The Irish standard., 1899-05-06

WneelS. Inc crew OF the cOmDlnatlOn
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 it's dead, and they nodded and
spat and rejoced with him; asked after
'her, back there" and whether she
could stand it if the engineer "let her
out piece" and Cheyne thought she
could. Accordingly the great fire horse
was "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, chung to the silver door
handle, only moaned Il little 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 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 La 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.
The secretary and typewriter sat to-
gether 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, an unlit
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 water tank and the cultural
voice of Chinalnan, the clink-clinll of
hammers that tested the Krupp steel
wheels and the oath of tramp chased
Off the rear platform; now the solid
crash of coal shot into the tender; and
now beating back of noises as they
flew past waiting train. Now they
looked out into great abysses, a 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 the
true plains.
At Dodge City an unknown hand
threw in copy of a Kansas paper con-
tanning some sort of an interview with
Harvey, who had evidently fallen in
with an enterprising reporter, te]e-
graphed from Boston. The joyful jour
maltese revealed thatit was beyond ques.
ton their boy. and it soothed Mrs.
Cheyne for awhile. Her one word
hurry was conveyed by the.crews to
the engineers at Nicllerson. Topeka and
Marceline, where the grades are easy,
and they brushed the continent behind
them. Towns and villages were close
together now, and man could feel here
that he moved among people.
{1,o
so. 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"
II don't care. I want to feel we're
moving. Sit down and tell me the
miles,
Cheyne sat down and read the dial
for her (therc were some miles which
stand for records to this day), but the
7O-toot car never changed it's long
steamer-like roll, moving through the
heat with the hum Of a giant bee. Yet
the speed was not enough for Mrs.
| Cheyne; and the heat, the remorselcss
August heat, was making her gddy;
the clock hands would not move, and
when, oh, when would they be in Chi
cago?
1t is not true that, as they changed
engines at Fort Madison, Chcync passed
over to the Amalgamatcd 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 fircmen as he believed
they deserved, and only his bank knows
what he gave the crews who had sym
pathized with him. 1t 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 e. 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 n car. None the less she
handled the Constance" as if she
might have been a load of dynamite,
and when the crew rebuked him, they
did it in whispers and dumb show.
"Pshaw!" said the Atchison, Topeka
& Santa Fe men, discussing life later,
''we weren't runnin' for record.
Harvey Cheyne's wife, she were sick
back, an we didn't want to jounce her.
| Come to think of it, our runnin' time