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

full name, Sylvester Sankey ground into
the glass just below the green mantle.
Pretty soon-Neeta being then eighteenth
was rumored that Sinclair was enga ged to
Miss Sankey-was going to marry her. And
marry her he did; though that was not
until after the wreck in the Blackwood
gorge, the time of the big snow.
1t goes yet by just that name on the
West End, for never was such winter
and such a snow known on the plains and
in the mountains. One train on the north
ern division was stalled six weeks that win
ter, and one whole coach was chopped up
for kindling wood.
But the great and desperate effort of the
company was to hold open the main line
the artery which connected the two Goa SITS.
1t was a hard winter on trainmen. Week
after week the snow kept falling and blow
Ing The trick was not to clear the line; 1t
was to keep it clear. Every day we sent
out trains with the fear we should not see
them again for a week.
Freight we didn't pretend to move; local
passenger business had to be abandoned.
Coal, to keep our engines and our towns
supplied we were obliged to carry, and
after that all the brains and the muscle and
the motive-power were centered or keeping
and 2, our through passenger trains, run
ming.
there were no towards on our rolls. But
after too long a strain men become ex-
hausted benumbed, indiferent-reckless
even. The nerves give out, and will power
the life of the fast train.
None OF our conductors stood the hopeless
fight like Sankey. Sankey was patient, tact
turn untiring, and, in a conflict with the
elements. ferocious. All the fighting blood
OF his ancestors seemed to course again in
that struggle with the winter king 1 can
see him yet, on bitter days, standing along
side the track, in heavy peajacket and
Napoleon boots, a sea1skin cap drawn snug
ly over his straight, black hair, watching.
ordering, signaling, while No. l. with It's
frost-bitten sleepers behind a rotary strug-
gled to buck through the ten and twenty
of McCloud.
Not until April did 1t begin to look as if
we should win out. A dozen times the line
was all but choked on us. And then when
snoW-ploughs were disabled and train crews
desperate, there came a storm that dis
counted the worst blizzard of the winter
AS the reports rolled in on the morning of
me oth' growing worse as they grew
mentally and physically, threw up his
hands The 9th it showed all day, and on
saturday morning the section men reported
th ~ feet In the Blackwood canon.
IL was q o'clock when we got the word
and daylight before we got the rotary
against it. They bucked away till noon with
olscourag1ng results, and came in with their
gear smashed and a driving rod fractured.
1T looked as if we were beaten
No. / got into McCloud eighteen hours
late; 1t was Sankey's and Sinclair's run
west.
There was long council In the round
mousse The rotary was knocked out: coal
was running low in the chutes If the line
wasn't kept open for the coal from the
mountains 1t was plain we should be tied
until we could ship it from Iowa or Ms
souri, West Of Medicine Pole there was an
other big rotary working east with plenty
of coal behind her. but she was reported
stuck fast in the Cheyenne mills
Foley made suggestions and Dad Sinclair
made suggestions Everybody had a sugges-
ton left: the trouble was Neighbor said,
they didn't amount to anything or were i'm
possible.
It's a dead block boys" announced
Neighbor. sullenly, after everybody had
done. I'VE are beaten unless we can get
No. 1 through today. Look there; by the
holy poker it's showing again.
The air was dark in a minute with whirl-
ing clouds. Men turned to the windows and
quit talking; every fellow felt the same
at least, all but one. Sankey, sitting back
of the stove was making tracings on his
overalls with a piece of chalk.
You might as well unload your passen-
gers, Sankey," said Neighbor. You'll never
get EN- through this winter
And it was then that Sankey proposed his
double header.
He devised a snow plough which combined
In enc monster ram about all the good ma
terial we had left, and submitted the
scheme to Neighbor. Neighbor studied it
and hacked at it all he could and brought
1t over to the office. 1t was like stalking
everything on the last cast of the dice, but
we were in the state of mind which pre-
cedes desperate venture. 1t was talked
over for an hour, and orders were finally
given by the superintendent to rig up the
double header and get against the snow as
quick as 1t could be made ready
All that day and most of the night Neigh
Dor worked twenty men on Sankey's device.
BY Sunday morning it was in such shape
that we began to take heart.
10 DON oct thrp,, ~, .a1f1 IL
again, and that's what most of 'em don't
do" growled Neighbor, as he and Sankey
showed the new ram to the engineers.
They had taken the 566, George Sinclair's
engine for head, and Burns 407 for
the other. Behind these were Kennedy
with the 314 and Cameron with the 296.
| The engines were set in pairs, headed each
way, and buckled up like pack-mules. Over
the pilots ana stacks of the head engines
rose the tremendous plows which were to
tackle the toughest drifts ever recorded,
before or since, on the West End. The
ram was designed to work both ways In
der the coal each tender was loaded with
pig-iron.
The beleaguered passengers on No /,
sidetracked in the yards, watched the prep
arations Sankey was making to clear the
| line Every amateur on the train had his
camera swapping at the ram The town,
gathered in a single great mob looked 81
| lently on and listened to the frosty notes of
the sky-scrapers as they went through
| their preliminary maneuvers. Just as the
| I!lal "Ord was given by Sankey, in charge,
| the sun burst through the fieecy clouds
and a wild cheer followed the ram out of
| the western yard-it was good luck to see
the sun again.
Little Meta, up on the hill, must have
seen them they pulled out; surely she
heard the choppy, ice-bitten screech of the
$3.50; that was never forgotten, whether the
service was special or regular. Besides, the
head cab of the ram carried this time not
| only George Sinclair, but her father as
well. Sankey could handle a slice-bar as
| well as punch, and rode on the head en-
| CINE, where IL anywhere, the big chances
| lowered. What he was not capable of in
, the train service we never knew, because
| he was stronger than any emergency that
| ever confronted him.
! Bucking snow is principally brute force;
| there is little coaxing. Just west of the
/ bluffs, like code signals between a fleet of
| cruisers, there was volley of sharp toot-
| ing, and In q minute the four ponderous en-
| gines. two of them In the back motion, fires
| white and threats bursting, steamed wildly
| into the canon.
| Six hundred feet from the first cut SIN
| clairs whistle signaled again; Burns and
| Cameron and Kennedy answered, and then,
| literally turning the monster ram loose
| against the dazzling mountain, the crews
| settled themselves for the shock.
| At such a moment there is nothing to be
| done. If anything goes wrong eternity Is
| too close to consider. There comes a fluf-
| fed drumming on the steam chests-a stag
\