The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1894-08-25

for carrying out plan he had devised
| for destroying Mats usefulness.
IA week or mebbe ten days or meb.
be fortnight later the express came
round 4 sharp curve near Antioch
about seven o'clock at night, and
precious dark 1t was, too, at that time Of
year. Matt was two hours late. owing
TO freight train having got OF the
track ahead of him, and he had re-
ceived telegram ordering him to
pass the accommodation five miles east
of Antioch, where she would wait for
him on the siding. Matt was running
at about forty-five miles an hour, try
ing to make up a little time, and he
kept wondering whether Hank would
wait for him on that siding or would
pull out and come along down the
road, just SO as to delay the express an
hour or so longer. If he does says
Matt to himself, loud enough for the
fireman to hear him, 'there'll be the
| biggest smash that this road has seen
this year Just at that minute the ex.
press swung round the curve, and
there was an engine on the track not
light was blazing away and right un-
der 1t Matt could read the number Of
Hanks engine, which was "a, unless I
am mistaken. l remember it because
1t was the engine that used to haul the
train that l was baggagemaster OF
year before this hyer incident hap
pened.
There he isl says Matt and he's
done it once too often With that he
pulls her wide open and stands to his
post. The express engine gave 4 big
jump and fairly sprang on to No. 81
that is, of course, unless I'm mistaken
in thinking that il was "a, and don't
believe l am. Still, man can't al
ways trust his memory, and l know
that mine amt what it once was.
well, the two engines came to-
gether. and Matt he shut his eyes for
a minute, for in such circumstances q
man can't very we'll help winking. To
his tremendous establishment there
wasn't as much as a jar, let alone q
crash. No. S4-yes, remember now
that that was her number-just sort of
opened out as you might say, and
seemed to fall in pieces on each side Of
Mats engine. There wasn't any train
of any sort behind 81, and the express
went on her way rejoicing.
Matt turns to the fireman with .
face as white as q consumptive par
sons, and says:
"'Jim, did you see that engineer
"'Never saw anything palmer in my
life,' says Jim, but it wasn't no
engine. That was ghost If ever
there was one.'
1--we ran through it, says Matt, as
easy as If it was fog bank. Well. If
ever get this train to Tiberius Gen.
ter somebody else will have to take
her back
They do say that when the express
came into Tiberius Center that night
Matt had to be helped off the engine,
and helped to his home and doctor
sent for. The doctor said the man was
suffering from a severe nervous shock
and must keep perfectly quiet. Matt
he sent in his resignation the very next
day, and never drove an engine on our
road afterward. He hung round drink.
ing middling hard and keeping quiet,
according to the doctors orders, for
about mouth, and then he got berth
on the Montana Southern road. But
he wasn't of the slightest use. His
nerves were clean gone. He'd think
he saw things on the track when there
was nothing but mebbe q moonbeam,
and he'd call for brakes and stop his
train and have the biggest kind of Job
in trying to tell the conductor what he
had stopped the train for. The COM
pany dismissed him after about six
months and Matt gave up railroading.
and is now driving truck in Chicago.
II don't know whether he knows the
trick Hank played on him or not But
this was the way of it. Hank spent
lot of money in Chicago for paste
board engine, made to look exactly
like No. 81, and provided with a gen.
uine headlight all complete. Then
he had this hyer Quaker engine set
up on the track just round curve, at
time when he knew that the only
train which could possibly come along
would be the express OF course, he
had several fellows engaged in the
thing with him, but Hank was q
mighty popular chap with the boys,
and he could always find help enough
for any game that he might want to
carry out OF course the express en-
CINE went through the pasteboard con-
Germ without ever feeling it, and
don't blame Matt for believing that It
was a ghost, especially as he had the
fireman to back him in that opinion.
II don't justify Hank, for / always
considered that he played it altogether
too low down on Matt, and Hank al
lows that he did, now that he is older,
and has come to look at things "a
tionally. don't think it's the sort of
thing he'd do now, though of course
the heart is deceitful and desperately
wicked, as the good book says.
whats that you say? Never heard