The daily morning journal and courier., 1894-11-26
HOW MATT LOST HIS NERyE.
The Mysterioas Undolng of n Loaomotive Engineer-HeH nd Seen Thirty Years of Service, Hut tho Trick ofa Rival Set Him
 tn His Base-A Romance of aiiroad

s'"sO-<h life.
 From tho St. Louis .Repubdo,l While the westward bound express
 was stopping at the Jerricho station, I
 noticed that the station master was in
 close conversation with the engine driv-
 CT. This was an unusual act on his
 part, as he strictly upheld the dignity
 of his office. and held no communica-
 ton with engine drivers. except to hand
 them such telegraphic orders as he
 might happen to have received for them.
 So after the train had departed and the
 station master had returned to his usu-
 al lounging place on the platform, l had
 asked him who was the man with whom
 he had been conversing.
 That man?" he replied That was
 Hank Stevens, the best engineer on this
 road or any other road. I've known him for going on twenty years and
 have helped to pull him out from under
 three wrecked engines. He's quiet and
 careful enough nowadays, but there
 was time when that there man was
 just the greatest hustler and the big gest daredevil that ever handled the
 throttle of an engine.
 There Is nothing in the world," con-
 tinued the station master, "that re- quires the nerve that engine driving re-
 quires. You may talk about your sol dier and your sailor. and I don't deny
 that they are nervy lot, but they don't
 compare with an engineer. When they
 see themselves getting into tight place
 they have some time to look about them and make up their minds what
 to do; but when an engineer running, say, at forty miles an hour round a sharp curve. meets an engine coming his way on the same track, he hasn't even time to cuss. All he can do. Is to | reverse his engine, which most times is | big mistake, as I've heard our best engineers say, and either 10 Jump and
 break his neck or to stay and be smash ed. Of course the engineer in such cir cumstances isn't always killed, especial ly if he sticks to his engine, but I tell you 1t takes nerve to handle lever l and wait like an intelligent man when
 another engine is almost atop of you Nine men out of ten would just crop | on the floor and say the first bit cf
 prayer that they could lay a hand to. Speaking of nerve reminds me that
 there was an engineer on this road
 once who lost his nerve on very similar circumstances, and Hank Stevens was at the bottom of those circumstances,
 as you might say. It isn't at all un- | common for an engineer to lose, his
 nerve. It may happen through having his spinal marrow hurt in an accident;
 at least, that's what the doctors say,
 or it may be that he has been fright | eled once clean through, and when
 that happens he's done for. The feast
 little thing will frighten man who has | had one good scare, and he knows it,
 and is always on the lookout for some l thing that Is going to scare him.
 | There are men who will run an en- zine for forty years, and then some ] thing will happen; some little thing, | perhaps, like collision, or going eff a bridge, or bursting of the boiler, ( nd | after that they are never fit to run even
 cattle train. Now, this hyer Hank Stevens was at the time am speaking
 of engineer of the engrne that hauled | the accommodation between Athensville | and Tiberius Centre, and Matt McGin-
 his was engineer of the express, being
 man who had been thirty years in the | companys service and was considered l to have no superior in his line. He was l very nice, quiet sort of fellow, an he didn't like Hanks noisy and reckless | ways, for there's no denying that Hank
 was reckless at times. don't object to l an engineer taking chances when there
 is anything to be gained by 1t, but Hank l just took pleasure ill running Tor siding when he knew ne had only mebbe
 minute to make it in, and that If he | didn't make it, or his watch happened
 to be minute slow, another train l would be into him.
 That's what I call recklessness and l don't care who says 1t aln't. Well, | every afternoon Hanks train used to | meet the express. Going up he would
 meet her about ten miles north of here, | and going down he would meet her just 1 mile out of Spartansville. It was his
 duty to go on a siding and wait for the express, but when she was five minutes
 late Hank had the right of way and l could go ahead and require the express train to wait for him. You may bet your life he never waited more than five minutes, and sometimes he would pull out when he could hear the express
 coming, and make her back down to the next station. .,
 "There was girl somewhere on the
 line, disremember just exactly where | though come to think of it she must l have lived at Spartansville. No, she couldn't, either, for the accommodation never stopped the night there, and so Hank couldn't have spent his evening with her, which was his general rule She must have lived at Tiberus Centre, where Hank laid up at night and where Matt McGinnis lived when he was at home. We'll. any way, we'll say she lived there, and it isn't of any conse- quence where she did live so far as this hyer story is concerned.
 F Both the men were dead in love with the girl, and she didn't seemed disposed to make up her mind which of the two she liked best. Hank used to come and see her pretty near every evening about 8 o'clock, and Matt used to spend most of the two hours he had in Tiberius Centre every day from 1:S0 to i3:S4 at her house. As far as could judge Matt