Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1902-11-01

collie. He looked doubtful of the claim un-
til the mist had blown clear and the culver
ing monsters were again recalled for q
dash. Then it was plain that Sankey's in
stinct was right; they were gaining.
Again they went in, lifting very ava
lanche over the stacks packing the banks
of the cut with walls hard as ice. Again as
the drivers stuck they raced In a frenzy,
and into the shrek of the wind went the
unearthly scrape of the overloaded safeties.
backed again.
She's doing the work, George" cried
Sankey. For that kind Of cut she's as
good as a rotary. Look everything over
now while 1 go back and see how the boys
are standing it. Then we'll give her one
more, and give it the hardest kind"
And they did give her one more-and an
other. Men at Santiago put up no stouter
fight than they made that Sunday morning
in the canon of the Blackwood. Once and
twice more they went in. And the second
time the humping drummed more deeply:
the drivers held, pushed, painted and gained
against the white wall-heaved and STUN
bled ahead-and with yell from Sinclair
and Sankey and the fireman, the Double
Header shot her nose into the clear over
the Blackwood gorge. As engine after en-
CINE flew past the divided walls, each cab
took up the cry-it was the widest snout
that ever crowned victory.
Through they went and halfway across
the bridge before they could check their
monster cataqult. Then at half-full they
shot it back at the cut-it worked as well
one way the other.
1.-THE thing is DONE declared Sankey.
Then they got into position up the line for
a final shoot to clean the eastern cut and
to get the head for dash across the
bridge into the west end of the canon,
where lay another mountain of snow to
split.
Look the machines over close, boys"
said Sankey to the engineers. IF nothing 8
IN +oI, f,,1J I,nad on
gorge-the" bridge will carry anything-and
buck the west cut. Then after we get No.
/ through this afternoon Neighbor can get
his baby cabs in here and keep EN- chasing
all night; but it's done showing he added,
looking into the leaden sky.
He had everything figured out for the
master mechanic-the shrewd, kindly old
man. There's no man on earth like a good
Indian; and, for that matter, none like a
bad one. Sankey knew by a military in
stinct just what had to be done and how to
do it. If he had lived he was to have been
assistant superintendent. That was the
word which leaked from headquarters after
he got killed.
And with a volley of jokes between the
cabs, and a laughing and yelling between
toots, down went Sankey's Double Header
again into the Blackwood gorge
At the same moment, by an awful misun-
Outstanding of orders, down came the big
rotary from the West End, with dozen
cars of coal behind it. Mile after mile 1t
burrowed through the western cut of the
Blackwood, crashed through the drift San
key was aiming for, and whirled then out
into the open, dead against him, at forty
miles an hour. Each train in order to make
the grade and the blockade was straining
the cylinders.
Through the swirling snow which half
hid the bridge and swept between the rush
ing plows Sinclair saw them coming-he
yelled Sankey saw them a fraction of a
second later, and while Sinclair struggled
with the throttle and the air Sankey gave
the alarm through the whistle to the poor
fellows in the blind pockets behind. But
the track was at the worst. Where there
was no snow there were whiskers; oil Itself
couldn't have been worse to stop on. 1t
was the old and deadly peril Of fighting
blockades from both ends on a single track.
The great rams of steel and fire had done
their work, and with their common enemy
overcome they dashed at each other fren-
zied across the Bla ckwood gorge.
The fireman at the first cry shot out the
side Sankey yelled at Sinclair to jump.
But George shook his head; he never would
jump Without hesltating an instant, San
key caught him in his arms, tore him from
the levers. planted a mighty foot and hurl-
ed Sinclair like block of coal through the
gangwaX out into the gorge. The other
cabs We're already emptied, but the In
stant's delay in front cost Sankey's life:
Before he could turn the rotary crashed
into the 500. They reared like mountain
lions and pitched headlong into the gorge;
Sankey went under them.
He could have saved himself; he chose to
save George. There wasn't time to do
both: he had to choose and he chose in
stinctively. Did he, maybe, think in that
flash of Meta and of whom she needed
most-of a young and stawart protector
better than an old and a failing one? l do
not know; l know only what he did.
Every one who jumped got clear. Sinclair
lit in twenty feet of snow, and they pulled
him out with rope; he wasn't scratched;
even the bridge was not badly strained.
No pulled over it next day. Sankey was
right-there was no more snow, not enough
to hide the dead engines on the rocks; the
line was open.
There never was a funeral in McCloud
like Sankey's. George Sinclair and Meta
followed together; and of mourners there
were as many as there were peoples Every
engine on the division carried black for
thirty days.
His contrivance for fighting snow has
never yet been beaten on the high line. 1t
Is perilous to go against a drift behind it
something has to give.
But it gets there--as Sankey got there
always: and in time of blockade and des-
peration on the West End they still send
out Sankey's double-header; though San
key-so the conductors tell the children,
travelling east or travelling west-Sankey
isn't running any more.