The Coconino weekly sun., 1896-04-30

the little engine was rolling so that the bell rang continually. The fireman had put in his last fire and was now strain ing his eyes to catch the smoke of the special.
 The engineer, with his left hand on the whistle rope, clung to the side of the cab to keep from being thrown out of the right of way.
 The wheels under the sewing ma chine were so small that the best she could do was 4j miles, and now when she came down to the very last second there was still a quarter of mile be- tween her and the meeting point, but at that moment the flying wheels of the special engine crashed over the switch and shut her out. The little sewing machine, hid among the sand hills, was straining every nerve to reach the passing point at which she was already overdue. The man on the spe- cial was just beginning to feel sure of his position when he rounded a curve and saw the light engine emerging from a shallow cut. Of course he shut eff and tried to lessen the force of the collision, but to stop was out of the question.
 The fireman on the light engine saw the special and warned his companion. for they were curving to the left and the driver could not see, but the four men knew that nothing short of mir acle could prevent dreadful collision and that in few seconds time they would all be piled up in a heap. Both drivers had called to their firemen to jump, and the firemen had turned to their windows. The special engineer was in the act of reversing, that he might take the good opinion of the official with him. The other driver only showed the throttle lever in, braced himself and awaited the shock.
 A man who has never lived up to his last moment on earth and survived to tell about it afterwards can never know how much business one can transact Tn his mind during that moment in which he waits and listens for the swish of the scythe. But one does not always review his past life at such moment; often he wastes time thinking about mere trihe.
 The driver of the special engine had boy, and this boy had climbed up on a picket fence to kiss his father good- by that morning at their home in Salt Lake, but he slipped, fell and hung there with fence picket through the seat of his first pair of trousers; and it was all so funny that now as the engineer re- called the circumstance he threw back his head and laughed as heartily as he had ever laughed in his life. The fire man, casting farewell glance at his companion, saw him laughing and con cluded in his last moment that the driver had suddenly become insane, but as he glanced ahead where death was awaiting he was not sure that he was sane himself.
 The driver, having finished his laugh, and still feeling no shock, looked ahead. The track was clear. He unlatched tie reverse lever and threw the engine in the forward motion, and the speed of the train, which had been but little ClltChCu, Ctii iti tilCI away No" II the sand hills. The driver looked over at the fireman and asked: Did you see anything?"
 "No," said the fireman. Did you?" And the driver said no, tried his water and opened the throttle, and the engine whirled away, while the fireman re- turned to his place at the furnace door.
 The two mtsn scarcely glanced at each other again until they stopped for water at Green river, but each in his own mind was recalling all the wild tales of ghost trains" he had ever heard. Each was firm in his belief that he had seen ghost" but he would never tell it-not for his job.
 The official in the special train felt the resistance of the engine when the engineer shut off and reversed, and the general manager, turning to the super intendent, asked, with show of sur prise:
 "When did you put in that siding?"
 "What, back there? That's Coyote spur, and it has been there for six months," was the reply.
 'I know very well," said the manager, "where Coyote spur is, for we waited there 15 minutes for No. going down the other day, but we just passed a sid ing on the noISh."
 The superintendent was inclined to be funny, but the colonel, stroking his long gray Peffers, remarked that he had seen locomotive standing at the point mentioned, and "as trains are not in the habit of meeting and passing between stations, take it that there must be siding there" There was just a twinkle of mirth in the colonel's eyes, which, de- spite the finger marks left about them by the touch of time, are still bright with the sparkle of youth, but the su- perintendent was utterly unable to un- derstand the general manager.
 There was silence for little while, but the general manager was oy no means satisfied. He pressed the button and when the black porter came in he asked: "Did you see an engine on d siding back aways, GeorgeT
 No, sah, haven't saw no engine.