The Ohio Democrat. (Logan, O. [Ohio]) 1886-1906, 1889-01-26
A SUPERNATURAL DOG.
How a Train was savod from Wreck BY
nm Optical Illusion.

How Train was saved from Wreck BY
an Optical Illusion.
The reporter was sitting on one OF
the seats on the Battery promenade
recently when a well-dressed woman
passed leading by strap snow white
Spitz dog. A man dressed in the
rough garb of laborer sat on the seat
next to the reporter, smoking short
stemmed cob pipe.
"Talking about strange things"
said, the laborer, nudging the news
gatherer, II never see a white dog but
what it calls up a strange experience l
had while firing on the Pennsylvania
railroad ten years ago. was in the
cab with Tommy Burns, one of the
best engineers in the company's serv-
ice, and our run was between Jersey
City and Philadelphia. We left Jersey
City at nine o'clock one Saturday even
ing, pulling n long train of passenger
coaches and three Pullmans. The cars
were all full and we had the right OF
way, making no stops except at Market
street, Newark and Trenton. We
rolled along all right over the Hacken-
sack meadows, and after we left
Newark we struck a sixty-miles-an-hour
pace, and watched the telegraph poles
flash by till they looked like the teeth
of u fne-tooth comb.
"We had struck the plain at Prince
ton Junction when Burns, who was
looking out of the cab window, says to
me:
Look-a-here, Jack! There is a
white dog runnin' alongside what's
been followin' us for five minutes and
blamed if he amt keepin' up to the
injine. Look at him..
II was shoveling coal in the furnace
at the time and the heat was blistering
my eyeballs in their sockets. 1t took
me some time after gazing out of the
window before could make out the
dog. Finally saw him skimming
along like swallow. Now in the
glare from the window he could be
plainly seen, then he would get out in
the line of the darkness and we would
lose sight of him. But he would be
sure to show up again in a few minutes.
bitches. cuts and sharp bends, it was
all the same. that white dog stuck be-
'ide the cab as steady as its shadow.
Durns and I couldn't make it out.
First we thought our eyesight was de-
ceiving us, for the awful heat from the
furnace, the sharp wind or something
else, or all these things put together.
is terribly trying on ones eyes who
has to use them in an engine cab. The
sight gets blurred and cloudy, and
sometimes you see double. and some
times you don't see half. Well, Burns
and thought mt first we were fooled
by our eyes and there couldn't be any
dog. But mile after mile that white
dog was alongside.
"Jack,'" says Burns all at once,
this is more'n kin stand. If our eyes
amt mussed up there's something
wrong somewhere. lam agoin' to stop
her.
"Sure enough he stopped, and we
both got off the cab. The conductor
came running up and wanted to know
what in the blue blazes was the matter.
We told him about the white dog rum
ming alongside the engine, and we
looked about to show him the blamed
animal. But to our surprise there was
no dog to be seen, and hunt high and
hunt low we could not find him. The
conductor laughed at us, and Burns
and / got aboard again, thinking that
after all our eyes might have fooled u.s.
Burns pulled back the throttle and we
started on slowly. There was Il curv-
ing cut just ahead of us. Fifty yards
from it, before the wheels had fairly
begun to revolve good, the headlight
flashing on the track before us showed
us rock that must have weighed two
tons on our track. We stopped the en-
gine with the cow-catcher not twelve
inches from the stone, which, loosened
by rains, had rolled down from the
bank. Had we not stopped on account
of that white dog we would have struck
it on full headway, and you can see
what that would have meant. / got
shaky soon after that and resigned.
and the very mention OF white dog,
less the sight of one, brings that strange
ride back to me."-N. Y. Tribune.