Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1888-12-12
THE SPECTRAL DOG
STRANGE STORY TOLD BY AN OLD
RAILROAD FIREMAN.

A White Dog Running Side by Side with
an Engine Going Sixty Miles an Hour
The Train Saved from What Might Have |
Been an Awful Wreck.
A Tribune reporter was sitting on
one of the seats on the Battery prone
made recently when a well dressed
woman passed leading by a strap a snow
white Spitz dog A man dressed in the
rough garb of laborer sat on the seat
next to the reporter, smoking a short
stemmed cob pipe.
Talking about strange things" said
the iaborer, nudging the news gatherer,
never see white dog but what it calls
upa strange experience l had while
firing on the Pennsylvania railroad ten
years ago. l was in the cab with Tommy
Burns, one of the best engineers in the
companys service, and our run was be-
tween Jersey City and Philadelphia.
We left Jersey City at o'clock one Sat
urday evening, pulling long train of
Passenger coaches and three Pullmans.
! The cars were all full and we had the
light of way, making no stops except at
MARKET street, Newark, and Trenton
rolled along all right over the Hacken-
s meadows and after we left Newark
wssSrnck a sixty miles an hour pace, and
than9ed tho telegraph poles flash by till
cor3y, oaked i. the teeth of fine tooth
BURNS SEES TIE sPooK DOG.
we had struck the plain at Princeton
junction when Burns, who was looking
out OF the cab window, says to me:
= 'Look-a-here Jack. There is white
dog runnin' alongside what's been fol-
iowin' US for five minutes and blamed if
ne amt keepin' up to the mime. Look
~ him
~ was shoveling coal in the furnace
he time and the heat was blistering
Neye balls in their sockets. 1t took
Wplne time after gazing ont of the
{ Eddow before could make out the dog.
siAily saw him skimming along like
y swallow. Now in the glare from the
window he could be plainly seen. then
: he would get out in the line of the dark
(. ness and we would lose sight of him.
y But he would be sure to show up again
in few minutes. bitches, cuts and
sharp bends, it was all the same, that
white dog stuck beside the cab as steady
as its shadow. Burns and l couldn't
make it out. First we thought our eye
sight was deceiving us, for the awful
heat from the furnace. the sharp vino
or something else, or all of these thing:
- put together, is terribly trying on ones
eyes who has to use them in an engin,
cab. The sight gets blurred and cloudy
and sometimes you see double, ant
sometimes you don't see half. Well
Burns and l thought at first we wer
fooled by our eyes and there couldn't b
any dog. But mile after mile that whit
dog was alongside.
"'Jack, says Burns all at once, 'thi
is moren l kin stand. Ii our eyes ain
mussed up there's something wron
somewhere. am agoin' to stop her.
THE HEAVY STONE ON THE TRACK.
Sure enough he stopped and we bot
got off the cab. The conductor cam
running up and wanted to know wha
in the blue blazes was the matter W
told him about the white dog runnin
alongside tho engine, and we locke
about to show him the blamed ANNA
But to our surprise there was no dog I
be seen, and hunt high and hunt low W
could not find him. The conductc
laughed at us, and Burns and | &c
aboard again thinking that after all OF
eyes might have fooled Us. Burns pulle
back the throttle and we started O
slowly. There was a curving cut ju
ahead of US. Fifty yards from it, befol
the wheels had fairly begun to revoly
good, the headlight flashing on the trac
before US showed US a rock that mu
have weighed two tons on our tracl
We stopped the engine with the GOV
catcher not twelve inches from Il
stone, which, loosened by rains, had role
down from the back. Had we n
stopped on account of that white dc
we would have struck it on full hea
way, and you can see what that wou
have meant. l got shaky soon after tn
and resigned, and tho very mention of
white dog, much less the sight of on
brings that strange ride back to me-
New York Tribune.