The Eaton Democrat. (Eaton, Ohio) 1875-1903, 1885-08-27
THE HAUNTED ENGINE.
An Engineers Terrible Revenge
Upon q False Friend.

By such parties as were In the habit of
frequenting the Transverse & Devious
Railway Company's offices, julius Wright
ton is supposed to apply more particularly
to the toilers and delivers, who were not
likely to meet the man under other condi-
tiors. Socially considered he was very
much more Of . swell than apperred at all
justifable by his position or his personal
qualifcations--always excepting that in
defnable, mysterious quality known as
"magnefism," which is, as novslists and
telepathists inform us, quite independent
of either beauty or merit. He was an
Insignificant little fellow, not over five feet
four in his biggest-feeling moments. His
face was alert and keen, but, to my eve,
always fraught with b peculiar express
sion of . man liable at some time to go
wrong. One does not follow any business
for the years that I have done without
learning to recognize the signs of potential
guiltCthat is to say, in faces Of the active
type. Inever try to analyze apretty face;
I can not do it. / think no mar living can.
Wright was q man Of accomplishments.
He could dance and sing, and play prettily
upon several instruments, and turn off neat
little verses-uers de societe-isn't that the
term? And he was q manly little chap;
could swim and shoot, ride, drive spar and
run with the best. So, as men liked him
for his good~. fellowship, and women for
his ve-making and hberality, Wright was
q popular man.
But / knew q thing or two about him. I
was not surprised-not much-when, after
q few days of uncertainty and suppressed
rumors, 1t came out that julius Wright
had absconded with q sum of the railway
company's funds reaching well up toward
the hundreds of thousands-more than 1t
appeared should have been accessible to
him. The general inference and the nat
ural, was that he had betaken himself out
of the country to the refuge of a govern
ment not on terms Of extradition with the
United States. Great, then, was the as
constituent of the community when it
transpired later that the escaped defaulter
had been living for many weeks in easy
reach of his pursuers, and actually in the
employ OF the company he had robbed. It
was no wonder, said his late companions
with retroactive admiration, somewhat
misplaced, that the officers of the law had
train over the southwestern division, the
spruce and fastidious individual who had
been almost q social autocrat in the head
quarters city Of his company.
The newspapers got the story, of course,
and gave it the usual send-off, with extra
heavy headlines, and all the ALTERATION
sns Of s5sir pS, wssld s sS1pRlzyi Hn ! fens So g
wv 1ItAklA0 NO. 20
pulling INTO Walling with Importance in
every clank Of the metal" and athe pluck
and power displayed by the engineer, who
had to report a notable occurrence on his
rum" Briefly stated, it appeared that No.
% had come into Walling minus her fire.
The engineers story was that some
twenty miles back, as they crawled MP q
hard grade, the fireman had jumped from
the train, discovering his identity to the
engineer, together with q satirical message
to the directors of the road.
"sTen 'em,, says he to meH'from Julius
Wright-that's NEITHER office was better
than q school of polytechnics. Say, Stacy
IN, / fret And with that he Jumped
just as we started to run down the grade
/ brought her in alone. / knew l could dc
it, and we was too short of hands to cal
one Of b boys from the t~wists-the brakes
SO I just come on and fired for myself
Tired? I should smilel and 80 shaky and
starry / couldn't sleep-couldn't even sci
down and eat. You betl The boys'n tel
how all broke up l was; But I daresn't
round and cleaned the engine, and put he1
to bed myself. Well, I've heard men say
they could run an engine sirty mile and Ar,
for themselves, but Pm blamed If I could
Twenty's enough for me-" he said, with
what truck me as rather defiant emphasiI
the story from his wi lips, when I wa.
sent out to Walling to work on the case.
l am not, as a rule, al imaginative man
"a patient, persistent ploddsr"-that ID tn,
characterization 1 once heard as made O
me by our chief, who is given to allitsra
ton in his rhetorical hourishes. Thu
lacking imagination, 1t seemed to me littl,
YVES to be gained by following Wright t.
Walling, whence he had gone with no form
of taking leave. But to Walling the chic
chose to dispatch me, after two of our bes
men had como back from q fruitless sta,
: there.
Certain uncommon avenues of receipt
iveness are abnormally alive to impression
in you" he said; 'I'd like you to go t
Walling."
And to Walling I went, after some pre-
hminary training under the fireman Of
local train on n of the company's brancl
lines.
But the night before 1 started I got
note that surprised me. It intimated tina
my services were required by Miss Mira
bel Duane, and requested me to wait upol
her at the earliest Opportunity. Miss bu
ane mad but just returned from a tri]
abroad. I could not conceive what sh,
could want of me. Moreover, in view o
my impending departure, it appeared no
much worth while to obey her summons
And yet-and yet-her father was Presi
dent OF the T. & d. Railroad Company
jules Wright had been a guest of til,
house, and l might obtain incidental data
Miss Duane was a handsome girl, of tn,
lark, heroic type. I had seen her comm,
of the steamer, and I was ~genuinely
shocked at the change in her in a fort.
night. She was baggard and thin, as /
she had been i'll for months. She waste,
no time in making her wishes known. Sh
wished to employ me to trace up Juliu
Wright. Most women would have assumed
some ~trumped.up reason, more or less I'M