The Mt. Sterling advocate. (Mt. Sterling, Ky.) 1890-current, 1894-12-11

GIGS pretty Dad AMI hOpGo that Wills
ky might pull him through til wo
should get quit Of tho Southern
road. 1t didn't do him any good,
however, unless it was to make him
more reckless than he was before.
He insisted ON my shoveling all the
coal into the furnace that she would
burn, and before long we were GO
ing good 60 miles or more.
Nov, just before we got to the
place where the two roads run paral-
lei there was a siding that had been
built to reach gravel pit. The sid
ing began at q little station called
Pekin, and was, as / should judge,
about two miles long The Montana
Southern folks had taken the alarm
by this time, and dispatch had
gone to every station on the road
warning them that runaway loco
motive was coming and telling them
to stop her the best way they could.
The station master at Pekin got this
order just before we hove in sight,
and he thought of the old siding.
He got to work and turned therusty
old switch that had been spiked
down, and when he came along we
shot on to the side track, and away
we went for the gravel pit.
"The track was mighty rough, and
l begged Gridley to slow her down,
for thought every minute that we
should be off the track. But he
would not listen to me. That there
massacre of the tramps that he
thought he had made excited him
more and more, and now he had TAX
en- to singing and shouting at the
top of his lungs The Fanny was
swaying from side to side and jump
ing almost clear of the rails when
she struck particularly rough
place, and / don't mind saying that
/ just went to saying my prayers
with every inch of pressure l could
put on EN-.
sit had been cloudy night, but
as was praying for all was worth
the moon came out, and saw that
just ahead of us the track came to
an end, and there was deep hollow
of some sort. l made up my mind
that 1 had had enough of that kind
of railroading. Yelling to Gridley to
Jump, i put the brake hard on and
went off into ditch on the left hand
side of the road 1t was middling
full of briers, but the bottom was
the softest kind of mud, and / didn't
sustain no mortal injury worth
speaking of. Before l could pick my
self up and get on my legs the en-
| CINE was gone. got down to the
edge of the gravel pit as soon as I
could, but there wasn't the least
sign either of the Fanny or Of Grid
ley. The bottom of the gravel pit
was covered with water but what
was worse, as afterward found out,
there was a big quicksand there,
which had been the reason why the
gravel pit was abandoned. The Fan
ny Ellsler went down into that
quicksand, and for aught l know she
has kept sinking ever since, with
Gridley's skeleton standing in the
cab with his hand on the lever.
| "Well, / came home and told the
whole story to the Superintendent,
and he, knowing about the quick
sand, knew there was no use in
searching for the engine. So he told
me to keep quiet about the thing, so
as not to give the Montana Southern
people any satisfaction, which &C
cordingly / did, but after awhile the
thing got to be known somehow or
other, as things always will, no mat
ter what you may do"
Much obliged to you for the sto-
ry," said I, but you promised me a
ghost story, and don't exactly see
where the ghost comes in"
II haven't got to that yet, " replied
the station master. "A year after
ward was down in the neighbor-
hood of Pekin, and as l was driving
along in buggy pretty late at night
l saw an engine come flying down
the old siding and plump into the
gravel pit. Leastwise I saw it disap-
pear just as it reached the jumping
off place. If that wasn't the ghost of
the Fanny, I'd like to know what it
was. Moreover, the boys along the
Southern road told me that time and
time again they had seen that same
engine come hustling along at 60
miles an hour and disappear into the
quicksand. Now, if that wasn't
| ghost what was it?"
II won't undertake to say" said
L, "only if there hadn't been anoth-
err line parallel to the old siding, and
if that line hadn't been in regular
use by ordinary healthy trains and
engines, l might feel a little more
sure than / do now that you saw a
| ghost and not special engine on