The Advocate and news., 1897-12-22
CHAPTER /.
THE PARTY ON SPECIAL NO. 2lS.

DeJUer lay IL ASIDE unread. AT Yale
should have got the sack in rhetoric and
English composition, let alone other
studies, had it not been for the fact
that / played half back on the team and
30 the professors marked me away up
above where l ought to have ranked
Chat was 10 years ago, but my life since
= received my parchment has hardly
been Of kind to improve me in either
style or grammar. It is true that one
woman tells me L write we'll and my
directors never find fault with my com
positions, but know that she likes my
letters because, whatever else they may
say to her, they always say in some
form, II love you" while my board
approves my annual reports because thus
far l have been able to end each with
II recommend the declaration Of diVi-
dend Of -- per cent from the earnings
Of the current year" I should therefore
prefer to reserve my writings for such
friendly critics if it did not seem neces-
sary to make public q plain statement
concerning an affair over which there
appears to be much confusion. I have
heard i'll the last five years not less than
20 renderings Of what is commonly
called "the great K. and A. train rob-
berry," some so twisted and distorted
that but for the intermediate versions I
should never have recognized them as
attempts to narrate the series Of events
in which I played q somewhat promi-
nent part.
have read or been told that, unas-
sisted, the pseudo hero captured a dozen
desperadoes; that he was one Of the road
agents himself; that he was saved from
lynching only by the timely arrival Of
cavalry; that the action Of the United
States government in rescuing him from
the civil authorities was q most high
handed interference with state rights;
that he received his reward from a CRATE
full railroad by being promoted; that o
lovely woman as recompense for his viii
lainy--but, bother; it's my business to
tell what really occurred and not what
the world chooses to invent. And if any
man thinks he would have done other
wise in my position can only say that
he is better or q worse man than Dick
Gordon.
Primarily, it was football which
shaped my end. Owing to my skill in
the game, l took q postgraduate at the
Sheffield Scientific school, that the team
might have my services for an extra two
years. That led to my knowing little
about mechanical engineering, and when
/ left the "quad" for good / went into
the Alton railroad shops Itwasn't long
before l was foreman of a section; next
/ became q division superintendent, and
after had stuck to that for a time /
was appointed superintendent OF the
Kansas and Arizona railroad, line ex-
tending from Trinidad in Kansas to The
Needles in Arizona, tapping the Mis-.
souri, Western system at the first place
and the Great Southern at the other.
With both lines we had important traffic
agreements, as we'll as the closest rela-
tions, which sometimes were o little
difficult, as the two roads were anything
but friendly. And we had directors Of
each ON the X. and A. board, in which
they fought like cats. Indeed it could
only be u question Of time when one
would oust the other and then absorb
my road. My headquarters were at AL
buquerque, in New Mexico, and it was
there, in October, 1890, that received
the communication which was the be-
ginning Of all that followed.
This initial factor was a letter from
the president of the Missouri Western,
telling me that their first vice president,
Mr.. Cullen (who was also director OF
my rcadl WRs coming Qut 70. Sttand the