time, a high wooden trestle stilted upon spliced spruce piles with the bark on. 

It used to creak and crack under the engine when it was new. McNally wasnearing it now. It lay, however, just below a deep rock cut that hadbeen made in a mountain crag and beyond a sharp curve. 

McNally leaned from his cab window, and when the lightning flashed, sawthat the cut was clear of rock and released the brakes slightly to allowthe long train to slip through the reverse curve at the bridge. Curvescramp a train, and a smooth runner likes to feel them glide smoothly. 

As the black locomotive poked her nose through the cut, the engineerleaned out again; but the after-effect of the flash of lightning leftthe world in inky blackness. 

Back in a darkened corner of the drawing-room of the rearmost sleeperthe sleuth snored with both eyes and ears open. 

Suddenly he saw a man, fully dressed, leap from a lower berth in thelast section and make a grab for the bell-rope. The man missed the rope;and before he could leap again the detective landed on the back of hisneck, bearing him down. At that moment the conductor came through; andwhen he saw the detective pull a pair of bracelets from his hip-pocket, he guessed that the man underneath must be wanted, and joined in thescuffle. In a moment the man was handcuffed, for he really offered noresistance. As they released him he rose, and they squashed him into aseat opposite the section from which he had leaped a moment before. Theman looked not at his captors, who still held him, but pressed his faceagainst the window. He saw the posts of the snow-shed passing, sprangup, flung the two men from him as a Newfoundland would free himself froma couple of kittens, lifted his manacled hands, leaped toward theceiling, and bore down on the signal-rope. 

The conductor, in the excitement, yelled at the man, bringing the rearbrakeman from the smoking-room, followed by the black boy bearing ashoe-brush. 

Once more they bore the bad man down, and then the conductor grabbed therope and signalled the engineer ahead. 

Men leaped from their berths, and women showed white faces between theclosely drawn curtains. 

Once more the conductor pulled the bell, but the train stood still. 

One of the passengers picked up the man's hand-grip that had fallen fromhis berth, and found that the card held in the leather tag read:

 "JOHN BRADISH. "

"Go forward, " shouted the conductor to the rear brakeman, "and get 'emout of here, --tell McNally we've got the ghost. "

The detective released his hold on his captive, and the man sank limp inthe corner seat. 

The company's surgeon, who happened to be on the car, came over andexamined the prisoner. The man had collapsed completely. 

When the doctor had revived the handcuffed passenger and got him to situp and speak, the porter, wild-eyed, burst in and shouted: "De bridge isgone. "

A death-like hush held the occupants of the car. 

"De hangin' bridge is sho' gone, " repeated the panting porter, "an' deengine, wi' McNally in de cab's crouchin' on de bank, like a black caton a well-cu'b. De watah's roahin' in de deep gorge, and if she drap shegwine drag--"

The doctor clapped his hand over the frightened darky's mouth, and thedetective butted him out to the smoking-room. 

The conductor explained that the porter was crazy, and so averted apanic. 

The detective came back and faced the doctor. "Take off the irons, " saidthe surgeon, and the detective unlocked the handcuffs. 

Now the doctor, in his suave, sympathetic way, began to questionBradish; and Bradish began to unravel the mystery, pausing now and againto rest, for the ordeal through which he had just passed had been agreat mental and nervous strain. 

He began by relating the Ashtabula accident that had left him wifelessand childless, and, as the story progressed, seemed to find infiniterelief in relating the sad tale of his lonely life. It was like aconfession. Moreover, he had kept the secret so long locked in histroubled breast that it was good to pour it out. 

The doctor sat directly in front of the narrator, the detective besidehim, while interested passengers hung over the backs of seats andblocked the narrow aisle. Women, with faces still blanched, sat up inbed listening breathlessly to the strange story of John Bradish. 

Shortly after returning to their old home, he related, he was awakenedone night by the voice of his wife calling in agonized tones, "John!John!" precisely as she had cried to him through the smoke and steam andtwisted débris at Ashtabula. He leaped from his bed, heard a mightyroar, saw a great light flash on his window, and the midnight expresscrashed by. 

To be sure it was only a dream, he said to himself, intensified by theroar of the approaching train; and yet he could sleep no more thatnight. Try as he would, he could not forget it; and soon he realizedthat a growing desire to travel was coming upon him. In two or threedays' time this desire had become irresistible. He boarded the midnighttrain and took a ride. But this did not cure him. In fact, the more hetravelled the more he wanted to travel. Soon after this he discoveredthat he had acquired another habit. He wanted to stop the train. Againstthese inclinations he had struggled, but to no purpose. Once, when hefelt that he must take a trip, he undressed and went to bed. He fellasleep, and slept soundly until he heard the whistle of the midnighttrain. Instantly he was out of bed, and by the time they had changedengines he was at the station ready to go. 

The mania for stopping trains had been equally irresistible. He wouldbite his lips, his fingers, but he would also stop the train. 

The moment the mischief (for such it was, in nearly every instance) wasdone, he would suffer greatly in dread of being found out. But to-night, as on the occasion of the daylight stop in the cañon, he had no warning, no opportunity to check himself, nor any desire to do so. In eachinstance he had heard, dozing in the day-coach and sleeping soundly inhis berth, the voice cry: "John! John!" and instantly his brain wasablaze with the light of burning wreckage. In the cañon he had onlyfelt, indefinitely, the danger ahead; but to-night he saw the bridgeswept away, and the dark gorge that yawned in front of them. Instantlyupon hearing the cry that woke him, he saw it all. 

"When I realized that the train was still moving, that my first effortto stop had failed, I flung these strong men from me with the greatestease. I'm sure I should have burst those steel bands that bound mywrists if it had been necessary. 

"Thank God it's all over. I feel now that I am cured, --that I can settledown contented. "

The man drew a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his forehead, keeping his face to the window for a long time. 

 * * * * *

When the conductor went forward, he found that it was as the porter hadpictured. The high bridge had been carried away by a water-spout; and onthe edge of the opening the engine trembled, her pilot pointing outover the black abyss. 

McNally, having driven his fireman from the deck, stood in the cabgripping the air-lever and watching the pump. At that time we used whatis technically known as "straight air"; so that if the pump stopped theair played out. 

The conductor ordered the passengers to leave the train. 

The rain had ceased, but the lightning was still playing about thesummit of the range, and when it flashed, those who had gone forward sawMcNally standing at his open window, looking as grand and heroic as thecaptain on the bridge of his sinking ship. 

A nervous and somewhat thoughtless person came close under the cab toask the engineer why he didn't back up. 

There was no answer. McNally thought it must be obvious to a man withthe intelligence of an oyster, that to release the brakes would be tolet the heavy train shove him over the bank, even if his engine had thepower to back up, which she had not. 

The trainmen were working quietly, but very effectively, unloading. Theday coaches had been emptied, the hand-brakes set, and all the wheelsblocked with links and pins and stones, when the link between the engineand the mail-car snapped and the engine moved forward. 

McNally heard the snap and felt her going, leaped from the window, caught and held a scrub cedar that grew in a rock crevice, and saw hisblack steed plunge down the dark cañon, a sheer two thousand feet. 

McNally had been holding her in the back motion with steam in hercylinders; and now, when she leaped out into space, her throttle flewwide, a knot in the whistle-rope caught in the throttle, opening thewhistle-valve as well. Down, down she plunged, --her wheels whirling inmid-air, a solid stream of fire escaping from her quivering stack, andfrom her throat a shriek that almost froze the blood in the veins of theonlookers. Fainter and farther came the cry, until at last the wildwaters caught her, held her, hushed her, and smothered out her life. 

CHASING THE WHITE MAIL

Over the walnuts and wine, as they say in Fifth Avenue, the gray-hairedgentleman and I lingered long after the last of the diners had left thecafé car. One by one the lights were lowered. Some of the table-stewardshad removed their duck and donned their street clothes. The shades wereclosely drawn, so that people could not peep in when the train wasstanding. The chief steward was swinging his punch on his finger andyawning. My venerable friend, who was a veritable author's angel, was aretired railway president with plenty of time to talk. 

"We had, on the Vandalia, " he began after lighting a fresh cigar, "adare-devil driver named Hubbard--'Yank' Hubbard they called him. He wasa first-class mechanic, sober and industrious, but notoriously reckless, though he had never had a wreck. The Superintendent of Motive Power hadselected him for the post of master-mechanic at Effingham, but I hadheld him up on account of his bad reputation as a wild rider. 

"We had been having a lot of trouble with California fruittrains, --delays, wrecks, cars looted while in the ditch, --and I had madethe delay of a fruit train almost a capital offence. The bulletin was, Ipresume, rather severe, and the enginemen and conductors were not takingit very well. 

"One night the White Mail was standing at the station at East St. Louis(that was before the first bridge was built) loading to leave. My carwas on behind, and I was walking up and down having a good smoke. As Iturned near the engine, I stopped to watch the driver of the White Mailpour oil in the shallow holes on the link-lifters without wasting adrop. He was on the opposite side of the engine, and I could see onlyhis flitting, flickering torch and the dipping, bobbing spout of hisoiler. 

"A man, manifestly another engineer, came up. The Mail driver lifted historch and said, 'Hello, Yank, ' to which the new-comer made no directresponse. He seemed to have something on his mind. 'What are you outon?' asked the engineer, glancing at the other's overalls. 'Fastfreight--perishable--must make time--no excuse will be taken, ' hesnapped, quoting and misquoting from my severe circular. 'Who's in thatKaskaskia?' he asked, stepping up close to the man with the torch. 

"'The ol' man, ' said the engineer. 

"'No! ol' man, eh? Well! I'll give him a canter for his currency thistrip, ' said Yank, gloating. 'I'll follow him like a scandal; I'll staywith him this night like the odor of a hot box. Say, Jimmie, ' helaughed, 'when that tintype of yours begins to lay down on you, justbear in mind that my pilot is under the ol' man's rear brake-beam, andthat the headlight of the 99 is haunting him. '

"'Don't get gay, now, ' said the engineer of the White Mail. 

"'Oh, I'll make him think California fruit is not all that's perishableon the road to-night, ' said Yank, hurrying away to the round-house. 

"Just as we were about to pull out, our engineer, who was brother toYank, found a broken frame and was obliged to go to the house foranother locomotive. We were an hour late when we left that night, carrying signals for the fast freight. As we left the limits of theyard, Hubbard's headlight swung out on the main line, picked up twoslender shafts of silver, and shot them under our rear end. The firsteight or ten miles were nearly level. I sat and watched the headlight ofthe fast freight. He seemed to be keeping his interval until we hit thehill at Collinsville. There was hard pounding then for him for five orsix miles. Just as the Kaskaskia dropped from the ridge between the eastand west Silver Creek, the haunting light swept round the curve atHagler's tank. I thought he must surely take water here; but he plungedon down the hill, coming to the surface a few minutes later on the highprairie east of Saint Jacobs. 

"Highland, thirty miles out, was our first stop. We took water there;and before we could get away from the tank, Hubbard had his twin shaftsof silver under my car. We got a good start here, but our catch engineproved to be badly coaled and a poor steamer. Up to this time she haddone fairly well, but after the first two hours she began to lose. Seeing no more of the freight train, I turned in, not a little pleasedto think that Mr. Yank's headlight would not haunt me again that trip. Ifell asleep, but woke again when the train stopped, probably atVandalia. I had just begun to doze again when our engine let out afrightful scream for brakes. I knew what that meant, --Hubbard was behindus. I let my shade go up, and saw the light of the freight train shiningpast me and lighting up the water-tank. I was getting a bit nervous, when I felt our train pulling out. 

"Of course Hubbard had to water again; but as he had only fifteen loads, and a bigger tank, he could go as far as the Mail could withoutstopping. Moreover, we were bound to stop at county seats; and as oftenas we did so we had the life scared out of us, for there was not anair-brake freight car on the system at that time. What a night that musthave been for the freight crew! They were on top constantly, but Ibelieve the beggars enjoyed it all. Any conductor but Jim Lawn wouldhave stopped and reported the engineer at the first telegraph station. Still, I have always had an idea that the train-master was tacitly inthe conspiracy, for his bulletin had been a hot one delivered orally bythe Superintendent, whom I had seen personally. 

"Well, along about midnight Hubbard's headlight got so close, and keptso close, that I could not sleep. His brother, who was pulling the Mail, avoided whistling him down; for when he did he only showed that there_was_ danger, and published his bad brother's recklessness. The resultwas that when the Mail screamed I invariably braced myself. I don'tbelieve I should have stood it, only I felt it would all be over inanother hour; for we should lose Yank at Effingham, the end of thefreight's division. It happened, however, that there was no one torelieve him, or no engine rather; and Yank went through to Terre Haute. I was sorry, but I hated to show the white feather. I knew our freshengine would lose him, with his tired fireman and dirty fire. Once ortwice I saw his lamp, but at Longpoint we lost him for good. I went tobed again, but I could not sleep. I used to boast that I could sleep ina boiler-maker's shop; but the long dread of that fellow's pilot hadunnerved me. I had wild, distressing dreams. 

 * * * * *

"The next morning, when I got to my office, I found a column of news cutfrom a morning paper. It had the usual scare-head, and began byannouncing that the White Mail, with General Manager Blank's carKaskaskia, came in on time, carrying signals for a freight train. Thesecond section had not arrived, 'as we go to press. ' I think I sworesoftly at that point. Then I read on, for there was a lot more. Itseemed, the paper stated, that a gang of highwaymen had planned to robthe Mail at Longpoint, which had come to be regarded as a regular robberstation. One of the robbers, being familiar with train rules, saw thesignal lights on the Mail and mistook it for a special, which is oftenrun as first section of a fast train, and they let it pass. They flaggedthe freight train, and one of the robbers, who was doubtless new at thebusiness, caught the passing engine and climbed into the cab. Theengineer, seeing the man's masked face at his elbow, struck it a fearfulblow with his great fist. The amateur desperado sank to the floor, hisbig, murderous gun rattling on the iron plate of the coal-deck. Yank, the engineer, grabbed the gun, whistled off-brakes, and opened thethrottle. The sudden lurch forward proved too much for a weak link, andthe train parted, leaving the rest of the robbers and the train crew tofight it out. As soon as the engineer discovered that the train hadparted, he slowed down and stopped. 

"When he had picketed the highwayman out on the tank-deck with a pieceof bell-cord, one end of which was fixed to the fellow's left foot andthe other to the whistle lever, Yank set his fireman, with a white lightand the robber's gun, on the rear car and flagged back to the rescue. The robbers, seeing the blunder they had made, took a few parting shotsat the trainmen on the top of the train, mounted their horses, and rodeaway. 

"When the train had coupled up again, they pulled on up to the nextstation, where the conductor reported the cause of delay, and from whichstation the account of the attempted robbery had been wired. 

"I put the paper down and walked over to a window that overlooked theyards. The second section of the White Mail was coming in. As the enginerolled past, Yank looked up; and there was a devilish grin on his blackface. The fireman was sitting on the fireman's seat, the gun across hislap. A young fellow, wearing a long black coat, a bell-rope, and ascared look, was sweeping up the deck. 

"When I returned to my desk, the Superintendent of Motive Power wasstanding near it. When I sat down, he spread a paper before me. Iglanced at it and recognized Yank Hubbard's appointment to the post ofmaster-mechanic at Effingham. 

"I dipped a pen in the ink-well and wrote across it in red, 'O--K. '"

OPPRESSING THE OPPRESSOR

"Is this the President's office?"

"Yes, sir. "

"Can I see the President?"

"Yes, --I'm the President. "

The visitor placed one big boot in a chair, hung his soft hat on hisknee, dropped his elbow on the hat, let his chin fall in the hollow ofhis hand, and waited. 

The President of the Santa Fé, leaning over a flat-topped table, wroteleisurely. When he had finished, he turned a kindly face to the visitorand asked what could be done. 

"My name's Jones. "

"Yes?"

"I presume you know about me, --Buffalo Jones, of Garden City. "

"Well, " began the President, "I know a lot of Joneses, but where isGarden City?"

"Down the road a piece, 'bout half-way between Wakefield and Turner'sTank. I want you folks to put in a switch there, --that's what I've comeabout. I'd like to have it in this week. "

"Anybody living at Garden City?"

"Yes, all that's there's livin'. "

"About how many?"

"One and a half when I'm away, --Swede and Injin. "

The President of the Santa Fé smiled and rolled his lead pencil betweenthe palms of his hands. Mr. Jones watched him and pitied him, as onewatches and pities a child who is fooling with firearms. "He don't knowI'm loaded, " thought Jones. 

"Well, " said the President, "when you get your town started so thatthere will be some prospect of getting a little business, we shall beonly too glad to put in a spur for you. "

Jones had been looking out through an open window, watching thelaw-makers of Kansas going up the wide steps of the State House. Thefellows from the farm climbed, the town fellows ran up the steps. 

"Spur!" said Jones, wheeling around from the window and walking towardthe President's desk, "I don't want no spur; I want a side trackthat'll hold fifty cars, and I want it this week, --see?"

"Now look here, Mr. Jones, this is sheer nonsense. We get wind atWakefield and water at Turner's Tank; now, what excuse is there forputting in a siding half-way between these places?"

Again Mr. Jones, rubbing the point of his chin with the ball of histhumb, gave the President a pitying glance. 

"Say!" said Jones, resting the points of his long fingers on the table, "I'm goin' to build a town. You're goin' to build a side track. I'vealready set aside ten acres of land for you, for depot and yards. Thisland will cost you fifty dollars per, _now_. If I have to come backabout this side track, it'll cost you a hundred. Now, Mr. President, Iwish you good-mornin'. "

At the door Jones paused and looked back. "Any time this week will do;good-mornin'. "

The President smiled and turned to his desk. Presently he smiled again;then he forgot all about Mr. Jones and the new town, and went on withhis work. 

Mr. Jones went down and out and over to the House to watch the men makelaws. 

 * * * * *

In nearly every community, about every capital, State or National, youwill find men who are capable of being influenced. This is especiallytrue of new communities through which a railway is being built. It hasalways been so, and will be, so long as time expires. I mean the time ofan annual pass. It is not surprising, then, that in Kansas at that time, the Grasshopper period, --before prohibition, Mrs. Nation, and religiousdailies, --the company had its friends, and that Mr. Jones, an honestfarmer with money to spend, had his. 

Two or three days after the interview with Mr. Jones, the President's"friend" came over to the railroad building. He came in quietly andseated himself near the President, as a doctor enters a sick-room or alawyer a prison cell. "I know you don't want me, " he seemed to say, "butyou need me. "

When his victim had put down his pen, the politician asked, "Have youseen Buffalo Jones?"

The President said he had seen the gentleman. 

"I think it would be a good scheme to give him what he wants, " said theHonorable member of the State legislature. 

But the President could not agree with his friend; and at the end ofhalf an hour, the Honorable member went away not altogether satisfied. He did not relish the idea of the President trying to run the roadwithout his assistance. One of the chief excuses for his presence onearth and in the State legislature was "to take care of the road. " Now, he had gotten up early in order to see the President without being seen, and the President had waved him aside. "Well, " he said, "I'll let Joneshave the field to-day. "

 * * * * *

Two days later, when the President opened his desk, he found a briefnote from his confidential assistant, --not the Honorable one, but anordinary man who worked for the company for a stated salary. The noteread:--

"If Buffalo Jones calls to-day please see him. --I am leaving town. G. O. M. "

But Buffalo did not call. 

Presently the General Manager came in, and when he was leaving the roomhe turned and asked, "Have you seen Jones?"

"Yes, " said the President of the Santa Fé, "I've seen Jones. "

The General Manager was glad, for that took the matter from his handsand took the responsibility from his drooping shoulders. 

About the time the President got his mind fixed upon the affairs of theroad again, Colonel Holiday came in. Like the Honorable gentleman, hetoo entered by the private door unannounced; for he was the Father ofthe Santa Fé. Placing his high hat top side down on the table, theColonel folded his hands over the golden head of his cane and inquiredof the President if he had seen Jones. 

The President assured the Colonel, who in addition to being the Fatherof the road was a director. 

The Colonel picked up his hat and went out, feeling considerable relief:for _his_ friend in the State Senate had informed him at the AnaniasClub on the previous evening, that Jones was going to make trouble forthe road. The Colonel knew that a good, virtuous man with money to spendcould make trouble for anything or anybody, working quietly andunobtrusively among the equally virtuous members of the Statelegislature. The Colonel had been a member of that august body. 

In a little while the General Manager came back; and with him cameO'Marity, the road-master. 

"I thought you said you had seen Jones, " the General Manager began. 

Now the President, who was never known to be really angry, wheeled onhis revolving chair. 

"I--_have_--seen Jones. "

"Well, O'Marity says Jones has not been 'seen. ' His friend, who comesdown from Atchison every Sunday night on O'Marity's hand-car, has beengood enough to tell O'Marity just what has been going on in the House. There must be some mistake. It seems to me that if this man Jones hadbeen seen properly, he would subside. What's the matter with yourfriend--Ah, here comes the Honorable gentleman now. "

The President beckoned with his index finger and his friend came in. Looking him in the eye, the President asked in a stage whisper: "Haveyou--seen--Jones?"

"No, sir, " said the Honorable gentleman. "I had no authority to seehim. "

"It's damphunny, " said O'Marity, "if the President 'ave seen 'im, 'edon't quit. "

"I certainly saw a man called Jones, --Buffalo Jones of Garden City. Hewanted a side track put in half-way between Wakefield and Turner'sTank. "

"And you told him, 'Certainly, we'll do it at once, '" said the GeneralManager. 

"No, " the President replied, "I told him we would not do it at once, because there was no business or prospect of business to justify theexpense. "

"Ah--h, " said the Manager. 

O'Marity whistled softly. 

The Honorable gentleman smiled, and looked out through the open windowto where the members of the State legislature were going up the broadsteps to the State House. 

"Mr. Rong, " the Manager began, "it is all a horrible mistake. You havenever 'seen' Jones. Not in the sense that we mean. When you see apolitician or a man who herds with politicians, he is supposed to beyours, --you are supposed to have acquired a sort of interest in him, --aninterest that is valued so long as the individual is in sight. You areentitled to his support and influence, up to, and including the date onwhich your influence expires. " All the time the Manager kept jerking histhumb toward the window that held the Honorable gentleman, using thePresident's friend as a living example of what he was trying to explain. 

"Is Jones a member?"

"No, Mr. Rong, but he controls a few members. It is easier, youunderstand, to acquire a drove of steers by buying a bunch than bypicking them up here and there, one at a time. "

"I protest, " said the Honorable member, "against the reference tomembers of the legislature as 'cattle. '"

Neither of the railway men appeared to hear the protest. 

"I think I understand now, " said the President. "And I wish, Robson, youwould take this matter in hand. I confess that I have no stomach forsuch work. "

"Very well, " said the Manager. "Please instruct your--your--" and hejerked his thumb toward the Honorable gentleman--"your _friend_ to sendJones to my office. "

The Honorable gentleman went white and then flushed red, but he waitedfor no further orders. As he strode towards the door, Robson, with asmooth, unruffled brow, but with a cold smile playing over his handsomeface, with mock courtesy and a wide sweep of his open hand, waved thevisitor through the open door. 

 * * * * *

"Mr. Jones wishes to see you, " said the chief clerk. 

"Oh, certainly--show Mr. Jones--Ah, good-morning, Mr. Jones, glad to seeyou. How's Garden City? Going to let us in on the ground floor, Mr. Rongtells me. Here, now, fire up; take this big chair and tell me all aboutyour new town. "

Jones took a cigar cautiously from the box. When the Manager offered hima match he lighted up gingerly, as though he expected the thing to blowup. 

"Now, Mr. Jones, as I understand it, you want a side track put in atonce. The matter of depot and other buildings will wait, but I want youto promise to let us have at least ten acres of ground. Perhaps it wouldbe better to transfer that to us at once. I'll see" (the Manager presseda button). "Send the chief engineer to me, George, " as the chief clerklooked in. 

All this time Jones smoked little short puffs, eyeing the Manager andhis own cigar. When the chief engineer came in he was introduced to Mr. Jones, the man who was going to give Kansas the highest boom she hadever had. 

While Jones stood in open-mouthed amazement, the Manager instructed theengineer to go to Garden City when it would suit Mr. Jones, lay out asiding that would hold fifty loads, and complete the job at the earliestpossible moment. 

"By the way, Mr. Jones, have you got transportation over our line?"

Mr. Jones managed to gasp the one word, "No. "

"Buz-z-zz, " went the bell. "George, make out an annual for Mr. Jones, --Comp. G. M. "

Jones steadied himself by resting an elbow on the top of the Manager'sdesk. The chief engineer was writing in a little note-book. 

"Now, Mr. Jones--ah, your cigar's out!--how much is this ten acres tocost us?--a thousand dollars, I believe you told Mr. Rong. "

"Yes, I did tell him that; but if this is straight and no jolly, itain't goin' to cost you a cent. "

"Well, that's a _great_ deal better than most towns treat us, " said theManager. "Now, Mr. Jones, you will have to excuse me; I have somebusiness with the President. Don't fail to look in on me when you cometo town; and rest assured that the Santa Fé will leave nothing undonethat might help your enterprise. "

With a hearty handshake the Manager, usually a little frigid and remote, passed out, leaving Mr. Jones to the tender mercies of the chiefengineer. 

Up to this point there is nothing unusual in this story. The remarkablepart is the fact that the building of a side track in an open plainturned out to be good business. In a year's time there was a neatstation and more sidings. The town boomed with a rapidity that amazedeven the boomers. To be sure, it had its relapses; but still, if youlook from the window as the California Limited crashes by, you will seea pretty little town when you reach the point on the time-table called

 "Garden City. "

THE IRON HORSE AND THE TROLLEY

I

Two prospectors had three claims in a new camp in British Columbia, butthey had not the $7. 50 to pay for having them recorded. They told theirstory to Colonel Topping, author of "The Yellowstone Park, " and theColonel advanced the necessary amount. In time the prospectors returned$5. 00 of the loan, and gave the Colonel one of the claims for thebalance, but more for his kindness to them; for they reckoned it a bullygood prospect. Because they considered it the best claim in the camp, they called it Le Roi. Subsequently the Colonel sold this "King, " thathad cost him $2. 50, for $30, 000. 00. 

The new owners of Le Roi stocked the claim; and for the following two orthree years, when a man owed a debt that he was unwilling to pay, hepaid it in Le Roi stock. If he felt like backing a doubtful horse, heput up a handful of mining stock to punish the winner. There is in thehistory of this interesting mine a story of a man swapping a lot of LeRoi stock for a burro. The former owner of the donkey took the stock andthe man it came from into court, declaring that the paper was worthless, and that he had been buncoed. As late as 1894, a man who ran arestaurant offered 40, 000 shares of Le Roi stock for four barrels ofCanadian whiskey; but the whiskey man would not trade that way. 

In the meantime, however, men were working in the mine; and now theybegan to ship ore. It was worth $27. 00 a ton, and the stock becamevaluable. Scattered over the Northwest were 500, 000 shares that wereworth $500, 000. 00. Nearly all the men who had put money into theenterprise were Yankees, --mining men from Spokane, just over the border. These men began now to pick up all the stray shares that could be found;and in a little while eight-tenths of the shares were held by men livingsouth of the line. At Northport, in Washington, they built one of thefinest smelters in the Northwest, hauled their ore over there, andsmelted it. The ore was rich in gold and copper. They put in a 300horse-power hoisting-engine and a 40-drill air-compressor, --the largestin Canada, --taking all the money for these improvements out of the mine. The thing was a success, and news of it ran down to Chicago. A party ofmen with money started for the new gold fields, but as they were buyingtickets three men rushed in and took tickets for Seattle. These weremining men; and those who had bought only to British Columbia cashed in, asked for transportation to the coast, and followed the crowd to theKlondike. 

In that way Le Roi for the moment was forgotten. 

II

The Lieutenant-Governor of the Northwest Territories, who had been ajournalist and had a nose for news, heard of the new camp. All the whilemen were rushing to the Klondike, for it is the nature of man to go fromhome for a thing that he might secure under his own vine. 

The Governor visited the new camp. A man named Ross Thompson had stakedout a town at the foot of Le Roi dump and called it Rossland. TheGovernor put men to work quietly in the mine and then went back to hisplank palace at Regina, capital of the Northwest Territories, --to acapital that looked for all the world like a Kansas frontier town thathad just ceased to be the county seat. Here for months he waited, watching the "Imperial Limited" cross the prairie, receiving delegationsof half-breeds and an occasional report from one of the common miners inLe Roi. If a capitalist came seeking a soft place to invest, theGovernor pointed to the West-bound Limited and whispered in thestranger's ear. To all letters of inquiry coming from Ottawa orEngland, --letters from men who wanted to be told where to dig forgold, --he answered, "Klondike. "

By and by the Governor went to Rossland again. The mine, of which heowned not a single share of stock, was still producing. When he leftRossland he knew all about the lower workings, the value and extent ofthe ore body. 

By this time nearly all the Le Roi shares were held by Spokane people. The Governor, having arranged with a wealthy English syndicate, was ina position to buy the mine; but the owners did not seem anxious to sell. Eventually, however, when he was able to offer them an average of $7. 50for shares that had cost the holders but from ten to sixty cents ashare, about half of them were willing to sell; the balance were not. Now the Governor cared nothing for this "balance" so long as he couldsecure a majority, --a controlling interest in the mine, --for the Englishwould have it in no other way. A few thousand scattering shares he hadalready picked up, and now, from the faction who were willing to sell, he secured an option on 242, 000 shares, which, together with the oddshares already secured, would put his friends in control of theproperty. 

As news of the proposed sale got out, the gorge that was yawning betweenthe two factions grew wider. 

Finally, when the day arrived for the transfer to be made, the factionopposed to the sale prepared to make trouble for those who were selling, to prevent the moving of the seal of the company to Canada--in short, tostop the sale. They did not go with guns to the secretary and keeper ofthe seal and say, "Bide where ye be"; but they went into court and sworeout warrants for the arrest of the secretary and those of the directorswho favored the sale, charging them with conspiracy. 

It was midnight in Spokane. 

A black locomotive, hitched to a dark day-coach, stood in front of theGreat Northern station. The dim light of the gauge lamp showed twonodding figures in the cab. Out on the platform a man walked up anddown, keeping an eye on the engine, that was to cost him a cool $1000. 00for a hundred-mile run. Presently a man with his coat-collar about hisears stepped up into the gangway, shook the driver, and asked him wherehe was going. 

"Goin' to sleep. "

The man would not be denied, however, and when he became too pressing, the driver got up and explained that the cab of his engine was hiscastle, and made a move with his right foot. 

"Hold, " cried his tormentor, "do you know that you are about to layviolent hands upon an officer o' the law?"

"No, " said the engineer, "but I'll lay a violent foot up agin thecrown-sheet o' your trousers if you don't jump. "

The man jumped. 

Now the chief despatcher came from the station, stole along the shadowside of the car, and spoke to the man who had ordered the train. 

A deputy sheriff climbed up on the rear end of the special, tried thedoor, shaded his eyes, and endeavored to look into the car. 

"Have you the running orders?" asked the man who was paying for theentertainment. 

"Yes. "

"Let her go, then. "

All this was in a low whisper; and now the despatcher climbed up on thefireman's side and pressed a bit of crumpled tissue-paper into thedriver's hand. 

"Pull out over the switches slowly, and when you are clear of the yardsread your orders an' fly. "

The driver opened the throttle gently, the big wheels began to revolve, and the next moment the sheriff and one of his deputies boarded theengine. They demanded to know where that train was bound for. 

"The train, " said the driver, tugging at the throttle, "is back there atthe station. I'm goin' to the round-house. "

When the sheriff, glancing back, saw that the coach had been cut off, heswung himself down. 

"They've gi'n it up, " said the deputy. 

"I reckon--what's that?" said the sheriff. It was the wild, long whistleof the lone black engine just leaving the yards. The two officers facedeach other and stood listening to the flutter of the straight stack ofthe black racer as she responded to the touch of the erstwhile drowsydriver, who was at that moment laughing at the high sheriff, and whowould return to tell of it, and gloat in the streets of Spokane. 

The sheriff knew that three of the men for whom he held warrants were atHillier, seven miles on the way to Canada. This engine, then, had beensent to pick them up and bear them away over the border. An electricline paralleled the steam way to Hillier, and now the sheriff boarded atrolley and set sail to capture the engine, leaving one deputy to guardthe special car. 

By the time the engineer got the water worked out of his cylinders, thetrolley was creeping up beside his tank. He saw the flash from the wireabove as the car, nodding and dipping like a light boat in the wake of aferry, shot beneath the cross-wires, and knew instantly that she wasafter him. 

An electric car would not be ploughing through the gloom at that rate, without a ray of light, merely for the fun of the thing. A smile ofcontempt curled the lip of the driver as he cut the reverse-lever backto the first notch, put on the injector, and opened the throttle yet alittle wider. 

The two machines were running almost neck and neck now. The trolleycried, hissed, and spat fire in her mad effort to pass the locomotive. Afew stray sparks went out of the engine-stack, and fell upon the roof ofthe racing car. At intervals of half a minute the fireman opened thefurnace door; and by the flare of light from the white-hot fire-box theengine-driver could see the men on the teetering trolley, --themotor-man, the conductor, the sheriff, and his deputy. 

Slowly now the black flier began to slip away from the electric machine. 

The driver, smiling across the glare of the furnace door at his silent, sooty companion, touched the throttle again; and the great engine drewaway from the trolley, as a jack-rabbit who has been fooling with ayellow dog passes swiftly out of reach of his silly yelp. 

Now the men on the trolley heard the wild, triumphant scream of the ironhorse whistling for Hillier. The three directors of Le Roi had beenwarned by wire, and were waiting, ready to board the engine. 

The big wheels had scarcely stopped revolving when the men began to geton. They had barely begun to turn again when the trolley dashed intoHillier. The sheriff leaped to the ground and came running for theengine. The wheels slipped; and each passing second brought the mightyhand of the law, now outstretched, still nearer to the tail of the tank. She was moving now, but the sheriff was doing better. Ten feet separatedthe pursued and the pursuer. She slipped again, and the sheriff caughtthe corner of the engine-tank. By this time the driver had got the sandrunning; and now, as the wheels held the rail, the big engine boundedforward, almost shaking the sheriff loose. With each turn of the wheelsthe speed was increasing. The sheriff held on; and in three or fourseconds he was taking only about two steps between telegraph poles, andthen--he let go. 

III

While the locomotive and the trolley were racing across the country theGovernor, who was engineering it all, invested another thousand. Heordered another engine, and when she backed onto the coach the deputysheriff told the driver that he must not leave the station. The engineerheld his torch high above his head, looked the deputy over, and thenwent on oiling his engine. In the meantime the Governor had stored hisfriends away in the dark coach, including the secretary with thecompany's great seal. Now the deputy became uneasy. 

He dared not leave the train to send a wire to his chief at Hillier, forthe sheriff had said, "Keep your eye on the car. "

The despatcher, whose only interest in the matter was to run the trainsand earn money for his employer, having given written and verbal ordersto the engineer, watched his chance and, when the sheriff was poundingon the rear door, dodged in at the front, signalling with the bell-ropeto the driver to go. Frantically now the deputy beat upon the rear doorof the car, but the men within only laughed as the wheels rattled overthe last switch and left the lights of Spokane far behind. 

Away they went over a new and crooked track, the sand and cinderssucking in round the tail of the train to torment the luckless deputy. Away over hills and rills, past Hillier, where the sheriff still stoodstaring down the darkness after the vanishing engine; over switches andthrough the Seven Devils, while the unhappy deputy hung to the rearrailing with one hand and crossed himself. 

Each passing moment brought the racing train still nearer theborder, --to that invisible line that marks the end of Yankeeland and thebeginning of the British possessions. The sheriff knew this and beatloudly upon the car door with an iron gun. The Governor let the sashfall at the top of the door and spoke, or rather yelled, to the deputy. 

To the Governor's amazement, the sheriff pushed the bottle aside. Dryand dusty as he was, he would not drink. He was too mad to swallow. Hepoked his head into the dark coach and ordered the whole party tosurrender. 

"Just say what you want, " said a voice in the gloom, "and we'll pass itout to you. "

The sheriff became busy with some curves and reverse curves now, andmade no reply. 

Presently the Governor came to the window in the rear door again andcalled up the sheriff. 

"We are now nearing the border, " he said to the man on the platform. "They won't know you over there. Here you stand for law and order, and Irespect you, though I don't care to meet you personally; but over theborder you'll only stand for your sentence, --two years for carrying acannon on your hip, --and then they'll take you away to prison. "

The sheriff made no answer. 

"Now we're going to slow down at the line to about twenty miles an hour, more or less; and if you'll take a little friendly advice, you'll falloff. "

The train was still running at a furious pace. The whistle sounded, --onelong, wild scream, --and the speed of the train slackened. 

"Here you are, " the Governor called, and the sheriff stood on the lowerstep. 

The door opened and the Governor stepped out on the platform, followedby his companions. 

"I arrest you, " the sheriff shouted, "all of you. "

"But you can't, --you're in British Columbia, " the men laughed. 

"Let go, now, " said the Governor, and a moment later the deputy pickedhimself up and limped back over the border. 

IN THE BLACK CAÑON

One Christmas, at least, will live long in the memory of the men andwomen who hung up their stockings at La Veta Hotel in Gunnison in 18--. Ah, those were the best days of Colorado. Then folks were brave and trueto the traditions of Red Hoss Mountain, when "money flowed like liquor, "and coal strikes didn't matter, for the people all had something toburn. 

The Yankee proprietor of the dining-stations on this mountain line hadmade them as famous almost as the Harvey houses on the Santa Fé were;which praise is pardonable, since the Limited train with its café carhas closed them all. 

But the best of the bunch was La Veta, and the presiding genius was NoraO'Neal, the lady manager. Many an R. & W. Excursionist reading thisstory will recall her smile, her great gray eyes, her heaps of darkbrown hair, and the mountain trout that her tables held. 

It will be remembered that at that time the main lines of the Rio Grandelay by the banks of the Gunnison, through the Black Cañon, over CerroSummit, and down the Uncompaghre and the Grande to Grand Junction, thegate of the Utah Desert. 

John Cassidy was an express messenger whose run was over this route andwhose heart and its secret were in the keeping of Nora O'Neal. 

From day to day, from week to week, he had waited her answer, which wasto come to him "by Christmas. "

And now, as only two days remained, he dreaded it, as he had hoped andprayed for it since the aspen leaves began to gather their gold. He knewby the troubled look she wore when off her guard that Nora was thinking. 

 * * * * *

Most of the men who were gunning in Gunnison in the early 80's werefearless men, who, when a difference of opinion arose, faced each otherand fought it out; but there had come to live at La Veta a thin, quiet, handsome fellow, who moved mysteriously in and out of the camp, slept alot by day, and showed a fondness for faro by night. When a name wasneeded he signed "Buckingham. " His icy hand was soft and white, and hisclothes fitted him faultlessly. He was handsome, and when he paid hisbill at the end of the fourth week he proposed to Nora O'Neal. He was sofairer, physically, than Cassidy and so darker, morally, that Nora couldnot make up her mind at all, at all. 

In the shadow time, between sunset and gas-light, on the afternoon ofthe last day but one before Christmas, Buck, as he came to be called, leaned over the office counter and put a folded bit of white paper inNora's hand, saying, as he closed her fingers over it: "Put this powderin Cassidy's cup. " He knew Cassidy merely as the messenger whose freighthe coveted, and not as a contestant for Nora's heart and hand, --a handhe prized, however, as he would a bob-tailed flush, but no more. 

As for Cassidy, he would be glad, waking, to find himself alive; and ifthis plan miscarried, Buck should be able to side-step the gallows. Anyway, dope was preferable to death. 

Nora opened her hand, and in utter amazement looked at the paper. Someone interrupted them. Buck turned away, and Nora shoved the powder downdeep into her jacket pocket, feeling vaguely guilty. 

No. 7, the Salt Lake Limited, was an hour late that night. The regulardinner (we called it supper then) was over when Shanley whistled in. 

 * * * * *

As the headlight of the Rockaway engine gleamed along the hotel windows, Nora went back to see that everything was ready. 

In the narrow passage between the kitchen and the dining-room she metBuckingham. "What are you doing here?" she demanded. 

"Now, my beauty, " said Buck, laying a cold hand on her arm, "don't beexcited. "

She turned her honest eyes to him and he almost visibly shrank fromthem, as she had shuddered at the strange, cold touch of his hand. 

"Put that powder in Cassidy's cup, " he said, and in the half-light ofthe little hallway she saw his cruel smile. 

"And kill Cassidy, the best friend I have on earth?"

"It will not kill him, but it may save his life. I shall be in his carto-night. Sabe? Do as I tell you. He will only fall asleep for a littlewhile, otherwise--well, he may oversleep himself. " She would have passedon, but he stayed her. "Where is it?" he demanded, with a meaningglance. 

She touched her jacket pocket, and he released his hold on her arm. 

The shuffle and scuffle of the feet of hungry travellers who were pilinginto the dining-room had disturbed them. Nora passed on to the rear, Buck out to sit down and dine with the passengers, who always had ashade the best of the bill. 

From his favorite seat, facing the audience, he watched the trainmentumbling into the alcove off the west wing, in one corner of which acouple of Pullman porters in blue and gold sat at a small table, feedingwith their forks and behaving better than some of their white comradesbehaved. 

 * * * * *

Cassidy came in a moment later, sat down, and looked over to see if hisrival was in his accustomed place. The big messenger looked steadily atthe other man, who had never guessed the messenger's secret, and theother man looked down. 

Already his supper, steaming hot, stood before him, while the table-girldanced attendance for the tip she was always sure of at the finish. Shestudied his tastes and knew his wants, from rare roast down to thesmall, black coffee with which he invariably concluded his meal. 

When Buck looked up again he saw Nora approach the table, smile atCassidy, and put a cup of coffee down by his plate. 

The trainmen were soon through with their supper, being notoriouslyrapid feeders, --which disastrous habit they acquire while on freight, when they are expected to eat dinner and do an hour's switching intwenty minutes. 

Unusually early for him, Buck passed out. Nora purposely avoided him, but watched him from the unlighted little private office. She saw himlight a cigar and stroll down the long platform. At the rear of the lastPullman he threw his cigar away and crossed quickly to the shadow sideof the train. She saw him pass along, for there were no vestibulesthen, and made no doubt he was climbing into Cassidy's car. As themessenger reached for his change, the cashier-manager caught his hand, drew it across the counter, leaned toward him, saying excitedly: "Becareful to-night, John; don't fall asleep or nod for a moment. Oh, becareful!" she repeated, with ever-increasing intensity, her hot handtrembling on his great wrist; "be careful, come back safe, and you shallhave your answer. "

When Cassidy came back to earth he was surrounded by half a dozengood-natured passengers, men and women, who had come out of thedining-room during the ten or fifteen seconds he had spent in Paradise. 

A swift glance at the faces about told him that they had seen, anotherat Nora that she was embarrassed; but in two ticks of the office clockhe protected her, as he would his safe; for his work and time hadtrained him to be ready instantly for any emergency. 

"Good-night, sister, " he called cheerily, as he hurried toward the door. 

"Good-night, John, " said Nora, glancing up from the till, radiant withthe excitement of her "sweet distress. "

"Oh, by Jove!" said a man. 

"Huh!" said a woman, and they looked like people who had just missed aboat. 

With her face against the window, Nora watched the red lights on therear of No. 7 swing out to the main line. 

 * * * * *

Closing the desk, she climbed to her room on the third floor and kneltby the window. Away out on the shrouded vale she saw the dark traincreeping, a solid stream of fire flowing from the short stack of the"shotgun"; for Peasley was pounding her for all she was worth in anhonest effort to make up the hour that Shanley had lost in thesnowdrifts of Marshall Pass. Presently she heard the muffled roar of thetrain on a trestle, and a moment later saw the Salt Lake Limitedswallowed by the Black Cañon, in whose sunless gorges many a driver diedbefore the scenery settled after having been disturbed by the buildersof the road. 

Over ahead in his quiet car Cassidy sat musing, smoking, and wonderingwhy Nora should seem so anxious about him. Turning, he glanced about. Everything looked right, but the girl's anxiety bothered him. 

Picking up a bundle of way-bills, he began checking up. The enginescreamed for Sapinero, and a moment later he felt the list as theyrounded Dead Man's Curve. 

Unless they were flagged, the next stop would be at Cimarron, at theother end of the cañon. 

His work done, the messenger lighted his pipe, settled himself in hishigh-backed canvas camp-chair, and put his feet up on his box for a goodsmoke. He tried to think of a number of things that had nothing whateverto do with Nora, but somehow she invariably elbowed into his thoughts. 

He leaned over and opened his box--not the strong-box, but the wooden, trunk-like box that holds the messenger's street-coat when he's on dutyand his jumper when he's off. On the under side of the lifted lid he hadfixed a large panel picture of Nora O'Neal. 

 * * * * *

Buckingham, peering over a piano-box, behind which he had hidden atGunnison, saw and recognized the photograph; for the messenger's whitelight stood on the little safe near the picture. For half an hour he hadbeen watching Cassidy, wondering why he did not fall asleep. He had seenNora put the cup down with her own hand, to guard, as he thought, against the possibility of a mistake. What will a woman not dare and dofor the man she loves? He sighed softly. He recalled now that he hadalways exercised a powerful influence over women, --that is, the few hehad known, --but he was surprised that this consistent Catholic girlshould be so "dead easy. "

"And now look at this one hundred and ninety-eight pounds of egotismsitting here smiling on the likeness of the lady who has just droppedbug-dust in his coffee. It's positively funny. "

Such were the half-whispered musings of the would-be robber. 

He actually grew drowsy waiting for Cassidy to go to sleep. The carlurched on a sharp curve, dislodging some boxes. Buck felt a strange, tingling sensation in his fingers and toes. Presently he nodded. 

Cassidy sat gazing on the pictured face that had hovered over him in allhis dreams for months, and as he gazed, seemed to feel her livingpresence. He rose as if to greet her, but kept his eyes upon thepicture. 

Suddenly realizing that something was wrong in his end of the car, Buckstood up, gripping the top of the piano-box. The scream of the enginestartled him. The car crashed over the switch-frog at Curecanti, andCurecanti's Needle stabbed the starry vault above. The car swayedstrangely and the lights grew dim. 

Suddenly the awful truth flashed through his bewildered brain. 

"O-o-o-oh, the wench!" he hissed, pulling his guns. 

 * * * * *

Cassidy, absorbed in the photo, heard a door slam; and it came to himinstantly that Nora had boarded the train at Gunnison, and that some onewas showing her over to the head end. As he turned to meet her, he sawBuck staggering toward him, holding a murderous gun in each hand. Instantly he reached for his revolver, but a double flash from the gunsof the enemy blinded him and put out the bracket-lamps. As themessenger sprang forward to find his foe, the desperado lunged againsthim. Cassidy grabbed him, lifted him bodily, and smashed him to thefloor of the car; but with the amazing tenacity and wonderful agility ofthe trained gun-fighter, Buck managed to fire as he fell. The big bulletgrazed the top of Cassidy's head, and he fell unconscious across thehalf-dead desperado. 

Buck felt about for his gun, which had fallen from his hand; but alreadythe "bug-dust" was getting in its work. Sighing heavily, he joined themessenger in a quiet sleep. 

At Cimarron they broke the car open, revived the sleepers, restored theoutlaw to the Ohio State Prison, from which he had escaped, and themessenger to Nora O'Neal. 

JACK RAMSEY'S REASON

When Bill Ross romped up over the range and blew into Edmonton in thewake of a warm chinook, bought tobacco at the Hudson's Bay store, andbegan to regale the gang with weird tales of true fissures, payingplacers, and rich loads lying "virgin, " as he said, in Northern BritishColumbia, the gang accepted his tobacco and stories for what they wereworth; for it is a tradition up there that all men who come in with theMudjekeewis are liars. 

That was thirty years ago. 

The same chinook winds that wafted Bill Ross and his rose-hued romancesinto town have winged them, and the memory of them, away. 

In the meantime Ross reformed, forgot, the people forgave and made himMayor of Edmonton. 

 * * * * *

When Jack Ramsey called at the capital of British Columbia and told of aterritory in that great Province where the winter winds blew warm, where snow fell only once in a while and was gone again with the firstpeep of the sun; of a mountain-walled wonderland between the Coast Rangeand the Rockies, where flowers bloomed nine months in the year and goldcould be panned on almost any of the countless rivers, men said he hadcome down from Alaska, and that he lied. 

To be sure, they did not say that to Jack, --they only telegraphed it oneto another over their cigars in the club. Some of them actually believedit, and one man who had made money in California and later in Leadvillesaid he _knew_ it was so; for, said he, "Jack Ramsey never says or doesa thing without a 'reason. '"

At the end of a week this English-bred Yankee had organized the "ChinookMining and Milling Company, Limited. "

This man was at the head of the scheme, with Jack Ramsey as ManagingDirector. 

Ramsey was a prospector by nature made proficient by practice. He hadprospected in every mining camp from Mexico to Moose Factory. If he wereto find a real bonanza, his English-American friend used to say, hewould be miserable for the balance of his days, or rather histo-morrows. He lived in his to-morrows, --in these and in dreams. Heloved women, wine, and music, and the laughter of little children; butbetter than all these he loved the wilderness and the wildflowers andthe soft, low singing of mountain rills. He loved the flowers of theNorth, for they were all sweet and innocent. On all the two thousandfive hundred miles of the Yukon, he used to say, there is not onepoisonous plant; and he reasoned that the plants of the Peace and thePine and the red roses of the Upper Athabasca would be the same. 

And so, one March morning, he sailed up the Sound to enter hismountain-walled wonderland by the portal of Port Simpson, which opens onthe Pacific. His English-American friend went up as far as Simpson, andwhen the little coast steamer poked her prow into Work Channel hetouched the President of the Chinook Mining and Milling Company andsaid, "The Gateway to God's world. "

 * * * * *

The head of the C. M. & M. Company was not surprised when Christmas cameahead of Jack Ramsey's preliminary report. Jack was a careful, conservative prospector, and would not send a report unless there was agood and substantial reason for writing it out. 

In the following summer a letter came, --an extremely short one, considering what it contained; for it told, tersely, of great prospectsin the wonderland. It closed with a request for a new rifle, somegarden-seeds, and an H. B. Letter of credit for five hundred dollars. 

After a warm debate among the directors it was agreed the goods shouldgo. 

The following summer--that is, the second summer in the life of theChinook Company--Dawson dawned on the world. That year about half thefloating population of the Republic went to Cuba and the other half tothe Klondike. 

As the stream swelled and the channel between Vancouver Island and themainland grew black with boats, the President of the C. M. & M. Companybegan to pant for Ramsey, that he might join the rush to the North. Thatexciting summer died and another dawned, with no news from Ramsey. 

When the adventurous English-American could withstand the strain nolonger, he shipped for Skagway himself. He dropped off at Port Simpsonand inquired about Ramsey. 

Yes, the Hudson people said, it was quite probable that Ramsey hadpassed in that way. Some hundreds of prospectors had gone in during thepast three years, but the current created by the Klondike rush had drawnmost of them out and up the Sound. 

One man declared that he had seen Ramsey ship for Skagway on the"Dirigo, " and, after a little help and a few more drinks, gave a minutedescription of a famous nugget pin which the passing pilgrim said theprospector wore. 

And so the capitalist took the next boat for Skagway. 

By the time he reached Dawson the death-rattle had begun to assertitself in the bosom of the boom. The most diligent inquiry failed toreveal the presence of the noted prospector. On the contrary, manyold-timers from Colorado and California declared that Ramsey had neverreached the Dike--that is, not since the boom. In a walled tent on ashimmering sand-bar at the mouth of the crystal Klondike, Captain JackCrawford, the "Poet Scout, " severely sober in that land of largethirsts, wearing his old-time halo of lady-like behavior and hair, wasconducting an "Ice Cream Emporium and Soft-drink Saloon. "

"No, " said the scout, with the tips of his tapered fingers trembling onan empty table, straining forward and staring into the stranger's face;"no, Jack Ramsey has not been here; and if what you say be true--hesleeps alone in yonder fastness. Alas, poor Ramsey!--Ah knew 'im well";and he sank on a seat, shaking with sobs. 

 * * * * *

The English-American, on his way out, stopped at Simpson again. From ahalf-breed trapper he heard of a white man who had crossed the CoastRange three grasses ago. This white man had three or four head ofcattle, a Cree servant, and a queer-looking cayuse with long ears and amournful, melancholy cry. This latter member of the gang carried theoutfit. 

Taking this half-caste Cree to guide him, the mining man set out insearch of the long-lost Ramsey. They crossed the first range andsearched the streams north of the Peace River pass, almost to the crestof the continent, but found no trace of the prospector. 

When the summer died and the wilderness was darkened by the Northernnight, the search was abandoned. 

The years drifted into the past, and finally the Chinook Mining andMilling Company went to the wall. The English-American promoter, smarting under criticism, reimbursed each of his associates and tookover the office, empty ink-stands and blotting paper, and so blotted outall records of the one business failure of his life. 

But he could not blot out Jack Ramsey from his memory. There was a"reason, " he would say, for Ramsey's silence. 

One day, when in Edmonton, he met Mayor Ross, who had come into thecountry by the back door some thirty years ago. The tales coaxed fromthe Mayor's memory corresponded with Ramsey's report; and having nothingbut time and money, the ex-President of the C. M. & M. Company determinedto go in _via_ the Peace River pass and see for himself. He made theacquaintance of Smith "The Silent, " as he was called, who was at thattime pathfinding for the Grand Trunk Pacific, and secured permission togo in with the engineers. 

At Little Slave Lake he picked up Jim Cromwell, a free-trader, whoengaged to guide the mining man into the wonderland he had described. 

The story of Ramsey and his rambles appealed to Cromwell, who talkedtirelessly, and to the engineer, who listened long; and in time thehabitants of Cromwell's domains, which covered a country some sevenhundred miles square, all knew the story and all joined in the search. 

Beyond the pass of the Peace an old Cree caught up with them and madesigns, for he was deaf and dumb. But strange as it may seem, somehow, somewhere, he had heard the story of the lost miner and knew that thisstrange white man was the miner's friend. 

Long he sat by the camp fire, when the camp was asleep, trying, bycounting on his fingers and with sticks, to make Cromwell understandwhat was on his mind. 

When day dawned, he plucked Cromwells' sleeve, then walked away fifteenor twenty steps, stopped, unrolled his blankets, and lay down, closinghis eyes as if asleep. Presently he got up, rubbed his eyes, lighted hispipe, smoked for awhile, then knocked the fire out on a stone. Then hegot up, stamped the fire out as though it had been a camp fire, rolledup his blankets, and travelled on down the slope some twenty feet andrepeated the performance. On the next march he made but ten feet. Hestopped, put his pack down, seated himself on the trunk of a fallen treeand, with his back to Cromwell, began gesticulating, as if talking tosome one, nodding and shaking his head. Then he got a pick and begandigging. 

At the end of an hour Cromwell and the engineer had agreed that thesestations were day's marches and the rests camping places. In short, itwas two and a half "sleeps" to what he wanted to show them, --a prospect, a gold mine maybe, --and so Cromwell and the English-American detachedthemselves and set out at the heels of the mute Cree in search ofsomething. 

On the morning of the third day the old Indian could scarcely controlhimself, so eager was he to be off. 

All through the morning the white men followed him in silence. Nooncame, and still the Indian pushed on. 

At two in the afternoon, rounding the shoulder of a bit of highlandoverlooking a beautiful valley, they came suddenly upon a half-breed boyplaying with a wild goose that had been tamed. 

Down in the valley a cabin stood, and over the valley a small drove ofcattle were grazing. 

Suddenly from behind the hogan came the weird wail of a Colorado canary, who would have been an ass in Absalom's time. 

They asked the half-breed boy his name, and he shook his head. Theyasked for his father, and he frowned. 

The mute old Indian took up a pick, and they followed him up the slope. Presently he stopped at a stake upon which they could still read thefaint pencil-marks:--

 C. M. M. Co. L'T'D

The old Indian pointed to the ground with an expression which looked tothe white men like an interrogation. Cromwell nodded, and the Indianbegan to dig. Cromwell brought a shovel, and they began sinking a shaft. 

The English-American, with a sickening, sinking sensation, turned towardthe cabin. The boy preceded him and stood in the door. The man put hishand on the boy's head and was about to enter when he caught sight of anugget at the boy's neck. He stooped and lifted it. The boy shrank back, but the man, going deadly pale, clutched the child, dragging the nuggetfrom his neck. 

Now all the Indian in the boy's savage soul asserted itself, and hefought like a little demon. Pitying the child in its impotent rage, theman gave him the nugget and turned away. 

Across the valley an Indian woman came walking rapidly, her arms full ofturnips and onions and other garden-truck. The white man looked andloathed her; for he felt confident that Ramsey had been murdered, histrinkets distributed, and his carcass cast to the wolves. 

When the boy ran to meet the woman, the white man knew by his behaviorthat he was her child. When the boy had told his mother how the whiteman had behaved, she flew into a rage, dropped her vegetables, divedinto the cabin, and came out with a rifle in her hands. To her evidentsurprise the man seemed not to dread death, but stood staring at therifle, which he recognized as the rifle he had sent to Ramsey. To hissurprise she did not shoot, but uttering a strange cry, started up theslope, taking the gun with her. With rifle raised and flashing eyes sheordered the two men out of the prospect hole. Warlike as she seemed, shewas more than welcome, for she was a woman and could talk. She talkedCree, of course, but it sounded good to Cromwell. Side by side thehandsome young athlete and the Cree woman sat and exchanged stories. 

Half an hour later the Englishman came up and asked what the prospectpromised. 

"Ah, " said Cromwell, sadly, "this is another story. There is no gold inthis vale, though from what this woman tells me the hills are full ofit. However, " he added, "I believe we have found your friend. "

"Yes?" queried the capitalist. 

"Yes, " echoed Cromwell, "here are his wife and his child; and here, where we're grubbing, his grave. "

"Quite so, quite so, " said the big, warm-hearted English-American, glaring at the ground; "and that was Ramsey's 'reason' for notwriting. "

THE GREAT WRECK ON THE PÈRE MARQUETTE

The reader is not expected to believe this red tale; but if he will takethe trouble to write the General Manager of the Père Marquette Railroad, State of Michigan, U. S. A. Enclosing stamped envelope for answer, I makeno doubt that good man, having by this time recovered from the dreadfulshock occasioned by the wreck, will cheerfully verify the story even tothe minutest detail. 

 * * * * *

Of course Kelly, being Irish, should have been a Democrat; but he wasnot. He was not boisterously or offensively Republican, but he was goingto vote the prosperity ticket. He had tried it four years ago, andbusiness had never been better on the Père Marquette. Moreover, he had anew hand-car. 

The management had issued orders to the effect that there must be nocoercion of employees. It was pretty well understood among the men thatthe higher officials would vote the Republican ticket and leave thelittle fellows free to do the same. So Kelly, being boss of the gang, could not, with "ju" respect to the order of the Superintendent, enterinto the argument going on constantly between Burke and Shea on one sideand Lucien Boseaux, the French-Canadian-Anglo-Saxon-Foreign-AmericanCitizen, on the other. This argument always reached its height atnoon-time, and had never been more heated than now, it being the daybefore election. "Here is prosper tee, " laughed Lucien, holding up ahalf-pint bottle of _vin rouge_. 

"Yes, " Burke retorted, "an' ye have four pound of cotton waste in thebottom o' that bucket to trow the grub t' the top. Begad, I'd vote forO'Bryan wid an empty pail--er none at all--before I'd be humbugged. "

"Un I, " said Lucien, "would pour Messieur Rousveau vote if my baskettshall all the way up be cotton. "

"Sure ye would, " said Shea, "and ate the cotton too, ef your masthertold ye to. 'Tis the likes of ye, ye bloomin' furreighner, that kapesthe thrust alive in this country. "

When they were like to come to blows, Kelly, with a mild show ofsuperiority, which is second nature to a section boss, would interfereand restore order. All day they worked and argued, lifting low jointsand lowering high centres; and when the red sun sank in the tree-tops, filtering its gold through the golden leaves, they lifted the car ontothe rails and started home. 

When the men had mounted, Lucien at the forward handle and Burke andShea side by side on the rear bar, they waited impatiently for Kelly tolight his pipe and seat himself comfortably on the front of the car, hisheels hanging near to the ties. 

There was no more talk now. The men were busy pumping, the "management"inspecting the fish-plates, the culverts, and, incidentally, watchingthe red sun slide down behind the trees. 

At the foot of a long slope, down which the men had been pumping withall their might, there was a short bridge. The forest was heavy here, and already the shadow of the woods lay over the right-of-way. As thecar reached the farther end of the culvert, the men were startled by agreat explosion. The hand-car was lifted bodily and thrown from thetrack. 

The next thing Lucien remembers is that he woke from a fevered sleep, fraught with bad dreams, and felt warm water running over his chest. Heput his hand to his shirt-collar, removed it, and found it red withblood. Thoroughly alarmed, he got to his feet and looked, or ratherfelt, himself over. His fingers found an ugly ragged gash in the side ofhis neck, and the fear and horror of it all dazed him. 

 * * * * *

He reeled and fell again, but this time did not lose consciousness. 

Finally, when he was able to drag himself up the embankment to where thecar hung crosswise on the track, the sight he saw was so appalling heforgot his own wounds. 

On the side opposite to where he had fallen, Burke and Shea lay side byside, just as they had walked and worked and fought for years, and justas they would have voted on the morrow had they been spared. Immediately in front of the car, his feet over one rail and his neckacross the other, lay the mortal remains of Kelly the boss, the stub ofhis black pipe still sticking between his teeth. As Lucien stooped tolift the helpless head his own blood, spurting from the wound in hisneck, flooded the face and covered the clothes of the limp foreman. Finding no signs of life in the section boss, the wounded, and by thistime thoroughly frightened, French-Canadian turned his attention to theother two victims. Swiftly now the realization of the awful tragedy cameover the wounded man. His first thought was of the express now nearlydue. With a great effort he succeeded in placing the car on the rails, and then began the work of loading the dead. Out of respect for theoffice so lately filled by Kelly, he was lifted first and placed on thefront of the car, his head pillowed on Lucien's coat. Next he put Burkeaboard, bleeding profusely the while; and then began the greater task ofloading Shea. Shea was a heavy man, and by the time Lucien had himaboard he was ready to faint from exhaustion and the loss of blood. 

Now he must pump up over the little hill; for if the express should comeround the curve and fall down the grade, the hand-car would be ingreater danger than ever. 

After much hard work he gained the top of the hill, the hot bloodspurting from his neck at each fall of the handle-bar, and went hurryingdown the long easy grade to Charlevoix. 

To show how the trifles of life will intrude at the end, it isinteresting to hear Lucien declare that one of the first thoughts thatcame to him on seeing the three prostrate figures was, that up to thatmoment the wreck had worked a Republican gain of one vote, with his ownin doubt. 

But now he had more serious work for his brain, already reeling fromexhaustion. At the end of fifteen minutes he found himself hanging ontothe handle, more to keep from falling than for any help he was givingthe car. The evening breeze blowing down the slope helped him, so thatthe car was really losing nothing in speed. He dared not relax his hold;for if his strength should give out and the car stop, the express wouldcome racing down through the twilight and scoop him into eternity. So hetoiled on, dazed, stupefied, fighting for life, surrounded by the dead. 

Presently above the singing of the wheels he heard a low sound, like asingle, smothered cough of a yard engine suddenly reversed. Now he hadthe feeling of a man flooded with ice-water, so chilled was his blood. Turning his head to learn the cause of delay (he had fancied the pilotof an engine under his car), he saw Burke, one of the dead men, leap upand glare into his face. That was too much for Lucien, weak as he was, and twisting slightly, he sank to the floor of the car. 

Slowly Burke's wandering reason returned. Seeing Shea at his feet, bloodless and apparently unhurt, he kicked him, gently at first, andthen harder, and Shea stood up. Mechanically the waking man took hisplace by Burke's side and began pumping, Lucien lying limp between them. Kelly, they reasoned, must have been dead some time, by the way he waspillowed. 

When Shea was reasonably sure that he was alive, he looked at his mate. 

"Phat way ar're ye feelin'?" asked Burke. 

"Purty good fur a corpse. How's yourself?"

"Oh, so-so!"

"Th' Lord is good to the Irish. "

"But luck ut poor Kelly. "

"'Tis too bad, " said Shea, "an' him dyin' a Republican. "

"'Tis the way a man lives he must die. "

"Yes, " said Shea, thoughtfully, "thim that lives be the sword must go bethe board. "

When they had pumped on silently for awhile, Shea asked, "How did yeload thim, Burke?"

"Why--I--I suppose I lifted them aboard. I had no derrick. "

"Did ye lift me, Burke?"

"I'm damned if I know, Shea, " said Burke, staring ahead, for Kelly hadmoved. "Keep her goin', " he added, and then he bent over the prostrateforeman. He lifted Kelly's head, and the eyes opened. He raised the heada little higher, and Kelly saw the blood upon his beard, on his coat, onhis hands. 

"Are yez hurted, Kelly?" he asked. 

"Hurted! Man, I'm dyin'. Can't you see me heart's blood ebbin' over me?"And then Burke, crossing himself, laid the wounded head gently downagain. 

By this time they were nearing their destination. Burke, seeing Lucienbeyond human aid, took hold again and helped pump, hoping to reachCharlevoix in time to secure medical aid, or a priest at least, forKelly. 

When the hand-car stopped in front of the station at Charlevoix, theemployees watching, and the prospective passengers waiting, for theexpress train gathered about the car. 

"Get a docther!" shouted Burke, as the crowd closed in on them. 

In a few moments a man with black whiskers, a small hand-grip, andbicycle trousers panted up to the crowd and pushed his way to the car. 

"What's up?" he asked; for he was the company's surgeon. 

"Well, there's wan dead, wan dying, and we're all more or less kilt, "said Shea, pushing the mob back to give the doctor room. 

Lifting Lucien's head, the doctor held a small bottle under his nose, and the wounded man came out. Strong, and the reporter would say"willing hands, " now lifted the car bodily from the track and put itdown on the platform near the baggage-room. 

When the doctor had revived the French-Canadian and stopped the flow ofblood, he took the boss in hand. Opening the man's clothes, he searchedfor the wound, but found none. 

They literally stripped Kelly to the waist; but there was not a scratchto be found upon his body. When the doctor declared it to be his opinionthat Kelly was not hurt at all, but had merely fainted, Kelly wasindignant. 

Of course the whole accident (Lucien being seriously hurt) had to beinvestigated, and this was the finding of the experts:--

A tin torpedo left on the rail by a flagman was exploded by the wheel ofthe hand-car. A piece of tin flew up, caught Lucien in the neck, makinga nasty wound. Lucien was thrown from the car, when it jumped the track, so violently as to render him unconscious. Kelly and Burke and Shea, picking themselves up, one after the other, each fainted dead away atthe sight of so much blood. 

Lucien revived first, took in the situation, loaded the limp bodies, andpulled for home, and that is the true story of the awful wreck on thePère Marquette. 

THE STORY OF AN ENGLISHMAN

A young Englishman stood watching a freight train pulling out of a newtown, over a new track. A pinch-bar, left carelessly by a section gang, caught in the cylinder-cock rigging and tore it off. 

Swearing softly, the driver climbed down and began the nasty work ofdisconnecting the disabled machinery. He was not a machinist. Not allengine-drivers can put a locomotive together. In fact the best runnersare just runners. The Englishman stood by and, when he saw the manfumble his wrench, offered a hand. The driver, with some hesitation, gave him the tools, and in a few minutes the crippled rigging was takendown, nuts replaced, and the rigging passed by the Englishman to thefireman, who threw it up on the rear of the tank. 

"Are you a mechanic?" asked the driver. 

"Yes, sir, " said the Englishman, standing at least a foot above theengineer. "There's a job for me up the road, if I can get there. "

"And you're out of tallow?"

The Englishman was not quite sure; but he guessed "tallow" was UnitedStates for "money, " and said he was short. 

"All right, " said the engine-driver; "climb on. "

The fireman was a Dutchman named Martin, and he made the Englishmancomfortable; but the Englishman wanted to work. He wanted to help firethe engine, and Martin showed him how to do it, taking her himself onthe hills. When they pulled into the town of E. , the Englishman wentover to the round-house and the foreman asked him if he had ever"railroaded. " He said No, but he was a machinist. "Well, I don't wantyou, " said the foreman, and the Englishman went across to the littleeating-stand where the trainmen were having dinner. Martin moved overand made room for the stranger between himself and his engineer. 

"What luck?" asked the latter. 

"Hard luck, " was the answer, and without more talk the men hurried onthrough the meal. 

They had to eat dinner and do an hour's switching in twenty minutes. That is an easy trick when nobody is looking. You arrive, eat dinner, then register in. That is the first the despatcher hears of you at E. You switch twenty minutes and register out. That is the last thedespatcher hears of you at E. You switch another twenty minutes and go. That is called stealing time; and may the Manager have mercy on you ifyou're caught at it, for you've got to make up that last twenty minutesbefore you hit the next station. 

As the engineer dropped a little oil here and there for another dash, the Englishman came up to the engine. He could not bring himself to askthe driver for another ride, and he didn't need to. 

"You don't get de jobs?" asked Martin. 

"No. "

"Vell, dat's all right; you run his railroad some day. "

"I don't like the agent here, " said the driver; "but if you were up atthe other end of the yard, over on the left-hand side, he couldn't seeyou, and I couldn't see you for the steam from that brokencylinder-cock. "

Now they say an Englishman is slow to catch on, but this one was not;and as the engine rattled over the last switch, he climbed into the cabin a cloud of steam. Martin made him welcome again, pointing to a seaton the waste-box. The dead-head took off his coat, folded it carefully, laid it on the box, and reached for the shovel. "Not yet, " said Martin, "dare is holes already in de fire; I must get dose yello smoke from deshtack off. "

The dead-head leaned from the window, watching the stack burn clear, then Martin gave him the shovel. Half-way up a long, hard hill thepointer on the steam-gauge began to go back. The driver glanced over atMartin, and Martin took the shovel. The dead-head climbed up on the tankand shovelled the coal down into the pit, that was now nearly empty. Ina little while they pulled into the town of M. C. , Iowa, at the crossingof the Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul. Here the Englishman had tochange cars. His destination was on the cross-road, still one hundredand eighteen miles away. The engine-driver took the joint agent to oneside, the agent wrote on a small piece of paper, folded it carefully, and gave it to the Englishman. "This may help you, " said he; "bequick--they're just pulling out--run!"

Panting, the Englishman threw himself into a way-car that was alreadymaking ten miles an hour. The train official unfolded the paper, readit, looked the Englishman over, and said, "All right. "

It was nearly night when the train arrived at W. , and the dead-headfollowed the train crew into an unpainted pine hotel, where all handsfell eagerly to work. A man stood behind a little high desk at the doortaking money; but when the Englishman offered to pay he said, "Yours ispaid fer. "

"Not mine; nobody knows me here. "

"Then, 'f the devil don't know you better than I do you're lost, youngman, " said the landlord. "But some one p'inted to you and said, 'I payfer him. ' It ain't a thing to make a noise about. It don't make nodifference to me whether it's Tom or Jerry that pays, so long aseverybody represents. "

"Well, this is a funny country, " mused the Englishman, as he strolledover to the shop. Now when he heard the voice of the foreman, with itsmusical burr, which stamped the man as a Briton from the Highlands, hisheart grew glad. The Scotchman listened to the stranger's story withoutany sign of emotion or even interest; and when he learned that the manhad "never railroaded, " but had been all his life in the BritishGovernment service, he said he could do nothing for him, and walkedaway. 

The young man sat and thought it over, and concluded he would see themaster-mechanic. On the following morning he found that official at hisdesk and told his story. He had just arrived from England with a wifeand three children and a few dollars. "That's all right, " said themaster-mechanic; "I'll give you a job on Monday morning. "

This was Saturday, and during the day the first foreman with whom theEnglishman had talked wired that if he would return to E. He could findwork. The young man showed this wire to the master-mechanic. "I shouldlike to work for you, " said he; "you have been very kind to give meemployment after the foreman had refused, but my family is near thisplace. They are two hundred miles or more from here. "

"I understand, " said the kind-hearted official, "and you'd better goback to E. "

The Englishman rubbed his chin and looked out of the window. The trainstanding at the station and about to pull out would carry him back tothe junction, but he made no effort to catch it, and themaster-mechanic, seeing this, caught the drift of the young man's mind. "Have you transportation?" he asked. The stranger, smiling, shook hishead. Turning to his desk, the master-mechanic wrote a pass to thejunction and a telegram requesting transportation over the Iowa Centralfrom the junction to the town of E. 

That Sunday the young man told his young wife that the new country was"all right. " Everybody trusted everybody else. An official would give astranger free transportation; a station agent could give you a pass, andeven an engine-driver could carry a man without asking permission. 

He didn't know that all these men save the master-mechanic had violatedthe rules of the road and endangered their own positions and the chanceof promotion by helping him; but he felt he was among good, kind people, and thanked them just the same. 

On Monday morning he went to work in the little shop. In a little whilehe was one of the trustworthy men employed in the place. "How do yousquare a locomotive?" he asked the foreman. "Here, " said the foreman;"from this point to that. "

That was all the Englishman asked. He stretched a line between the givenpoints and went to work. 

Two years from this the town of M. Offered to donate to the railroadcompany $47, 000 if the new machine shop could be located there, steam upand machinery running, on the first day of January of the followingyear. 

The general master-mechanic entrusted the work of putting in themachinery, after the walls had been built and the place roofed over, tothe division master-mechanic, who looked to the local foreman to finishthe job in time to win the subsidy. 

The best months of the year went by before work was begun. Frost came, and the few men tinkering about were chilled by the autumn winds thatwere wailing through the shutterless doors and glassless windows. Finally the foreman sent the Englishman to M. To help put up themachinery. He was a new man, and therefore was expected to take signalsfrom the oldest man on the job, --a sort of straw-boss. 

The bridge boss--the local head of the wood-workers--found theEnglishman gazing about, and the two men talked together. There was noforeman there, but the Englishman thought he ought to work anyway; so heand the wood boss stretched a line for a line-shaft, and while thecarpenter's gang put up braces and brackets the Englishman coupled theshaft together, and in a few days it was ready to go up. As the youngman worked and whistled away one morning, the boss carpenter came inwith a military-looking gentleman, who seemed to own the place. "Wheredid you come from?" asked the new-comer of the machinist. 

"From England, sir. "

"Well, anybody could tell that. Where did you come from when you camehere?"

"From E. "

"Well, sir, can you finish this job and have steam up here on the firstof January?"

The Englishman blushed, for he was embarrassed, and glanced at the woodboss. Then, sweeping the almost empty shop with his eye, he saidsomething about a foreman who was in charge of the work. "Damn theforeman, " said the stranger; "I'm talking to you. "

The young man blushed again, and said he could work twelve or fourteenhours a day for a time if it were necessary, but he didn't like to makeany rash promises about the general result. 

"Now look here, " said the well-dressed man, "I want you to take chargeof this job and finish it; employ as many men as you can handle, andblow a whistle here on New Year's morning--do you understand?"

The Englishman thought he did, but he could hardly believe it. Heglanced at the wood boss, and the wood boss nodded his head. 

"I shall do my best, " said the Englishman, taking courage, "but I shouldlike to know who gives these orders. "

"I'm the General Manager, " said the man; "now get a move on you, " andhe turned and walked out. 

It is not to be supposed that the General Manager saw anythingremarkable about the young man, save that he was six feet and had a goodface. The fact is, the wood foreman had boomed the Englishman's stockbefore the Manager saw him. 

The path of the Englishman was not strewn with flowers for the next fewmonths. Any number of men who had been on the road when he was in theEnglish navy-yards felt that they ought to have had this littlepromotion. The local foremen along the line saw in the young Englishmanthe future foreman of the new shops, and no man went out of his way tohelp the stranger. But in spite of all obstacles, the shop grew from dayto day, from week to week; so that as the old year drew to a close themachinery was getting into place. The young foreman, while a hardworker, was always pleasant in his intercourse with the employees, andin a little while he had hosts of friends. There is always a lot ofextra work at the end of a big job, and now when Christmas came therewas still much to do. The men worked night and day. The boiler that wasto come from Chicago had been expected for some time. Everything was inreadiness, and it could be set up in a day; but it did not come. Tracer-letters that had gone after it were followed by telegrams;finally it was located in a wreck out in a cornfield in Illinois on thelast day of the year. 

A great many of the officials were away, and the service was generallydemoralized during the holidays, so that the appropriation for which theEnglishman was working at M. Had for the moment been forgotten; theshops were completed, the machinery was in, but there was no boiler toboil water to make steam. 

That night, when the people of M. Were watching the old year out and thenew year in, the young Englishman with a force of men was wrecking thepump-house down by the station. The little upright boiler was torn outand placed in the machine shops, and with it a little engine was driventhat turned the long line-shaft. 

At dawn they ran a long pipe through the roof, screwed a locomotivewhistle on the top of it, and at six o'clock on New Year's morning thenew whistle on the new shops at M. In Iowa, blew in the new year. Incidentally, it blew the town in for $47, 000. 

This would be a good place to end this story, but the temptation isgreat to tell the rest. 

When the shops were opened, the young Englishman was foreman. This wasonly about twenty-five years ago. In a little while they promoted him. 

In 1887 he went to the Wisconsin Central. In 1890 he was madeSuperintendent of machinery of the Santa Fé route, --one of the longestroads on earth. It begins at Chicago, strong like a man's wrist, with afinger each on Sacramento, San Francisco, San Diego, and El Paso, and athumb touching the Gulf at Galveston. 

The mileage of the system, at that time, was equal to one-half that ofGreat Britain; and upon the companies' payrolls were ten thousand moremen than were then in the army of the United States. Fifteen hundred menand boys walk into the main shops at Topeka every morning. They workfour hours, eat luncheon, listen to a lecture or short sermon in themeeting-place above the shops, work another four hours, and walk outthree thousand dollars better off than they would have been if they hadnot worked. 

These shops make a little city of themselves. There is a perfect watersystem, fire-brigade with fire stations where the firemen sleep, police, and a dog-catcher. 

Here they build anything of wood, iron, brass, or steel that the companyneeds, from a ninety-ton locomotive to a single-barrelled mouse-trap, all under the eye of the Englishman who came to America with a good wifeand three babies, a good head and two hands. This man's name is JohnPlayer. He is the inventor of the Player truck, the Player hand-car, thePlayer frog, and many other useful appliances. 

This simple story of an unpretentious man came out in broken sections asthe special sped along the smooth track, while the General Managertalked with the resident director and the General Superintendent talkedwith his assistant, who, not long ago, was the conductor of a work-trainupon which the G. S. Was employed as brakeman. I was two days stealingthis story, between the blushes of the mechanical Superintendent. 

He related, also, that a man wearing high-cut trousers and milk on hisboot had entered his office when he had got to his first position asmaster-mechanic and held out a hand, smiling, "Vell, you don't know meyet, ain't it? I'm Martin the fireman; I quit ranchin' already, an' Iwant a jobs. "

Martin got a job at once. He got killed, also, in a little while; butthat is part of the business on a new road. 

Near the shops at Topeka stands the railroad Young Men's ChristianAssociation building. They were enlarging it when I was there. There areno "saloons" in Kansas, so Player and his company help the men toprovide other amusements. 

ON THE LIMITED

One Sabbath evening, not long ago, I went down to the depot in anOntario town to take the International Limited for Montreal. She was onthe blackboard five minutes in disgrace. "Huh!" grunted a commercialtraveller. It was Sunday in the aforesaid Ontario town, and would beSunday in Toronto, toward which he was travelling. Even if we were ontime we should not arrive until 9. 30--too late for church, too early togo to bed, and the saloons all closed and barred. And yet this restlesstraveller fretted and grieved because we promised to get into Torontofive minutes late. Alas for the calculation of the train despatchers, she was seven minutes overdue when she swept in and stood for us tomount. The get-away was good, but at the eastern yard limits we lostagain. The people from the Pullmans piled into the café car andoverflowed into the library and parlor cars. The restless travellersnapped his watch again, caught the sleeve of a passing trainman, andasked "'S matter?" and the conductor answered, "Waiting for No. 5. " Fiveminutes passed and not a wheel turned; six, eight, ten minutes, and nosound of the coming west-bound express. Up ahead we could hear theflutter and flap of the blow-off; for the black flier was as restless asthe fat drummer who was snapping his watch, grunting "Huh, " and washingsuppressed profanity down with _café noir_. 

Eighteen minutes and No. 5 passed. When the great black steed of steamgot them swinging again we were twenty-five minutes to the bad. And howthat driver did hit the curves! The impatient traveller snapped hiswatch again and said, refusing to be comforted, "She'll never make it. "

Mayhap the fat and fretful drummer managed to communicate with theengine-driver, or maybe the latter was unhappily married or had aninsurance policy; and it is also possible that he is just the devil todrive. Anyway, he whipped that fine train of Pullmans, café, and parlorcars through those peaceful, lamplighted, Sabbath-keeping Ontario townsas though the whole show had cost not more than seven dollars, and hisown life less. 

On a long lounge in the library car a well-nourished lawyer lay sleepingin a way that I had not dreamed a political lawyer could sleep. Onegamey M. P. --double P, I was told--had been robbing this same lawyer of agood deal of rest recently, and he was trying at a mile a minute tocatch up with his sleep. I could feel the sleeper slam her flangesagainst the ball of the rail as we rounded the perfectly pitched curves, and the little semi-quaver that tells the trained traveller that the manup ahead is moving the mile-posts, at least one every minute. At thefirst stop, twenty-five miles out, the fat drummer snapped his watchagain, but he did not say, "Huh. " We had made up five minutes. 

A few passengers swung down here, and a few others swung up; and off wedashed, drilling the darkness. I looked in on the lawyer again, for Iwould have speech with him; but he was still sleeping the sleep of thevirtuous, with the electric light full on his upturned baby face, thatreminds me constantly of the late Tom Reed. 

A woman I know was putting one of her babies to bed in lower 2, when wewiggled through a reverse curve that was like shooting White HorseRapids in a Peterboro. The child intended for lower 2 went over into 4. "Never mind, " said its mother, "we have enough to go around;" and so sheleft that one in 4 and put the next one in 2, and so on. 

At the next stop where you "Y" and back into the town, the people, impatient, were lined up, ready to board the Limited. When we swung overthe switches again, we were only ten minutes late. 

As often as the daring driver eased off for a down grade I could hearthe hiss of steam through the safety-valve above the back of the blackflier, and I could feel the flanges against the ball of the rail, andthe little tell-tale semi-quaver of the car. 

By now the babies were all abed; and from bunk to bunk she tucked themin, kissed them good-night, and then cuddled down beside the last one, afair-haired girl who seemed to have caught and kept, in her hair and inher eyes, the sunshine of the three short summers through which she hadpassed. 

Once more I went and stood by the lounge where the lawyer lay, but I hadnot the nerve to wake him. 

The silver moon rose and lit the ripples on the lake that lay below mywindow as the last of the diners came from the café car. Along the shoreof the sleeping lake our engine swept like a great, black, wingless birdof night. Presently I felt the frogs of South Parkdale; and when, fromher hot throat she called "Toronto, " the fat and fretful travelleropened his great gold watch. He did not snap it now, but looked into itsopen face and almost smiled; for we were touching Toronto on the tick oftime. 

I stepped from the car, for I was interested in the fat drummer. Iwanted to see him meet her, and hold her hand, and tell her what areally, truly, good husband he had been, and how he had hurried home. Ashe came down the short stair a friend faced him and said "Good-night, "where we say "Good-evening. " "Hello, Bill, " said the fat drummer. Theyshook hands languidly. The fat man yawned and asked, "Anything doing?""Not the littlest, " said Bill. "Then, " said Jim (the fat man), "let usgo up to the King Edward, sit down, and have a good, quiet smoke. "

THE CONQUEST OF ALASKA

Immediately under the man with the money, who lived in London, there wasthe President in Chicago; then came the chief engineer in Seattle, thelocating engineer in Skagway, the contractor in the grading camp, andHugh Foy, the "boss" of the builders. Yet in spite of all thisoverhanging stratification, Foy was a big man. To be sure, none of thesemen had happened to get their positions by mere chance. They were men ofcharacter and fortitude, capable of great sacrifice. 

Mr. Close, in London, knew that his partner, Mr. Graves, in Chicago, would be a good man at the head of so cold and hopeless an enterprise asa Klondike Railway; and Mr. Graves knew that Erastus Corning Hawkins, who had put through some of the biggest engineering schemes in the West, was the man to build the road. The latter selected, as locatingengineer, John Hislop, the hero, one of the few survivors of that wildand daring expedition that undertook, some twenty years ago, to survey aroute for a railroad whose trains were to traverse the Grand Cañon ofColorado, where, save for the song of the cataract, there is only shadeand silence and perpetual starlight. Heney, a wiry, compact, pluckyCanadian contractor, made oral agreement with the chief engineer and, with Hugh Foy as his superintendent of construction, began to grade whatthey called the White Pass and Yukon Railway. Beginning where thebone-washing Skagway tells her troubles to the tide-waters at the elbowof that beautiful arm of the Pacific Ocean called Lynn Canal, theygraded out through the scattered settlement where a city stands to-day, cut through a dense forest of spruce, and began to climb the hill. 

When the news of ground-breaking had gone out to Seattle and Chicago, and thence to London, conservative capitalists, who had suspected CloseBrothers and Company and all their associates in this wild scheme oftemporary insanity, concluded that the sore affliction had come to stay. But the dauntless builders on the busy field where the grading camp wasin action kept grubbing and grading, climbing and staking, blasting andbuilding, undiscouraged and undismayed. Under the eaves of a drippingglacier, Hawkins, Hislop, and Heney crept; and, as they measured off themiles and fixed the grade by blue chalk-marks where stakes could not bedriven, Foy followed with his army of blasters and builders. When thepathfinders came to a deep side cañon, they tumbled down, clambered upon the opposite side, found their bearings, and began again. At oneplace the main wall was so steep that the engineer was compelled toclimb to the top, let a man down by a rope, so that he could mark theface of the cliff for the blasters, and then haul him up again. 

It was springtime when they began, and through the long days of thatshort summer the engineers explored and mapped and located; and ever, close behind them, they could hear the steady roar of Foy's fireworks asthe skilled blasters burst big boulders or shattered the shoulders ofgreat crags that blocked the trail of the iron horse. Ever and anon, when the climbers and builders peered down into the ragged cañon, theysaw a long line of pack-animals, bipeds and quadrupeds, --some hoofed andsome horned, some bleeding, some blind, --stumbling and staggering, fainting and falling, the fittest fighting for the trail and gaining thesummit, whence the clear, green waters of the mighty Yukon would carrythem down to Dawson, --the Mecca of all these gold-mad men. As often asthe road-makers glanced at the pack-trains, they saw hundreds ofthousands of dollars' worth of traffic going past or waitingtransportation at Skagway, and each strained every nerve to complete thework while the sun shone. 

By midsummer they began to appreciate the fact that this was to be ahard job. When the flowers faded on the southern slopes, they were notmore than half-way up the hill. Each day the sun swung lower across thecanals, all the to-morrows were shorter than the yesterdays, and therewas not a man among them with a shade of sentiment, or a sense of thebeautiful, but sighed when the flowers died. Yes, they had learned tolove this maiden, Summer, that had tripped up from the south, smiled onthem, sung for a season, sighed, smiled once more, and then danced downthe Lynn again. 

"I'll come back, " she seemed to say, peeping over the shoulder of aglacier that stood at the stage entrance; "I'll come back, but ere Icome again there'll be strange scenes and sounds on this rude stage sonew to you. First, you will have a short season of melodrama by amelancholy chap called Autumn, gloriously garbed in green and gold, withsplashes and dashes of lavender and lace, but sad, sweetly sad, andsighing always, for life is such a little while. "

With a sadder smile, she kissed her rosy fingers and was gone, --gonewith her gorgeous garments, her ferns and flowers, her low, soft sighsand sunny skies, and there was not a man that was a man but missed herwhen she was gone. 

The autumn scene, though sombre and sad, was far from depressing, butthey all felt the change. John Hislop seemed to feel it more than allthe rest; for besides being deeply religious, he was deeply in love. Hisnearest and dearest friend, Heney--happy, hilarious Heney--knew, and heswore softly whenever a steamer landed without a message fromMinneapolis, --the long-looked-for letter that would make Hislop betteror worse. It came at length, and Hislop was happy. With his horse, hisdog, and a sandwich, --but never a gun, --he would make long excursionsdown toward Lake Linderman, to Bennett, or over Atlin way. When thecountry became too rough for the horse, he would be left picketed near astream with a faithful dog to look after him while the pathfinderclimbed up among the eagles. 

In the meantime Foy kept pounding away. Occasionally a soiled pedestrianwould slide down the slope, tell a wild tale of rich strikes, and ahundred men would quit work and head for the highlands. Foy would stormand swear and coax by turns, but to no purpose; for they were like somany steers, and as easily stampeded. When the Atlin boom struck thecamp, Foy lost five hundred men in as many minutes. Scores of gradersdropped their tools and started off on a trot. The prospector who hadtold the fable had thrown his thumb over his shoulder to indicate thegeneral direction. Nobody had thought to ask how far. Many forgot tolet go; and Heney's picks and shovels, worth over a dollar apiece, wentaway with the stampeders. As the wild mob swept on, the tetheredblasters cut the cables that guyed them to the hills, and each lopedaway with a piece of rope around one ankle. 

Panting, they passed over the range, these gold-crazed Coxeys, without abun or a blanket, a crust or a crumb, many without a cent or even asweat-mark where a cent had slept in their soiled overalls. 

When Foy had exhausted the English, Irish, and Alaskan languages inwishing the men luck in various degrees, he rounded up the remnant ofhis army and began again. In a day or two the stampeders began to limpback hungry and weary, and every one who brought a pick or a shovel wasre-employed. But hundreds kept on toward Lake Bennett, and thence bywater up Windy Arm to the Atlin country, and many of them have not yetreturned to claim their time-checks. 

The autumn waned. The happy wives of young engineers, who had beentented along the line during the summer, watched the wildflowers fadewith a feeling of loneliness and deep longing for their stout-hearted, strong-limbed husbands, who were away up in the cloud-veiled hills; andthey longed, too, for other loved ones in the lowlands of theirchildhood. Foy's blasters and builders buttoned their coats and buckleddown to keep warm. Below, they could hear loud peals of profanity as thetrailers, packers, and pilgrims pounded their dumb slaves over thetrail. Above, the wind cried and moaned among the crags, constantlyreminding them that winter was near at hand. The nights were longer thanthe days. The working day was cut from ten to eight hours, but the payof the men had been raised from thirty to thirty-five cents an hour. 

One day a black cloud curtained the cañon, and the workmen looked upfrom their picks and drills to find that it was November and night. Thewhole theatre, stage and all, had grown suddenly dark; but they knew, bythe strange, weird noise in the wings, that the great tragedy of winterwas on. Hislop's horse and dog went down the trail. Hawkins and Hislopand Heney walked up and down among the men, as commanding officers showthemselves on the eve of battle. Foy chaffed the laborers and gave themmore rope; but no amount of levity could prevail against the universalfeeling of dread that seemed to settle upon the whole army. This weirdAlaska, so wild and grand, so cool and sweet and sunny in summer, sostrangely sad in autumn, --this many-mooded, little known Alaska thatseemed doomed ever to be misunderstood, either over-lauded or liedabout, --what would she do to them? How cruel, how cold, how weird, howwickedly wild her winters must be! Most men are brave, and an army ofbrave men will breast great peril when God's lamp lights the field; butthe stoutest heart dreads the darkness. These men were sore afraid, allof them; and yet no one was willing to be the first to fall out, so theystood their ground. They worked with a will born of desperation. 

The wind moaned hoarsely. The temperature dropped to thirty-five degreesbelow zero, but the men, in sheltered places, kept pounding. Sometimesthey would work all day cleaning the snow from the grade made the daybefore, and the next day it would probably be drifted full again. Attimes the task seemed hopeless; but Heney had promised to build to thesummit of White Pass without a stop, and Foy had given Heney his handacross a table at the Fifth Avenue Hotel in Skagway. 

At times the wind blew so frightfully that the men had to hold hands;but they kept pegging away between blasts, and in a little while wereready to begin bridging the gulches and deep side-cañons. One day--orone night, rather, for there were no days then--a camp cook, crazed bythe cold and the endless night, wandered off to die. Hislop and Heneyfound him, but he refused to be comforted. He wanted to quit, but Heneysaid he could not be spared. He begged to be left alone to sleep in thewarm, soft snow, but Heney brought him back to consciousness and tocamp. 

A premature blast blew a man into eternity. The wind moaned still moredrearily. The snow drifted deeper and deeper, and one day they foundthat, for days and days, they had been blasting ice and snow when theythought they were drilling the rock. Heney and Foy faced each other inthe dim light of a tent lamp that night. "Must we give up?" asked thecontractor. 

"No, " said Foy, slowly, speaking in a whisper; "we'll build on snow, forit's hard and safe; and in the spring we'll ease it down and make aroad-bed. "

They did so. They built and bedded the cross-ties on the snow, ballastedwith snow, and ran over that track until spring without an accident. 

They were making mileage slowly, but the awful strain was telling on themen and on the bank account. The president of the company was almostconstantly travelling between Washington and Ottawa, pausing now andagain to reach over to London for another bag of gold, for they weremelting it up there in the arctic night--literally burning it up, werethese dynamiters of Foy's. 

To conceive this great project, to put it into shape, present it inLondon, secure the funds and the necessary concessions from twogovernments, survey and build, and have a locomotive running in Alaskaa year from the first whoop of the happy Klondiker, had been a mightyachievement; but it was what Heney would call "dead easy" compared withthe work that confronted the President at this time. On July 20, 1897, the first pick was driven into the ground at White Pass; just a yearlater the pioneer locomotive was run over the road. More than once hadthe financial backers allowed their faith in the enterprise and in thefuture of the country beyond to slip away; but the President of thecompany had always succeeded in building it up again, for they had neverlost faith in him, or in his ability to see things that were to most meninvisible. In summer, when the weekly reports showed a mile or more orless of track laid, it was not so hard; but when days were spent inplacing a single bent in a bridge, and weeks were consumed on a switchback in a pinched-out cañon, it was hard to persuade sane men thatbusiness sense demanded that they pile on more fuel. But they did it;and, as the work went on, it became apparent to those interested in suchundertakings that all the heroes of the White Pass were not in thehills. 

In addition to the elements, ever at war with the builders, they hadother worries that winter. Hawkins had a fire that burned all thecompany's offices and all his maps and notes and records of surveys. Foyhad a strike, incited largely by jealous packers and freighters; andthere was hand-to-hand fighting between the strikers and their abettorsand the real builders, who sympathized with the company. 

Brydone-Jack, a fine young fellow, who had been sent out as consultingengineer to look after the interests of the shareholders, clapped hishands to his forehead and fell, face down, in the snow. His comradescarried him to his tent. He had been silent, had suffered, perhaps for aday or two, but had said nothing. The next night he passed away. Hiswife was waiting at Vancouver until he could finish his work in Alaskaand go home to her. 

With sad and heavy hearts Hawkins and Hislop and Heney climbed back towhere Foy and his men were keeping up the fight. Like so many biglightning-bugs they seemed, with their dim white lamps rattling aroundin the storm. It was nearly all night then. God and his sunlight seemedto have forsaken Alaska. Once every twenty-four hours a little ball offire, red, round, and remote, swung across the cañon, dimly lightedtheir lunch-tables, and then disappeared behind the great glacier thatguards the gateway to the Klondike. 

As the road neared the summit, Heney observed that Foy was growingnervous, and that he coughed a great deal. He watched the old fellow, and found that he was not eating well, and that he slept very little. Heney asked Foy to rest, but the latter shook his head. Hawkins andHislop and Heney talked the matter over in Hislop's tent, called Foy in, and demanded that he go down and out. Foy was coughing constantly, buthe choked it back long enough to tell the three men what he thought ofthem. He had worked hard and faithfully to complete the job, and nowthat only one level mile remained to be railed, would they send the oldman down the hill? "I will not budge, " said Foy, facing his friends;"an' when you gentlemen ar-re silibratin' th' vict'ry at the top o' thehill ahn Chuesday nixt, Hugh Foy'll be wood ye. Do you moind that, now?"

Foy steadied himself by a tent-pole and coughed violently. His eyes wereglassy, and his face flushed with the purplish flush that fever gives. 

"Enough of this!" said the chief engineer, trying to look severe. "Takethis message, sign it, and send it at once. "

Foy caught the bit of white clip and read:--

 "CAPTAIN O'BRIEN, SKAGWAY. 

 "Save a berth for me on the 'Rosalie. '"

They thought, as they watched him, that the old road-maker was about tocrush the paper in his rough right hand; but suddenly his facebrightened, he reached for a pencil, saying, "I'll do it, " and when hehad added "next trip" to the message, he signed it, folded it, and tookit over to the operator. 

So it happened that, when the last spike was driven at the summit, onFebruary 20, 1899, the old foreman, who had driven the first, drove thelast, and it was _his_ last spike as well. Doctor Whiting guessed it waspneumonia. 

When the road had been completed to Lake Bennett, the owners came overto see it; and when they saw what had been done, despite the predictionthat Dawson was dead and that the Cape Nome boom would equal that of theKlondike, they authorized the construction of another hundred miles ofroad which would connect with the Yukon below the dreaded White HorseRapids. Jack and Foy and Hislop are gone; and when John Hislop passedaway, the West lost one of the most modest and unpretentious, yet one ofthe best and bravest, one of the purest minded men that ever saw the sungo down behind a snowy range. 

NUMBER THREE

One winter night, as the west-bound express was pulling out of Omaha, adrunken man climbed aboard. The young Superintendent, who stood on therear platform, caught the man by the collar and hauled him up the steps. 

The train, from the tank to the tail-lights, was crammed full ofpassenger-people going home or away to spend Christmas. Over in frontthe express and baggage cars were piled full of baggage, bundles, boxes, trinkets, and toys, each intended to make some heart happier on themorrow, for it was Christmas Eve. It was to see that these passengersand their precious freight, already a day late, got through that theSuperintendent was leaving his own fireside to go over the road. 

The snow came swirling across the plain, cold and wet, pasting thewindow and blurring the headlight on the black locomotive that wasclimbing laboriously over the kinks and curves of a new track. Here andthere, in sheltered wimples, bands of buffalo were bunched to shieldthem from the storm. Now and then an antelope left the rail or a lonecoyote crouched in the shadow of a telegraph-pole as the dim headlightswept the right of way. At each stop the Superintendent would jump down, look about, and swing onto the rear car as the train pulled out again. At one time he found that his seat had been taken, also his overcoat, which had been left hanging over the back. The thief was discovered onthe blind baggage and turned over to the "city marshal" at the nextstop. 

Upon entering the train again, the Superintendent went forward to find aseat in the express car. It was near midnight now. They were coming intoa settlement and passing through prosperous new towns that were buildingup near the end of the division. Near the door the messenger had set alittle green Christmas tree, and grouped about it were a red sled, adoll-carriage, some toys, and a few parcels. If the blond doll in thelittle toy carriage toppled over, the messenger would set it up again;and when passing freight out he was careful not to knock a twig fromthe tree. So intent was he upon the task of taking care of thisparticular shipment that he had forgotten the Superintendent, andstarted and almost stared at him when he shouted the observation thatthe messenger was a little late with his tree. 

"'Tain't mine, " he said sadly, shaking his head. "B'longs to the fellow't swiped your coat. "

"No!" exclaimed the Superintendent, as he went over to look at the toys. 

"If he'd only asked me, " said the messenger, more to himself than to theSuperintendent, "he could 'a' had mine and welcome. "

"Do you know the man?"

"Oh, yes--he lives next door to me, and I'll have to face his wife andlie to her, and then face my own; but I can't lie to her. I'll tell herthe truth and get roasted for letting Downs get away. I'll go to sleepby the sound of her sobs and wake to find her crying in hercoffee--that's the kind of a Christmas I'll have. When he's drunk he'sdisgusting, of course; but when he's sober he's sorry. And Charley Downsis honest. "

"Honest!" shouted the Superintendent. 

"Yes, I know he took your coat, but that wasn't Charley Downs; it wasthe tarantula-juice he'd been imbibing in Omaha. Left alone he's ashonest as I am; and here's a run that would trip up a missionary. Forinstance, leaving Loneville the other night, a man came runningalongside the car and threw in a bundle of bills that looked like a baleof hay. Not a scrap of paper or pencil-mark, just a wad o' winnings witha wang around the middle. 'A Christmas gift for my wife, ' he yelled. 'How much?' I shouted. 'Oh, I dunno--whole lot, but it's tied good'; andthen a cloud of steam from the cylinder-cocks came between us, and Ihaven't seen him since. 

"For the past six months Downs has tried hard to be decent, and hassucceeded some; and this was to be the supreme test. For six months hiswife has been saving up to send him to Omaha to buy things forChristmas. If he could do that, she argued, and come back sober, he'd bestronger to begin the New Year. Of course they looked to me to keep himon the rail, and I did. I shadowed him from shop to shop until hebought all the toys and some little trinkets for his wife. Always Ifound he had paid and ordered the things to be sent to the expressoffice marked to me. 

"Well, finally I followed him to a clothing store, where, according to apromise made to his wife, he bought an overcoat, the first he had felton his back for years. This he put on, of course, for it is cold inOmaha to-day; and I left him and slipped away to grab a few hours'sleep. 

"When I woke I went out to look for him, but could not find him, thoughI tried hard, and came to my car without supper. I found his coat, however, hung up in a saloon, and redeemed it, hoping still to findCharley before train time. I watched for him until we were signalledout, and then went back and looked through the train, but failed to findhim. 

"Of course I am sorry for Charley, " the messenger went on after a pause, "but more so for the poor little woman. She's worked and worked, andsaved and saved, and hoped and dreamed, until she actually believed he'dbeen cured and that the sun would shine in her life again. Why, theneighbors have been talking across the back fence about how well Mrs. Downs was looking. My wife declared she heard her laugh the other dayclear over to our house. Half the town knew about her dream. The womenfolks have been carrying work to her and then going over and helping herdo it as a sort of surprise party. And now it's all off. To-morrow willbe Christmas; and he'll be in jail, his wife in despair, and I indisgrace. Charley Downs a thief--in jail! It'll just break her heart!"

The whistle proclaimed a stop, and the Superintendent swung out with alump in his throat. This was an important station, and the last onebefore Loneville. Without looking to the right or left, theSuperintendent walked straight to the telegraph office and sent thefollowing message to the agent at the place where Downs had beenditched:--

 "Turn that fellow loose and send him to Loneville on three--all a joke. 

 "W. C. V. , Superintendent. "

In a little while the train was rattling over the road again; and whenthe engine screamed for Loneville, the Superintendent stood up andlooked at the messenger. 

"What'll I tell her?" the latter asked. 

"Well, he got left at Cactus sure enough, didn't he? If that doesn'tsatisfy her, tell her that he may get over on No. 3. "

When the messenger had turned his freight over to the driver of theFargo wagon, he gathered up the Christmas tree and the toys and trudgedhomeward, looking like Santa Claus, so completely hidden was he by thetree and the trinkets. As he neared the Downs' home, the door swungopen, the lamplight shone out upon him, and he saw two women smilingfrom the open door. It took but one glance at the messenger's face toshow them that something was wrong, and the smiles faded. Mrs. Downsreceived the shock without a murmur, leaning on her friend and leavingthe marks of her fingers on her friend's arm. 

The messenger put the toys down suddenly, silently; and feeling that theunhappy woman would be better alone, the neighbors departed, leaving herseated by the window, peering into the night, the lamp turned very low. 

The little clock on the shelf above the stove ticked off the seconds, measured the minutes, and marked the melancholy hours. The storm ceased, the stars came out and showed the quiet town asleep beneath its robe ofwhite. The clock was now striking four, and she had scarcely stirred. She was thinking of the watchers of Bethlehem, when suddenly a greatlight shone on the eastern horizon. At last the freight was coming. Shehad scarcely noticed the messenger's suggestion that Charley might comein on three. Now she waited, with just the faintest ray of hope; andafter a long while the deep voice of the locomotive came to her, thelong black train crept past and stopped. Now her heart beat wildly. Somebody was coming up the road. A moment later she recognized hererring husband, dressed exactly as he had been when he left home, hisshort coat buttoned close up under his chin. When she saw himapproaching slowly but steadily, she knew he was sober and doubtlesscold. She was about to fling the door open to admit him when he stoppedand stood still. She watched him. He seemed to be wringing his hands. Anawful thought chilled her, --the thought that the cold and exposure hadunbalanced his mind. Suddenly he knelt in the snow and turned his sadface up to the quiet sky. He was praying, and with a sudden impulse shefell upon her knees and they prayed together with only the window-glassbetween them. 

When the prodigal got to his feet, the door stood open and his wife waswaiting to receive him. At sight of her, dressed as she had been when heleft her, a sudden flame of guilt and shame burned through him; but itserved only to clear his brain and strengthen his will-power, which allhis life had been so weak, and lately made weaker for want of exercise. He walked almost hurriedly to the chair she set for him near the stove, and sank into it with the weary air of one who has been long in bed. Shefelt of his hands and they were not cold. She touched his face and foundit warm. She pushed the dark hair from his pale forehead and kissed it. She knelt and prayed again, her head upon his knee. He bowed above herwhile she prayed, and stroked her hair. She felt his tears falling uponher head. She stood up, and when he lifted his face to hers, lookedinto his wide weeping eyes, --aye, into his very soul. She liked to seethe tears and the look of agony on his face, for she knew by these signshow he suffered, and she knew why. 

When he had grown calm she brought a cup of coffee to him. He drank it, and then she led him to the little dining-room, where a midnight supperhad been set for four, but, because of his absence, had not beentouched. He saw the tree and the toys that the messenger had left, andspoke for the first time. "Oh, wife dear, have they all come? Are theyall here? The toys and all?" and then, seeing the overcoat that themessenger had left on a chair near by, and which his wife had not yetseen, he cried excitedly, "Take that away--it isn't mine!"

"Why, yes, dear, " said his wife, "it must be yours. "

"No, no, " he said; "I bought a coat like that, but I sold it. I drank alot and only climbed on the train as it was pulling out of Omaha. In thewarm car I fell asleep and dreamed the sweetest dream I ever knew. I hadcome home sober with all the things, you had kissed me, we had a greatdinner here, and there stood the Christmas tree, the children were here, the messenger and his wife, and their children. We were all so happy! Isaw the shadow fade from your face, saw you smile and heard you laugh;saw the old love-light in your eyes and the rose coming into your cheek. And then--'Oh, bitterness of things too sweet!'--I woke to find my ownold trembling self again. It was all a dream. Looking across the aisle, I saw that coat on the back of an empty seat. I knew it was not mine, for I had sold mine for two miserable dollars. I knew, too, that the manwho gave them to me got them back again before they were warm in mypocket. This thought embittered me, and, picking up the coat, I walkedout and stood on the platform of the baggage car. At the next stop theytook me off and turned me over to the city marshal, --for the coatbelonged to the Superintendent. 

"It is like mine, except that it is real, and mine, of course, was onlya good imitation. Take it away, wife--do take it away--it haunts me!"

Pitying him, the wife put the coat out of his sight; and immediately hegrew calm, drank freely of the strong coffee, but he could not eat. Presently he went over and began to arrange the little Christmas tree inthe box his wife had prepared for it during his absence. She beganopening the parcels, and when she could trust herself, began to talkabout the surprise they would have for the children, and now and againto express her appreciation of some dainty trifle he had selected forher. She watched him closely, noting that his hand was unsteady, andthat he was inclined to stagger after stooping for a little while. Finally, when the tree had been trimmed, and the sled for the boy andthe doll-carriage for the girl were placed beneath it, she got him tolie down. When she had made him comfortable she kissed him again, kneltby his bed and prayed, or rather offered thanks, and he was asleep. 

Two hours later the subdued shouts of her babies, the exclamations ofglad surprise that came in stage whispers from the dining-room, wokeher, and she rose from the little couch where she had fallen asleep, already dressed to begin the day. 

It was four o'clock in the afternoon when she called the prodigal. Whenhe had bathed his feverish face and put on the fresh clothes she hadbrought in for him and come into the dining-room, he saw his rosy dreamsof the previous night fulfilled. The messenger and his wife shook handswith him and wished him a Merry Christmas. His children, all thechildren, came and kissed him. His wife was smiling, and the warm bloodleaping from her happy heart actually put color in her cheeks. 

As Downs took the chair at the head of the table he bowed his head, therest did likewise, and he gave thanks, fervently and withoutembarrassment. 

THE STUFF THAT STANDS

It was very late in the fifties, and Lincoln and Douglas were engaged inanimated discussion of the burning questions of the time, when MelvinJewett journeyed to Bloomington, Illinois, to learn telegraphy. 

It was then a new, weird business, and his father advised him not tofool with it. His college chum said to him, as they chatted together forthe last time before leaving school, that it would be grewsomely lonelyto sit in a dimly lighted flag-station and have that inanimate machinetick off its talk to him in the sable hush of night; but Jewett wasambitious. Being earnest, brave, and industrious, he learned rapidly, and in a few months found himself in charge of a little woodenway-station as agent, operator, yard-master, and everything else. It waslonely, but there was no night work. When the shadows came and hung onthe bare walls of his office the spook pictures that had been paintedby his school chum, the young operator went over to the little tavernfor the night. 

True, Springdale at that time was not much of a town; but the telegraphboy had the satisfaction of feeling that he was, by common consent, thebiggest man in the place. 

Out in a hayfield, he could see from his window a farmer gazing up atthe humming wire, and the farmer's boy holding his ear to the pole, trying to understand. All this business that so blinded and bewilderedwith its mystery, not only the farmer, but the village folks as well, was to him as simple as sunshine. 

In a little while he had learned to read a newspaper with one eye andkeep the other on the narrow window that looked out along the line; tomark with one ear the "down brakes" signal of the north-bound freight, clear in the siding, and with the other to catch the whistle of theoncoming "cannon ball, " faint and far away. 

When Jewett had been at Springdale some six or eight months, anotheryoung man dropped from the local one morning, and said, "_Wie gehts_, "and handed him a letter. The letter was from the Superintendent, callinghim back to Bloomington to despatch trains. Being the youngest of thedespatchers, he had to take the "death trick. " The day man used to workfrom eight o'clock in the morning until four o'clock in the afternoon, the "split trick" man from four until midnight, and the "death trick"man from midnight until morning. 

We called it the "death trick" because, in the early days ofrailroading, we had a lot of wrecks about four o'clock in the morning. That was before double tracks and safety inventions had made travellingby rail safer than sleeping at home, and before trainmen off duty hadlearned to look not on liquor that was red. Jewett, however, was notlong on the night shift. He was a good despatcher, --a bit risky attimes, the chief thought, but that was only when he knew his man. He wasa rusher and ran trains close, but he was ever watchful and wide awake. 

In two years' time he had become chief despatcher. During these yearsthe country, so quiet when he first went to Bloomington, had been tornby the tumult of civil strife. 

With war news passing under his eye every day, trains going south withsoldiers, and cars coming north with the wounded, it is not remarkablethat the fever should get into the young despatcher's blood. He read ofthe great, sad Lincoln, whom he had seen and heard and known, callingfor volunteers, and his blood rushed red and hot through his veins. Hetalked to the trainmen who came in to register, to enginemen waiting fororders, to yardmen in the yards, and to shopmen after hours; and many ofthem, catching the contagion, urged him to organize a company, and hedid. He continued to work days and to drill his men in the twilight. Hewould have been up and drilling at dawn if he could have gotten themtogether. He inspired them with his quiet enthusiasm, held them bypersonal magnetism, and by unselfish patriotism kindled in the breast ofeach of his fifty followers a desire to do something for his country. Gradually the railroad, so dear to him, slipped back to second place inthe affairs of the earth. His country was first. To be sure, there wasno shirking of responsibility at the office, but the business of thecompany was never allowed to overshadow the cause in which he hadsilently but heartily enlisted. "Abe" Lincoln was, to his way ofreasoning, a bigger man than the President of the Chicago and AltonRailroad--which was something to concede. The country must be cared forfirst, he argued; for what good would a road be with no country to runthrough?

All day he would work at the despatcher's office, flagging fast freightsand "laying out" local passenger trains, to the end that the soldiersmight be hurried south. He would pocket the "cannon ball" and order the"thunderbolt" held at Alton for the soldiers' special. "Take siding atSundance for troop train, south-bound, " he would flash out, and glory inhis power to help the government. 

All day he would work and scheme for the company (and the Union), and atnight, when the silver moonlight lay on the lot back of the machineshops, he would drill and drill as long as he could hold the mentogether. They were all stout and fearless young fellows, trained andaccustomed to danger by the hazard of their daily toil. They knewsomething of discipline, were used to obeying orders, and to readingand remembering regulations made for their guidance; and Jewett reasonedthat they would become, in time, a crack company, and a credit to thestate. 

By the time he had his company properly drilled, young Jewett was soperfectly saturated with the subject of war that he was almost unfit forduty as a despatcher. Only his anxiety about south-bound troop trainsheld his mind to the matter and his hand to the wheel. At night, after along evening in the drill field, he would dream of great battles, andhear in his dreams the ceaseless tramp, tramp of soldiers marching downfrom the north to re-enforce the fellows in the fight. 

Finally, when he felt that they were fit, he called his company togetherfor the election of officers. Jewett was the unanimous choice forcaptain, other officers were chosen, and the captain at once applied fora commission. 

The Jewetts were an influential family, and no one doubted the result ofthe young despatcher's request. He waited anxiously for some time, wrotea second letter, and waited again. "Any news from Springfield?" theconductor would ask, leaving the register, and the chief despatcherwould shake his head. 

One morning, on entering his office, Jewett found a letter on his desk. It was from the Superintendent, and it stated bluntly that theresignation of the chief despatcher would be accepted, and named hissuccessor. 

Jewett read it over a second time, then turned and carried it into theoffice of his chief. 

"Why?" echoed the Superintendent; "you ought to know why. For months youhave neglected your office, and have worked and schemed and conspired toget trainmen and enginemen to quit work and go to war. Every day womenwho are not ready to be widowed come here and cry on the carpet becausetheir husbands are going away with 'Captain' Jewett's company. Onlyyesterday a schoolgirl came running after me, begging me not to let herlittle brother, the red-headed peanut on the local, go as drummer-boy in'Captain' Jewett's company. 

"And now, after demoralizing the service and almost breaking up a half ahundred homes, you ask, 'Why?' Is that all you have to say?"

"No, " said the despatcher, lifting his head; "I have to say to you, sir, that I have never knowingly neglected my duty. I have not conspired. Ihave been misjudged and misunderstood; and in conclusion, I would saythat my resignation shall be written at once. "

Returning to his desk, Jewett found the long-looked-for letter fromSpringfield. How his heart beat as he broke the seal! How timely--justas things come out in a play. He would not interrupt traffic on theAlton, but with a commission in his pocket would go elsewhere andorganize a new company. These things flashed through his mind as heunfolded the letter. His eye fell immediately on the signature at theend. It was not the name of the Governor, who had been a close friend ofhis father, but of the Lieutenant-Governor. It was a short letter, butplain; and it left no hope. His request had been denied. 

This time he did not ask why. He knew why, and knew that the influenceof a great railway company, with the best of the argument on its side, would outweigh the influence of a train despatcher and his friends. 

Reluctantly Jewett took leave of his old associates in the office, wentto his room in the hotel, and sat for hours crushed and discouraged. Presently he rose, kicked the kinks out of his trousers, and walked outinto the clear sunlight. At the end of the street he stepped from theside-walk to the sod path and kept walking. He passed an orchard andplucked a ripe peach from an overhanging bough. A yellow-breasted larkstood in a stubble-field, chirped two or three times, and soared, singing, toward the far blue sky. A bare-armed man, with a muley cradle, was cradling grain, and, far away, he heard the hum of a horse-powerthreshing machine. It had been months, it seemed years, since he hadbeen in the country, felt its cooling breeze, smelled the fresh breathof the fields, or heard the song of a lark; and it rested and refreshedhim. 

When young Jewett returned to the town he was himself again. He had beenguilty of no wrong, but had been about what seemed to him his duty tohis country. Still, he remembered with sadness the sharp rebuke of theSuperintendent, a feeling intensified by the recollection that it wasthe same official who had brought him in from Springdale, made a traindespatcher out of him, and promoted him as often as he had earnedpromotion. If he had seemed to be acting in bad faith with the officialsof the road, he would make amends. That night he called his companytogether, told them that he had been unable to secure a commission, stated that he had resigned and was going away, and advised them todisband. 

The company forming at Lexington was called "The Farmers, " just as theBloomington company was known as the "Car-hands. " "The Farmers" wasfull, the captain said, when Jewett offered his services. At the lastmoment one of the boys had "heart failure, " and Jewett was taken in hisplace. His experience with the disbanded "Car-hands" helped him and hiscompany immeasurably. It was only a few days after his departure fromBloomington that he again passed through, a private in "The Farmers. "

Once in the South, the Lexington company became a part of the 184thIllinois Infantry, and almost immediately engaged in fighting. Jewettpanted to be on the firing-line, but that was not to be. The regimenthad just captured an important railway which had to be manned andoperated at once. It was the only means of supplying a whole army corpswith bacon and beans. The colonel of his company was casting about forrailroaders, when he heard of Private Jewett. He was surprised to find, in "The Farmers, " a man of such wide experience as a railway official, so well posted on the general situation, and so keenly alive to theimportance of the railroad and the necessity of keeping it open. Withina week Jewett had made a reputation. If there had been time to name him, he would doubtless have been called superintendent of transportation;but there was no time to classify those who were working on the road. They called him Jewett. In some way the story of the one-time captain'sexperience at Bloomington came to the colonel's ears, and he sent forJewett. As a result of the interview, the young private was taken fromthe ranks, made a captain, and "assigned to special duty. " His specialduty was that of General Manager of the M. & L. Railroad, withheadquarters in a car. 

Jewett called upon the colonel again, uninvited this time, andprotested. He wanted to get into the fighting. "Don't worry, my boy, "said the good-natured colonel, "I'll take the fight out of you later on;for the present, Captain Jewett, you will continue to run thisrailroad. "

The captain saluted and went about his business. 

There had been some fierce fighting at the front, and the Yankees hadgotten decidedly the worst of it. Several attempts had been made to rushre-enforcements forward by rail, but with poor success. The pilotengines had all been ditched. As a last desperate chance, Jewettdetermined to try a "black" train. Two engines were attached to atroop-train, and Jewett seated himself on the pilot of the forwardlocomotive. The lights were all put out. They were to have no pilotengine, but were to slip past the ambuscade, if possible, and takechances on lifted rails and absent bridges. It was near the end of adark, rainy night. The train was rolling along at a good freight clip, the engines working as full as might be without throwing fire, whensuddenly, from either side of the track, a yellow flame flared out, followed immediately by the awful roar of the muskets from whose blackmouths the murderous fire had rushed. The bullets fairly rained on thejackets of the engines, and crashed through the cab windows. Theengineer on the head engine was shot from his seat. Jewett, in a hail oflead, climbed over the running-board, pulled wide the throttle, andwhistled "off brakes. " The driver of the second engine, following hisexample, opened also, and the train was thus whirled out of range, butnot until Jewett had been badly wounded. A second volley rained upon therearmost cars, but did little damage. The enemy had been completelyoutwitted. They had mistaken the train for a pilot engine, which theyhad planned to let pass; after which they were to turn a switch, ditch, and capture the train. 

There was great rejoicing in the hungry army at the front that dawn, when the long train laden with soldiers and sandwiches arrived. Thecolonel was complimented by the corps commander, but he was too big andbrave to accept promotion for an achievement in which he had had no partor even faith. He told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but thetruth; and, when it was all over, there was no more "Captain" Jewett. When he came out of the hospital he had the rank of a major, but wasstill "assigned to special duty. "

Major Jewett's work became more important as the great struggle went on. Other lines of railway fell into the hands of the Yankees, and all ofthem in that division of the army came under his control. They were goodfor him, for they made him a very busy man and kept him from panting forthe firing-line. In conjunction with General D. , the famous armyengineer, who has since become a noted railroad-builder, he rebuilt andre-equipped wrecked railways, bridged wide rivers, and kept a way openfor men and supplies to get to the front. 

When at last the little, ragged, but ever-heroic remnant of theConfederate army surrendered, and the worn and weary soldiers set theirfaces to the north again, Major Jewett's name was known throughout thecountry. 

At the close of the war, in recognition of his ability and great serviceto the Union, Major Jewett was made a brevet colonel, by which title heis known to almost every railway man in America. 

 * * * * *

Many opportunities came to Colonel Jewett to enter once more the fieldin which, since his school days, he had been employed. One by one theseoffers were put aside. They were too easy. He had been so long in thewreck of things that he felt out of place on a prosperous, well-regulated line. He knew of a little struggling road that ran eastfrom Galena, Illinois. It was called the Galena and something, forGalena was at that time the most prosperous and promising town in thewide, wild West. 

He sought and secured service on the Galena line and began anew. Theroad was one of the oldest and poorest in the state, and one of the veryfirst chartered to build west from Chicago. It was sorely in need of ayoung, vigorous, and experienced man, and Colonel Jewett's ability wasnot long in finding recognition. Step by step he climbed the ladderuntil he reached the General Managership. Here his real work began. Herehe had some say, and could talk directly to the President, who was oneof the chief owners. He soon convinced the company that to succeed theymust have more money, build more, and make business by encouragingsettlers to go out and plough and plant and reap and ship. The UnitedStates government was aiding in the construction of a railway across the"desert, " as the West beyond the Missouri River was then called. Jewetturged his company to push out to the Missouri River and connect with theline to the Pacific, and they pushed. 

Ten years from the close of the war Colonel Jewett was at the head ofone of the most promising railroads in the country. Prosperity followedpeace, the West began to build up, the Pacific Railroad was completed, and the little Galena line, with a new charter and a new name, hadbecome an important link connecting the Atlantic and the Pacific. 

For nearly half a century Jewett has been at the front, and has neverbeen defeated. The discredited captain of that promising company ofcar-boys has become one of our great "captains of industry. " He isto-day President of one of the most important railroads in the world, whose black fliers race out nightly over twin paths of steel, threadingtheir way in and out of not less than nine states, with nearly ninethousand miles of main line. He has succeeded beyond his wildest dreams;and his success is due largely to the fact that when, in his youth, hemounted to ride to fame and fortune, he did not allow the first jolt tojar him from the saddle. He is made of the stuff that stands. 

THE MILWAUKEE RUN

Henry Hautman was born old. He had the face and figure of a voter atfifteen. His skin did not fit his face, --it wrinkled and resembled apiece of rawhide that had been left out in the rain and sun. 

Henry's father was a freighter on the Santa Fé trail when Independencewas the back door of civilization, opening on a wilderness. Little Henryused to ride on the high seat with his father, close up to the tail of aMissouri mule, the seventh of a series of eight, including the trailerwhich his father drove in front of the big wagon. It was the wind of thewest that tanned the hide on Henry's face and made him look old beforehis time. 

At night they used to arrange the wagons in a ring, in which thefreighters slept. 

One night Henry was wakened by the yells of Indians, and saw menfighting. Presently he was swung to the back of a cayuse behind apainted warrior, and as they rode away the boy, looking back, saw thewagons burning and guessed the rest. 

Later the lad escaped and made his way to Chicago, where he began hiscareer on the rail, and where this story really begins. 

It was extremely difficult, in the early days, to find sober, reliableyoung men to man the few locomotives in America and run the trains. Alarge part of the population seemed to be floating, drifting west, west, always west. So when this stout-shouldered, strong-faced youth asked forwork, the round-house foreman took him on gladly. Henry's boyhood hadbeen so full of peril that he was absolutely indifferent to danger and astranger to fear. He was not even afraid of work, and at the end ofeighteen months he was marked up for a run. He had passed from thewiping gang to the deck of a passenger engine, and was now ready for theroad. 

Henry was proud of his rapid promotion, especially this last lift, thatwould enable him to race in the moonlight along the steel trail, thoughhe recalled that it had cost him his first little white lie. 

One of the rules of the road said a man must be twenty-one years oldbefore he could handle a locomotive. Henry knew his book well, but heknew also that the railroad needed his service and that he needed thejob; so when the clerk had taken his "Personal Record, "--which was onlya mild way of asking where he would have his body sent in case he metthe fate so common at that time on a new line in a new country, --he gavehis age as twenty, hoping the master-mechanic would allow him a year forgood behavior. 

Years passed. So did the Indian and the buffalo. The railway reached outacross the Great American Desert. The border became blurred and wasrubbed out. The desert was dotted with homes. Towns began to grow upabout the water-tanks and to bud and blow on the treeless plain. 

Henry Hautman became known as the coolest and most daring driver on theroad. He was a good engineer and a good citizen. He owned his home; andwhile his pay was not what an engineer draws to-day for the same runmade in half the time, it was sufficient unto the day, his requirements, and his wife's taste. 

Only one thing troubled him. He had bought a big farm not far fromChicago, for which he was paying out of his savings. If he kept well, ashe had done all his life, three years more on the Limited would let himout. Then he could retire a year ahead of time, and settle down incomfort on the farm and watch the trains go by. 

It would be his salvation, this farm by the roadside; for the verythought of surrendering the "La Salle" to another was wormwood and gallto Henry. It never occurred to him to quit and go over to the N. W. Orthe P. D. & Q. , where they had no age limit for engineers. No man everthought of leaving the service of the Chicago, Milwaukee & Wildwood. Theroad was one of the finest, and as for the run, --well, they used to say, "Drive the Wildwood Limited and die. " Henry had driven it for a decadeand had not died. When he looked himself over he declared he was thebest man, physically, on the line. But there was the law in the Book ofRules, --the Bible of the C. M. & W. , --and no man might go beyond thelimit set for the retirement of engine-drivers; and Henry Hautman, thefavorite of the "old man, " would take his medicine. They were a loyallot on the Milwaukee in those days. Superintendent Van Law declared themclannish. "Kick a man, " said he, "in St. Paul, and his friends will feelthe shock in the lower Mississippi. "

Time winged on, and as often as Christmas came it reminded the oldengineer that he was one year nearer his last trip; for his mother, nowsleeping in the far West, had taught him to believe that he had come toher on Christmas Eve. 

How the world had aged in threescore years! Sometimes at night he hadwild dreams of his last day on the freight wagon, of the endless reachesof waving wild grass, of bands of buffalo racing away toward the settingsun, a wild deer drinking at a running stream, and one lone Indian onthe crest of a distant dune, dark, ominous, awful. Sometimes, from hishigh seat at the front of the Limited, he caught the flash of a fieldfire and remembered the burning wagons in the wilderness. 

But the wilderness was no more, and Henry knew that the world's greatestcivilizer, the locomotive, had been the pioneer in all this great workof peopling the plains. The pathfinders, the real heroes of theAnglo-Saxon race, had fought their way from the Missouri River to thesundown sea. He recalled how they used to watch for the one opposingpassenger train. Now they flashed by his window as the mile-postsflashed in the early days, for the line had been double-tracked so thatthe electric-lighted hotels on wheels passed up and down regardless ofopposing trains. All these changes had been wrought in a singlegeneration; and Henry felt that he had contributed, according to hislight, to the great work. 

But the more he pondered the perfection of the service, the comfort oftravel, the magnificence of the Wildwood Limited, the more he dreadedthe day when he must take his little personal effects from the cab ofthe La Salle and say good-bye to her, to the road, and hardest of all, to the "old man, " as they called the master-mechanic. 

One day when Henry was registering in the round-house, he saw a letterin the rack for him, and carried it home to read after supper. 

When he read it, he jumped out of his chair. "Why, Henry!" said hiswife, putting down her knitting, "what ever's the matter, --open switchor red light?"

"Worse, Mary; it's the end of the track. "

The old engineer tossed the letter over to his wife, sat down, stretchedhis legs out, locked his fingers, and began rolling his thumbs one overthe other, staring at the stove. 

When Mrs. Hautman had finished the letter she stamped her foot anddeclared it an outrage. She suggested that somebody wanted the La Salle. "Well, " she said, resigning herself to her fate, "I bet I have thatcoach-seat out of the cab, --it'll make a nice tête-à-tête for the frontroom. Superannuated!" she went on with growing disgust. "I bet you canput any man on the first division down three times in five. "

"It's me that's down, Mary, --down and out. "

"Henry Hautman, I'm ashamed of you! you know you've got four years comeChristmas--why don't you fight? Where's your Brotherhood you've beenpaying money to for twenty years? I bet a 'Q' striker comes and takesyour engine. "

"No, Mary, we're beaten. I see how it all happened now. You see I beganat twenty when I was really but sixteen; that's where I lose. I lied tothe 'old man' when we were both boys; now that lie comes back to me, asa chicken comes home to roost. "

"But can't you explain that now?"

"Well, not easy. It's down in the records--it's Scripture now, as the'old man' would say. No, the best I can do is to take my medicine like aman; I've got a month yet to think it over. "

After that they sat in silence, this childless couple, trying to fashionto themselves how it would seem to be superannuated. 

The short December days were all too short for Henry. He counted thehours, marked the movements of the minute-hand on the face of his cabclock, and measured the miles he would have, not to "do" but to enjoy, before Christmas. As the weeks went by the old engineer became a changedman. He had always been cheerful, happy, and good-natured. Now hebecame thoughtful, silent, melancholy. There was not a man on the firstdivision but grieved because he was going, but no man would dare say soto Henry. Sympathy is about the hardest thing a stout heart ever has toendure. 

While Henry was out on his last trip his wife waited upon themaster-mechanic and asked him to bring his wife over and spend ChristmasEve with Henry and help her to cheer him up; and the "old man" promisedto call that evening. 

Although there were half-a-dozen palms itching for the throttle of theLa Salle, no man had yet been assigned to the run. And the same kindlyfeeling of sympathy that prompted this delay prevented the aspirantsfrom pressing their claims. Once, in the lodge room, a young membereager for a regular run opened the question, but saw his mistake whenthe older members began to hiss like geese, while the Worthy Mastersmote the table with his maul. Henry saw the La Salle cross theturn-table and back into the round-house, and while he "looked herover, " examining every link and pin, each lever and link-lifter, theothers hurried away; for it was Christmas Eve, and nobody cared to saygood-bye to the old engineer. 

When he had walked around her half-a-dozen times, touching her burnishedmainpins with the back of his hand, he climbed into the cab and began togather up his trinkets, his comb and tooth-brush, a small steelmonkey-wrench, and a slender brass torch that had been given to him by afriend. Then he sat upon the soft cushioned coach-seat that his wife hadcoveted, and looked along the hand-railing. He leaned from the cabwindow and glanced along the twin stubs of steel that passed through theopen door and stopped short at the pit, symbolizing the end of his runon the rail. The old boss wiper came with his crew to clean the LaSalle, but when he saw the driver there in the cab he passed him by. 

Long he sat in silence, having a last visit with La Salle, her brassbands gleaming in the twilight. For years she had carried him safelythrough snow and sleet and rain, often from dawn till dusk, andsometimes from dusk till dawn again. She had been his life's companionwhile on the road, who now, "like some familiar face at parting, gaineda graver grace. "

Presently the lamp-lighters came and began lighting the oil lamps thatstood in brackets along the wall; but before their gleam reached hisface the old engineer slid down and hurried away home with never abackward glance. 

 * * * * *

That night when Mrs. Hautman had passed the popcorn and red apples, andthey had all eaten and the men had lighted cigars, the engineer's wifebrought a worn Bible out and drew a chair near the master-mechanic. The"old man, " as he was called, looked at the book, then at the woman, whoheld it open on her lap. 

"Do you believe this book?" she asked earnestly. 

"Absolutely, " he answered. 

"All that is written here?"

"All, " said the man. 

Then she turned to the fly-leaf and read the record of Henry'sbirth, --the day, the month, and the year. 

Henry came and looked at the book and the faded handwriting, trying toremember; but it was too far away. 

The old Bible had been discovered that day deep down in a trunk of oldtrinkets that had been sent to Henry when his mother died, years ago. 

The old engineer took the book and held it on his knees, turned its limpleaves, and dropped upon them the tribute of a strong man's tear. 

The "old man" called for the letter he had written, erased the date, setit forward four years, and handed it back to Henry. 

"Here, Hank, " said he, "here's a Christmas gift for you. "

So when the Wildwood Limited was limbered up that Christmas morning, Henry leaned from the window, leaned back, tugged at the throttle again, smiled over at the fireman, and said, "Now, Billy, watch her swallowthat cold, stiff steel at about a mile a minute. "

BOOKS BY CY WARMAN

SHORT RAILS

12mo. $1. 25

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N. Y. TIMES REVIEW. 

It is good for the soul that we should look into other worlds than ourown, and Mr. Warman knows how to put us beside fireman and engineer andhow to make us feel the poetry as well as the power of the tirelessgiants that fulfil for us moderns the ancient dream of thefire-breathing brazen bulls yoked for the service of man. 

THE OUTLOOK. 

A dozen or more spirited tales, tersely told, and with that surety oftouch which comes only from intimate knowledge.... The romance, danger, bravery, plottings, and nobility of action incident to life on the railare all realistically depicted, and the reader feels the charm whichattaches to the new or strange. 

BOSTON ADVERTISER. 

The reader will find much pleasure, and no disappointment, in readingthese pages. 

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THE NATION. 

Cy Warman can always impart a living interest to a story through hisclose intimacy with locomotives, yard-masters, signals, switches, withall that pertains to railroading, in a word--from a managers' meeting toa frog. The tender enthusiasm he feels for the denizens of his ironjungle is contagious. 

THE OUTLOOK

Mr. Cy Warman, by long personal experience, acquired a close and exactknowledge of the life of railroad men. "The White Mail" brings outrealistically the actual life of the engineer, the brakeman, and thefreight handler. 

THE CONGREGATIONALIST

Cy Warman writes excellent railroad stories, of course, and his new one, "The White Mail, " is short, lively, and eminently readable. 

ST. LOUIS GLOBE-DEMOCRAT

In "The White Mail, " Cy Warman, in the pleasant, witty style for whichthis poet of the Rockies has become noted, has presented a tender, touching picture. 

TALES OF AN ENGINEER

_With Rhymes of the Rail_

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There is true power in Cy Warman's "Tales of an Engineer, " and thereader yields willingly to the attraction of its blended novelty, spirit, and occasional pathos. It does not lack humor, and every page isworth reading. 

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A new departure in literature should be interesting even if lacking inthe brilliant off-hand sketchiness of these pages. One steps into a newlife. There is not a dull page in this book, and much of it is of morethan ordinary interest. 

NEW YORK COMMERCIAL ADVERTISER

There is a rugged directness about the description of rushing runs onthe rail, through which one can hear the thump-thump of the machinery asthe engine dashes over the rails, and which seems to be illumined by theglow of the headlights and the colored signals. 

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_And Other Tales of the Rail_

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BOSTON TRANSCRIPT

The author's work is familiarly and pleasantly known to magazine readersfor the realistic details of Western railroad life, which give them adashing, vital movement, though they are often highly romantic. Theromantic in them, however, seems very human--indeed, there is a ring oftrue feeling in these little tales. 

BROOKLYN DAILY EAGLE

Mr. Warman's work has about it the merit of a genuine realism, and it isas full of romance and adventure as the most exacting reader coulddesire. It is a volume of sketches that is well worth reading, not onlybecause they are well written and full of action, but for the picturesthey give of a life that the world really knows very little about. 

PHILADELPHIA PRESS

The poet appears in the descriptive passages, and there is a melodiousrhythm to his prose style that is pleasurable in a high degree. Mr. Warman has a field of his own, and he is master of it. 

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REVIEW OF REVIEWS

Nobody knows his frontier life better than Mr. Warman, and his yarns ofIndians, striking miners, cowboys, half-breeds, and railroad men, arefull of vivid reality. There is plenty of romance and excitement in thisscore of stories. 

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Eighteen tales which certainly are excellent in their kind, quick, breezy, full of the local color, yet with delightful touches ofuniversal humanity. 

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They are honest little chapters of life simply written, an effectiveword of slang stuck in here and there where it does not seem at all outof place; honest, open-hearted, steady-eyed narratives all, with thebreeze of the Western prairies in every line, as well as the brotherhoodof man, and his triumphs and his failures impressing themselves upon youat every turn. 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

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