The Vancouver independent. (Vancouver, W.T. [Wash.]) 1875-1910, 1881-04-07
A Railroad Conductors Story.

match on his leg, 1--we seen good deal
of railroad life that's interesting and ex-
citing in the twenty years that I've been
twisting brakes and slamming doors for
living.
GIVE seen all kinds of sorrow and all
kinds of joy-seen the happy bridal
couple starting ont on their wedding
tour. with the bright and hopeful future
before them, and the black-robed
mourner on her way to new made
grave, wherein she must bury the idol of
her lonely old heart.
"Wealth and pinching poverty ride on
the same train, and the merry laugh of
the Joyous, healthy child is mingled with
the despairing sigh of the aged. The
great antipodes of life are familiar to the
conductor, for every day the extremes of
the world are meeting beneath his eye.
GIVE mutilated the ticket of many a
blackleg and handled the passes of all
our most eminent dead-heads. 1 don't
know what walk of life is more crowded
with thrilling incidents than mine"
Ever had any smash-ups?"
them. None, however, that couldn't
nave Uccu u SOOi uCui "OiSO
There is one incident OF my railroad
life," continued the conductor, running
his tongue carefully over broken place
in The wrapper of his cigar, "that never
spoke of before to any one. 1t has
caused me more misery and wretched-
than any one thing that ever happened
to me in my official career.
Sometimes even now, after the lapse
10: k1,1 r0I,k wit a
cold drops of agony standing on my face
and the horrible nightmare upon me
with it's terrible surroundings, as plain
as on the night it occurred.
II was running extra on the Union
Pacific for conductor who was an old
friend of mine and who had gone south
on vacation.
cat about 7:30 as near as 1 can re-
member we were sailing along one even
ing, with straight stretch of track ahead
for ten or fifteen miles, running on time
and everybody feeling tlptop. All at
once the train suddenly slowed down, ran
in on an old siding and stopped.
"Of course / got out and ran ahead to
the engine to see what the matter was.
Old Antifat, the engineer. had got down
and was on the main track looking ahead
to where, twinkling along about SIX or
seven miles down the road, apparently,
was the headlight of an approaching
train 1t was evidently wild, Tor moth
ing was due that we knew OF mt that hour.
"However, we had been almost mirac-
ulously saved from frightful wreck by
the engineers watchfulness, and every
body went forward and shook old Antifat
by the hand, and cried and thanked him
| till it was the most affecting scene for a
| while that ever witnessed. 1t was as
though we had stopped upon the very
verge of a bottOmless chasm, and every
body was laughing and crying at once.
| till it was kind of cross between re-
vival and a picnic.
"After we had waited about half IN
hour, should say, for the blasted train
to come up and pass us, and apparently
she was no nearer, q cold, clammy sus-
picion began to bore itself into the ada
mantine shell of my intellect. The more
thought of it, the more unhappy felt.
almost wished that was dead. Cold
streaks ran up my back followed by lot
ones. 1 wanted to go home. l wanted
to be where the hungry, prying eyes OF
the great, throbbing work-day world
could not see me.
II called Antifat one side and said
something to him. He swore softly to
himself and kicked the ground, and
looked at the headlight still glimmering
in the distance. Then he got on his en-
CINE and yelled all aboard In few
minutes We were moving again, and the
general impression was that the train
ahead was side-tracked and waiting for
us, although there wasn't side-track
within twenty miles, except the one We
had just left.
1T was never exactly clear to the pas
sengers where we passed that wild train,
but didn't explain it to them. was
too much engrossed with my surging
thoughts.
81 never felt my inferiority so much
as did that night. l never so fully re-
allied what q mere speck man is upon
| the bosom of the universe.
| when l surveyed the starry vault OF
heaven and considered its illimitable
space, where beyond and stretching on
and forever, countless suns are placed
as centers, around which solar systems
are revolving in their regular orbits, each
little world peopled perhaps with the
teeming millions of struggling humanity
and other and mightier systems of worlds
revolving about these systems till the
minds is dazed and giddy with
the mighty thought; and then