Greene County herald. (Leakesville, Miss.) 1898-current, 1899-07-13


going for. ] guess you and Miss Kin
zey had better come along, though it
isn't likely 1 shall do any business
on the road. Tell 'em the truth-for
once"
So the truth was told. Miss Kinney
clicked in the sentiment while the
secretary added the memorable quota
tion, 'Let us have peace" and in
board-rooms two thousand miles away
the representatives of sixty-three mill
lion dollars worth of variously mani
pulated railroad interests breathed
more freely. Cheyne was flying to
meet the only son, so miraculously
restored to him. The bear was seek
ing his cub, not the bulls. Hard men
who had their knives drawn to fight
for their financial lives put away the
weapons and wished him God-speed,
while half dozen panic-smitten tin
pot roads perked up their heads and
spoke of the wonderful things they
would have done had not Cheyne
buried the hatchet.
1t was busy weekend among the
wires; for, now that their anxiety was
removed, men and cities hastened to
accommodate. Los Angeles called to
San Diego and Barstow that the
Southern California engineers might
know and be ready in their lonely
rohnd-houses; Barstow passed the
word to the Atlantic and Pacific; and
Albuquerque flung it the whole
length of the Atchison. Topeka and
Santa Fe management, even into Chi
cago. An engine, combination-car
with crew, and the great and gilded
Constance" private car were to be
"expedited" over those three thou
sand three hundred and fifty miles.
The train would take precedence of
one hundred and seventy-seven
others meeting and passing; despatch
ers and crews of every one of those
said trains must be rotifed. Sixteen
locomotives, sixteen engineers and
sixteen fremen would be needed
each and everyone the best available.
Two and one-half minutes would be
allowed for changing engines, three
for watering and two for coaling.
"Warn the men, and arrange tanks
and chutes accordingly; for Harvey
Cheyne is in hurry, hurry-a
hurry" sang the wires. "Forty
miles an hour will be expected, and
division superintendents will accom-
pany this special over their respec-
tive divisions. From San Diego to
Sixteenth street, Chicago, let the
magic carpet be laid down. Hurry
oh, hurry'
'It will be hot" said Cheyne, as
they rolled out of San Diego In the dawn
of Sunday. "We're going to hurry,
mamma, just as fast as ever we can
but I really don't think there's any
good of your putting on your bonnet
and gloves yet. You'd much better
lie down and take your medicine. I'd
play you game of dominoes, but it's
Sunday"
"I'll be good. Oh, I will be good
Only-taklng off my bonnet makes
me feel as If we'd never get there"
"Try to sleep little, mamma, and
we'll be in Chicago before you know. "
'But it's Boston, father. Tell them
to hurry"
The six-foot drivers were hammer
ing their way to San Bernardino and
the Mohave wastes, but this was no
grade for speed. That would come
later. The heat of the desert fol-
lowed the heat of the hills as they
turned east to the Needles and the
Colorado River. The car cracked in
the utter drouth and glare, and they
put crushed ice to Mrs. Cheyne's
neck, and toiled up the long, long
grades, past Ash Fork, towards Flag
staff, where the forests and quarries
are, under the dry, remote skies. The
needle of the speed indicator fiicked
| and wagged to and fro; the cinders
ratified on the roof, and whirl of dust
sucked after the whirling wheels. The
crew of the combination sat on their
hunks, painting in their shirt-sleeves,
| and Cheyne found himself among
them shouting old, old stories of the
railroad that every trainman knows,
above the roar of the car. He told
them about his son, and how the sea
had given up its dead, and they nod
ded and spat and rejoiced with him
asked after ''her, back there" and
whether she could stand it if the en-
gineer "let her out piece" and
Cheyne thought she could. Accord
ingly, the great fire-horse was "'let
out" from Flagstaff to Winslow, till a
division superintendent protested.
But Mrs. Cheyne, in the boudoir
stateroom, where the French maid,
sallow-white with fear, clung to the
Silver door-handle, only moaned a lit
tie and begged her husband to bid
them "hurry." And so they dropped
the dry sands and moon struck rocks
of Arizona behind them, and grilled
on till the crash of the couplings and
the wheeze of the brake hose told them
they were at Coolidge by the Cont
mental Divide.
Three bold and experienced men
cool, confident, and dry when they be-
gan; white, quivering, and wet when
they finished their trick at those terri
BILE wheels-swung her over the great
lift from Albuquerque to Glorietta and