St. Paul daily globe., 1895-12-26
AN UNPREPOSsEssING MOUNTAIN
GIRL, BUT HER BRAIN WAS
BRIGHT.
THRILLING RAILWAY RIDE
DOWN A MOUNTAIN SIDE CHASED
BY RUNAWAY COAL
CARS. i
PASSENGERS IN DEADLY PERIL
They Owe Their Lives to the Brill
liant Idea of the
Girl.

Speaking Of experiences on the rail-
road" said New York travelling man,
II had a slight scrape one time on
mountain road in Tennessee that may
be worth the hearing" quotes the
Washington Star.
We were coming down long grade
of ten miles in mixed train. That is,
we had had a gondola loaded with ties
as the end car with our two passenger
coaches and baggage car, and / should
say we were making about twenty
miles an hour on a track that would
be treating us very kindly if it didn't
sling us in to eternity if we dared to
add five miles an hour to our speed,
when 1 happened to look out of the rear
door and saw a wild train of loaded
coal cars swinging down after u.s.
They had evidently started at a tipple
which we had passed only a few min
utes before, and when L saw them they
were going so fast that they distanced
the men on the ground, who made a
run to get on and stop their further
fight. I made wild rush for the con-
ductor, but before I reached him he
had ordered the engineer to let out his
engine for all she was worth, and in
this way keep ahead of our chasers
Fortunately we had no women aboard.
and the men could be kept in better
control, though it was all we could do
to keep them from jumping off.
1T was only a short time until we be-
gan to see that our salvation lay in the.
pursuing train flying the track, because
we had reached our limit, and our train
was swaying and tossing SO that every
body was scared out of his wits I
know I was, and just sat in my seat
and held on, waiting and listening to
the thunder of the train behind u.s.
which was not $50 yards away, and
gaining every second. 1t was far heav-
ier than ours, and 1 knew that if any
body went off the track it wasn't going
to be the coal train. I said a moment
ago we had no women aboard. 1 meant
we had none to speak of.
There was one, but sha was home
ly mountain girl who didn't seem to
know anything, and because she sat
quiet in the corner and didn't scream
we thought she din't amount to enough
to count. I was looking at her in
dazed kind Of way when all of sud-
den she lit out of her seat as if she
had been shot out of it, and, knocking
everybody out of the way, she dashed
out of the rear door before anybody
could touch her, and we thought she
had jumped off, but she hadn't. She
jumped for the open car, hanging on
like a cat, until she got to the far end,
and in a second she was tumbling those
ties off at the rate of a dozen a second.
"They would hit the track and
bounce every which way, but she kept
psIing them off, the coal train getting
closer every second, and at last
couple of them stuck up in cattle
guard, and the next thing we knew
there was a terrific crash, rails and
ties and tracks and coal cars flew, and
the coal train rolled over itself and
went down the hill in a heap. By
George, as that girl stood there in her
plain calico dress and her old sun
bonnet and watched that train pile up
at her feet thought that Joan of Arc,
Cleopatra Queen Elizabeth, Grace
Darling and the lot of them weren't
patching to her, and, as far as we
were concerned, they weren't.
'She had saved our train and our
lives and we took her on with us in
triumph Then we made up a purse
for her big enough to buy farm with,
and I'll bet she's got more good clothes
and jewelry and books and trinkets
and things than any girl in the mount
aims, for we never forgot her. She
doesn't quite appreciate some of the
fine things she has, but what do we
care for that? We appreciate her just
the same''