Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1899-06-19

San Diego and Barstow that the
Southern California engineers might
know and be ready in their lonely
round-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
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 notified. Sixteen
locomotives, sixteen engineers and
sixteen fremen would be needed
each and everyone the best available.
Two and one-half minutes would he
allowed for changing engines, three
for watering and two for coaling.
"Warn the men, aud arrange tanks
and chutes accordingly; for Harvey
Cheyne is in hurry, a hurry-a
hurry" sang the wires. "Forty
miles en- hour will. be expected, and
division superintendent 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, hurryw
"It will be hot" said Cheyne, as
they out of San Diego in the dawn
of Sunday. ''We're going to hurry,
mamma, just as fast as ever we can;
but L 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, will be good.
Only taking 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 drivera were hammer
ing their way to San BerDardino 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 ficked
and wagged to and fro; the cinders
ratified on the roof, and a 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 cher, back there" and
whether she could stand it if the en-
gineer 'let her out a piece" and
| SneJAe tuouShp sno Couiu' hCcoru-
ingly, the great ire-horse was '1et
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
ble 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 La
! Junta, had sight OF the Arkansaw, and
tore down the long slope to Dodge
a City, where Cheyne took comfort once
. again from setting his watch an hour
. ahead
There was very little talk in the car.
The secretary and typewriter sat to-
4 gether on the stamped Spanish-leather
t cushions by the plate-glass observa-
e tion-window at the rear end, Watching
j., the surge and ripple of the ties
crowded back behind them, and, it is
n believed, making notes Of the scenery.
= Cheyne moved nervously between his
A: own extravagant gorgeousness and the
g naked necessity of the combination,
an unlit cigar in his teeth, till the
l. pitying crews forgot that he was their
c tribal enemy, and did their best to
V entertain him.
il At night the punched electrics lii
It up that distressful palace of all the
e luxuries, and they Jared sumptuously
l. swinging on through the emptiness Of
L abject desolation. Now they heari