Waterbury Democrat., 1901-04-06

 Something seemed amiss with that l portion of it which made part of the l equipment of the old tourists car. It was either wedged in the narrow | orifice above the door or caught among the rings of the pendants from above, for it resisted every jerk, 1 whereat the brakeman set his teeth ] and said improper things. It would 1 have grieved the management to hear this faithful employees denunci- l ation of that particular item of their rolling stock.
 "Get out of the way here, boys, and let's see what's the matter with this dinged bell cord," he concluded, el- lowing his way through the swarm about the door. Once fairly within, he threw quick glance along the aisle. The left sections of the car were deserted. Out of almost every | window on the right side poked a head and pair of blue flannel shoul- ders.
 Only one man of the party seemed | to have no further interest in what was going on outside. With one hand still grasping the edge of the upright partition between two sections near the forward end, and the other just letting go, apparently, of the bell cord, the tall, slender, well-built young soldier, with dark-brown eyes and softly curling lashes, was lower ing himself into the aisle. The brakeman proceeded to rebuke him on the spot.
 "Look here, young feller. You'll 1 have to keep your hands off that bell cord. Here I've been cussin' things for keeps, thinkin' it was knotted or caught. It was just you had hold of it. Don't you know better'n that? Ain't you ever travelled before?" The man addressed was slowing something away inside the breast of his shirt He did it with almost os- tentatious deliberation, quietly eying the brakeman before replying. Then, slowly readjusting the knot of a fine black silk necktie, so that it's broad, Tapping ends spread over the coarser material of the garment, he slowly, looked the justly exasperated brake man over from head to foot and as slowly and placidly answered.:
 
 the world. As for your bell cord, it was knotted; it caught in that ring. I saw that some one was tugging and trying to get it loose, so swung up there and strengthened it. Just what you'd have done under the circum- stances, fancy.'
 The brakeman turned redder un- der the ruddy brown of his sum- tanned skin. This was no raw ssrookie'' after all. In his, own ver- nacular, as afterwards expressed to the conductor, T seen I was up ag'in' the real ting dis time,' but it was hard to admit it at the moment. Vexation had tbos have vent. The bell cord no longer served. The sup- posed meddler had proved a help. Something or somebody had to be the victim of the honest brakeman's spleen, so, somewhat unluckily, as events determined, he took it out on the company and that decrepit car, now buzzing along with much com plaint of axle and of bearing. Y Damn this old shake-down,- any howl'' said he. s'The company ought to know 'nough not to have such things lyin' round loose. Some night it'll fall to pieces and kill folks" And with this implied apology for his aspersions of Recruit Foster, the brakeman hustled away.
 But what he said was heard by more than one, andremember when perhaps he would have wished it for gotten. The delay at Ogden was sup plemented by long halt before the setting of that. blazing sun, neces- sitated by the firing of the waste in the boxes of those long-neglected trucks. Far back as the rearmost sleeper the sickening smell of burn ing, oil-steeped packing drove femi- nine occupants to their satchels in search of scent-bottles, and the men to such comfort as could be found in fasks of bulkier make.
 In the heart of the desert, with dust and desolation spreading far on every hand, the long train had stopped to douse those foul-smelling fires, and, while train-hands pried off the red-hot caps and dumped buckets of water into the blazing cavities, changing malodorous smoke CO QtuSS ClOuoS Ol Sdudiiy uuSdVOTy steam, and the recruits in the aff1ict- ed car found consolation in ssiosh- ing' the hard-sweating, hard-swear- ing workers, the young officer who had boarded the second sleeper at Ogden, with half dozen bipeds in dusters or frazzled shirt-sleeves, had become involved in complication on the shadier side of the train.
 Somewhere into the sage brush a iack-rabbit had darted and was now in hiding. With a dozen eager heads poked from the northward windows and stretching arms and index fin gers guiding them in their inglorious hunt, the lieutenant and his few associates were stalking the first four-footed object sighted from the train since the crossing of the bald divide.
 Within the heated cars, with flushed faces and plying palm-leaf fans, a few of the women passengers were languidly gazing from the win dows. At the center window of the second sleeper, without a palm-leaf and looking serene and upperturbed, sat the young girl whose lovely face