The Middleburgh post. [volume] (Middleburgh, Snyder Co., Pa.) 1883-1916, 1899-08-17

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wss "let out" from Flagstaff to Wins
low, till . division superintendent pro
tested.
But Mrs. Cheyne, in the boudoir state
room, where the French maid, sallow-
white with fear, clung to the silver door
handle, only moaned little and begged
her husband to bid them hurry" And
10 they dropped the dry sands and
moon-struck rocks of Arizona behind
them and grilled on till the crash Of
the couplings and tho wheeze Of the
brake hose told them they were at
Coolidge, by the continental 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 ter
rible wheels-swung her over the great
lift from Albuquerque to Glorietta and
beyond Springer, up and up to the
Ration tunnel on the state line, whence
they dropped rocking into In Junta,
had sight Of the Arkansaw and tore
down the long slope to Dodge City,
where Cheyne took comfort once again
from setting his watch an hour ahead.
There was very little talk in the car.
Tho secretary and typewriter sat to-
gethcr on the stamped Spanish leather
cushions by the plate glass observation
window at the rear end. watching the
surge and ripple Of the ties crowded
back behind them, and, It Is believed,
making notes Of the scenery. Cheyne
moved nervously between his own ex-
travagant gorgeousness and the naked
necessity of the combination, IN unNt
cigar in his teeth, till the plying crews
forgot that he was their tribal enemy
and did their best to entertain him.
At night the punched electrics Lit up
that distressful palace of all the lux
uries, and they Jared sumptuously,
swinging on through the emptiness Of
abject desolation. Now they heard the
swish of a wnter tank and the cultural
voice of Chinaman, the clink-clink Of
hammers that tested the Krupp steel
wheels and the oath of a tramp chased
Off the rear platform; now the solid
crash Of coal shot into the tender; and
now beating back Of noises Us they
few past a waiting train. Now they
looked out into great abysses, n trestle
purring beneath their tread, or up to
rocks that barred out half the stars.
Now scaur and ravine changed and
rolled back TO jagged mountains on the
horizons edge, and now broke into hills
lower and lower, till at last came tho
true plains.
At Dodge City an unknown hand
threw in a copy Of Kansas paper con-
tanning some sort of an interview with
Harvey, who had evidently fallen In
with an enterprising reporter, tele-
graphed from Boston. The joyful Jour
nalese revealed that 1t was beyond ques-
ton their boy, and 1t soothed MrH-
Cheyne for awhile. Her one word
'hurry" was conveyed by the crews to
the engineers at Nickerson, Topeka and
Marceline, where the grades are easy,
and they brushed the continent behind
them. Towns and villages were close
together now, and a man could feel hero
that he moved among people.
II can't see the dial, and my eyes ache
80. What are we doing"
The very best we can, mamma
There's no sense in getting in before
the limited. We'd only have to wait"
~ don't care. I want to feel we're
moving. Sit down and tell mo tho
miles"
Cheyne sat down and read the dial
for her (there were some miles which
stand for records to this day), but the
70-foot car never changed its long
steamer-lilke roll, moving through tho
heat with the hum Of giant bee. Yet
the speed was not enough for Mrs.
Cheyne; and the heat, the remorseless
August heat was making her giddy;
the clock hands would not move, and
when, oh, when would they be in Chi
cago?
1t is not true that, rs they changed
engines at Fort Madison, Cheyne passed
over to the Amalgamated Brotherhood
of Locomotive Engineers an endow-
ment sufficient to enable them to fight
him and his fellows on equal terms for
evermore. He paid his obligations to
engineers and fremen rs he believed
they deserved, and only his bank knows
what he gave the crews who had SYM
pathized with him. It is on record that
the last crew took entire charge OF
switching operations at Sixteenth
street, because "she" was in doze at
last, and Heaven was to help anyone
who bumped her.
Now the highly-paid specialist who
conveys the Lake Shore & Michigan
Southern limited from Chicago to Elk
hart is something of an autocrat, and
he does not approve Of being told how
to back up to car. None the less she
handled the Constance" as II she
might have been load Of dynamite
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