The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1897-03-30

to look at the threshing equipments
manufactured there. Fisk had no
knowledge whatever of engineering-in
fact l do not believe he knew the
steam chest from the eccentric-but I
mad had little experience and under
stood the points fairly well and felt
| quite confident that we would have no
trouble as far as operating the outfit
was concerned. 1 remember the pc
cullar thrill of pleasure / felt as we
looked over the big black silent masses
! OF iron at Jefferson City, and thought
! that before long one of these iron mon
sters would be pulsing and throbbing
under my hand. After some little un-
certainty and great deal of advice
we finally selected a 80 horsepower en-
CINE as one in every way altogether
the best adapted for our purpose, but
upon asking the price of the machine
IN view we were informed that we
might have it at a bargain-only 81 200
for the Whole outfit, consisting of the
engine. thresher and equipments
The price was considerably more than
we had calculated upon paying, and
for moment we were feeling rather
discouraged, for with only capital of
about $500 between us, the price was
beyond u.s. and as we stood there talk
ing it over, and considering whether
TO buy cheaper outfit or give the en-
terprise up, a young man we'll dressed
ana gentlemanly appearing stepped up
to us and said:
I accidentally overheard some of
your conversation, from which I I'M
derstand you lack S400 of the price of
the outfit you want. Now l have Just
about that amount by me, and l am
out of work, and if you will take me as
third partner we will buy the outfit
and start out. 1 am willing to risk
n n 7
make good thing out of it, Of
course" he went on. Il am stranger
to you. and you are the same to me.
but I'll risk it if you will
He did not seem like a bad sort of
a fellow at all, and we wanted that
particular thresher pretty badly. so,
after CLAYTON and 1 had talked the
matter over between us we decided to
accept the strangers offer at once
After breakfast the next morning we
went back down to the works again
and closed the bargain, and we be-
came the owners of the Comic as we
concluded to call her After carefully
inspecting and oiling the machine. I
began firing the engine, which was an
immense concern, the huge six-feet
drive wheels being two feet broad in
order to prevent them sinking into the
soft soil of the prairie wheat fields
Clayton and Gleason (our new part
ner) were 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, go
pounds. ! waited until the needle be-
gan to tremble al so pounds, then, seiz-
ing the lever. l pulled the throttle
slowly open. The monster shivered as
the steam rushed into the cylinders:
then, as the great drive wheels began
to revolve slowly, l 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 pecul-
lar love for his machine as the engineer
does as he works over it, watching and
tending it as carefully as a mother does
her child, noting the willingness and
quickneSs, and. we might almost say
the intelligence with which it responds
to every desire of its MASTER a feeling
grows in his heart akin to the love one
persons bears for another
/ began to experience this feeling as
we were rumhling along over the rough
country roads and out across the roll
ing prairie as fast as a man could run |
our great iron steed answering it's lev
ers as steadily and as easily as a we'll |
broken horse would his reins, and haul |
ing the heavy thresher behind. We took |
a southwesterly course, and after |
crossing the Usage river, struck some |
extensive wheat fields just beyond |
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 months time we came to the |
Kansas line. where we struck nearly |
parallel with Fort Scott, and about $50 |
miles southwest from jefferson City |
We could have worked much longer !
in Missouri but we were anxious to |
take only such jobs as lay in our di-
rect course across to Kansas.
After crossing the Kansas line
we settled down to business,
and as the wheat crop was IN
usually 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 fat pocket
books were beginning to swell out to
lutte respectable size. hort Scort is
situated about II miles from the bor-