The free press. (Poplarville, Miss.) 1890-19??, 1897-05-13
Clayton and Gleason (our new part

ner) we're busy about the thresher,
leaving me to my special charge of the
engine. At last, about o'clock, we
were all ready to start; the tender was
full Of coal and the thresher was
coupled on behind, and the Comic"
was making steam rapidly. Already
the Indicator began to creep up-40, 80,
began to trembe at 80 pounds, then,
seizing the lever, pulled the throttle
slowly open. The monster shivered
as the steam rushed into the cylinders;
then, as the great drive wheels began
to slowly revolve, blew the whistle,
and with Fisk and Gleason feeding the
fire and looking after the thresher, we
were off out along the country roads
and across the prairie.
Probably no mechanic feels the pecu-
liar love for his machine that the en-
gineer does AS he works over it,
watching and tending it as carefully as
a mother does her child, noting the
willingness and quickness, and, one
mig. say, the intelligence with which
it responds to every desire of it's mas
ter, feeling grows in his heart akin
to the love one person bears for
another.
l began to experience this feeling as
we were rumbling along over the roll
ing prairie as fast as a man could run,
our great iron steed answering it's
levers as steadily and as easily as
well-broken horse would his reins, and
hauling the heavy thresher behind.
We took a southwesterly course, and
after crossing the Usage river, struck
some extensive wheat fields just be-
yond. Here the wheat is bound and
piled in great stacks and the thresher
is run alongside them, and as fast as
one stack Is threshed the machine
moves to the next. We had good luck,
and in about a months time we came
to the Kansas line, which we struck
nearly parallel with Fort Scott, and
about $50 miles southwest from Jeffer-
sion City. We could have worked much
longer in Missouri, but we were anxious
to take only such jobs as lay in our dl-
rect course across to Kansas. After
crossing the Kansas line we settled
down to business, and as the wheat
crop was unusually heavy this year,
business was plentiful, and the high
power of our machine enabled us to
run the wheat through with surprising
rapidity, and we began to notice with
pleasure that our hitherto deplorably
fiat pocket books were beginning to
swell to quite respectable size. Fort
Scott Is situated about twelve miles
from the border line between Kansas
and Missouri, and while we were
threshing in the vicinity of that place
Clayton and began to notice that our
third partner Gleason, apeared rather
strange, and that he was over at Fort
Scott almost every night, returning in
the small hours of the morning.
Where does he go?" asked Fisk, one
evening after Gleason had as usual
started off, leaving us to look after
everything alone. "He sneaks off
every night just this way, and l don't
like It,"
ooh, WE'LL" 1 answered, "as long as
he uses us square it's none Of our busi-
ness where he goes"
That's just it," Fisk exclaimed.
"How do we know he is not up to some
game or other? Then, sinking his
voice little lower, he continued: We
don't know anything about this chap,
although he seems a good fellow
enough. He never says much about
himself to us, ard l think we had bet
ter keep our eyes open little any
way"
"How can he do us any harm?" l
asked. "He has AN interest in the
thing"
"That is more than can tell" he re-
piled thoughtfully, "yet ,nink he will
bear watching all right"
"All right" I repeated, starting up.
"I'll go and fix the fire for the night,
and we'll pull out of this the first thing
in the morning. We had finished a
large stack that day and all hands had
gone off except Fisk and myself, and
one of us generally stayed with the
machine night and day. Just as l had
finished banking Tie fire in the fire box
for the night, thought heard slight
rustic in the straw like step, at the
other end of the engine, but it was too
dark for me to see anything, and as
did not hear it again l concluded that
it was only field mouse among the
straw. Gleason did not show up that
night. In the morning by sunrise l
had a roaring fire in the furnace, and
the steam had begun to make little,
when l noticed it escaping In small
white clouds from the cylinder heads.
This surprised me a little, for knew
that they were all tight when we shut
down the night before, and ! stepped
around to investigate, and upon close
found that the cylinder
head had been unbolted and the pack
ing removed. The throttle had also
been tampered with. and it would not
close tightly. thus letting the steam
escape into the cylinder, and showing
nc tho 1reu b<sffr.o xxra ~ borWica would