Catoctin clarion. [volume] (Mechanicstown, Md.) 1871-1940, 1896-02-20
sHE THOUGHT OF SOMETHING.
A Mountain Girls Bright Idea Saved the
Lives Of PAssengofs.

CHE VHOO90t VI SOme sT'">N'
Lives Of Passsngsrs.
"Speaking of experiences on the
railroad" said a New York travel
ing man, II had slight scrape one
time on mountain road in Tonnes
see that may be worth the hearing.
I'VE were going down a long
grade Of ten miles in q mixed train
that is, we had a gondola loaded
with ties as the end car, with our
two passenger coaches and baggage
car, and I should say we were max
ing about 20 miles an hour on q
track that would be treating us very
kindly If it didn't sling US into
eternity If we dared to add five
miles an hour to our speed when I
happened to look out of the rear
door and saw wild train of loaded
coal cars swinging down after us.
They had evidently started at a tip
pie which we had passed only q few
minutes before, ard when I saw
them they we're going 80 fast that
they distanoed the men on the
ground, who made a run to get on
and stop their farther flight. I made
q wild rush for the conductor. but
before 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 ohasers. Fortu-
nately 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 of.
1T was only a short time until we
began 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 everybody was
scared out of his wits. know I
was, and I just sat in my seat and
held on, waiting and listening to the
thunder of the train behind us,
which was not 500 yards away and
gaining every second. 1t was far
heavier than ours, and I knew that
If anybody went off the track it
wasn't going to be the coal train. l
said moment ago we had no wom-
en- aboard. I meant we had none to
speak of.
There was one, but she was q
homely mountain girl who didn't
seem to know anything, and because
she sat quiet in the corner and didn't
scream we thought she didn't
amount to enough to count. was
looking at her in dazed kind of a
way when all of a sudden she lit out
of her seat as if she had been shot
out of 1t, and knocking everybody
out of the way she dashed out of the
rear door before anybody could touch
her, and we thought she bad jumped
of, but she hadn't. She jumped for
the open car, hanging on like a cat
until she got to the far end of it.
and in a second she was tumbling
those ties off at the rate of q dozen
a second.
"They would hit the track and
bounce every which way, but she
kept piling them off, the coal train
getting closer every second, and at
last a couple of them stuck up in a
cattle guard, and the next thing we
knew there was a terrific crash.
Rails and ties and track and coal
cars few, 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 sunbonnet 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 Us we were con-
cerned they weren't.
'She had saved our train and our
lives. and we took her on with us in
triumph. Then we made up purse
for her big enough to buy farm
with, and Ill bet she's got more
good clothes and jewelry and books
and trinkets and things than any
girl in the mountains, for we never
forget her. She doesn't quite appre-
oiate some of the fine things she has,
but what do we care for that? We
appreciate her just the same. -
Washington Star.