The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1903-10-04

uedu Narnlsn, Whit or smoking truchs
beating madly at the fsh-plates. and the
fast train is up and out, and gone!
Twenty-Five. local, was used to all this.
Used TO the vanishing tail lights. the meas
ured sinking of the sullen dust, the silence
brooding again the desert with, this
night, fifteen minutes more to wait for the
east-bound stock train before they dared
open the switch. Maize Sampson killed the
time by going back to the caboose to talk
equities with the conductor. 1t was no
trick for him TO put away fifteen minutes
discussing the rights of man with himself;
and with an angel of a fireman TO watch
the cab. why not? The 2e4 standing on the
SIDE was chewing her cud as sweet as an
old cow, with may be a hundred and forty
pounds of steam to the right of the dial.
may be a hundred and fifty-I say may be.
because one but Delaroo ever knew
when the sheep train whistled.
Sheep-nothing but sheep. Car after car,
rafting down from the short line behind
two spanking big engines. They whistled,
hoarse as pirates, for the Butte siding, and,
raising the hill, a mile west of it, bore
down the grade throwing Dannah coal from
both stacks like hydraulic gravel.
No one knew or ever will know how it
happened. They cat-hauled men on the
| carpet a week about that switch. The
crew Of the Moulton special testified; the
crews of the stock train testified; Maize
Sampson testified; his conductor and both
brakemen testified; the roadmaster and the
section boss each testified, and their men
| testified-but however or whatever it was
whether the Moulton special fractured the
tongue or whether the pony of the lead
| engine flew the guard, or whether the
switch had been opened, or whether, in
closing, the slip rail had somehow failed
| to follow the rod-the double-headed
stocker went into that Butte switch into
that Butte siding, into the peaceable old 264
and the % local, like lyddite shell, crash
ing, rearing, ripping, scattering two whole
trains into blood and scrap. Destruction,
| madness, throes, death, silence; then a
pyre of dirty smoke, wall of sickening
beats, and scream of kissing steam over
a thousand sheep caught in the sudden
| SHAMELESS
There was a frightened crawling out of
the shattered cabooses, a hurrying up of
the stunned crews, and bewildering count
of heads. Both engine crews of the stock
train had jumped as their train split the
switch. The train crews were badly shaken
| the head brakeman of the sheep train lay
! torn in the barbed-wire fencing on the
/ right Of way, but only one man was miss
| ing-the fireman of 29-Delaroo.
| Second Sc jumped west switch pass
| ing track and went into train 90, engine
264. Bad spill. Delaroo, fireman the 264.
| missing" wired Sugar Buttes to Medicine
Bend few minutes later.
| Neighbor got there by 10 o'clock with
both roadmasters and the wrecking outfit.
1t was dark as a canyon on the desert that
night. Benedict Morgan's men tore splin-
tered car timber from the siding and on
| the knobs back of the siding lighted heap
ing bonfires that threw light all night on
the dread pile smoking on the desert They
dug by the flame Of the fires at the ghast-
ly heap till midnight: then the moon rose,
an extra crew arrived from the Bend, and
then they got the derrick at work. Yet
with all the toll when day broke the con-
fusion looked worse COMPOUNDED. The main
line was SO hopelessly blocked that at day
light a special with ties and steel was run
in to lay a temporary track around the
| wreck.
Neighbor. when the local operator asked
there's two engines for the scrap in sight
/ and 264, If we can ever find anything Of
| her-and about a million sheep to pay
for Neighbor paused to give an order
| and survey the fnghtful scene.
"And Delaroo," repeated the operator
HE wants to know about Delaroo-"
Missing"
At dawn hot coffee was passed among
~
McCloud gang arrived with the second der
rick. Then the of the night took
hold with new grip to get into the heart
of the pile: to find-if he was there
| Delaroo.
None of the McCloud gang knew the man
they were hunting for, but the men from
the Bend were soon telling them about
Maze SIMPSONS Indian. Not a mute nod
he ever gave; not a piece of tobacco he
ever passed; not a brief word he ever spoke
to one of the battered old hulks who rode
and cut and slashed and stormed and drank
and cursed with Benedict Morgan was for
gotten then. Every slowed, twisted, wealth
er-beaten, crippled-up. gin-shivered old
| wreck of a wrecker-they We're hard men
had something to say about Delaroo. And
with their hair matted and their faces
streaked and their shirts daubed and their
elbows in blood, they said it-whatever 1t
was, much or little-of Delaroo.
The picks swung, the derricks creaked,
and all day with the heaving and the call
ing they toiled; but the sun was sinking
before they got to the middle of it. Then
| Benedict Morgan, crawling under the
drivers of the hind mogul, partly uncov-
| cred, edged out with a set face; he swore
he heard breathing. 1t was alcohol to the
veins of the double gang Neighbor him.
self went in and heard-and stayed to
| fasten a grapple to pull the engine truck
| off the roof of a box-car that was damned
| over and against the mogul stack.
The big derrick groaned as the slack
drew and the truck crashed through a
tier Of stays and swung whirIing into the
| clear. A giant wrecker lodged the sus-
| pended wheels and raising his AK bit hole
into the damned roof. Through that they
| passed a second grapple, and presently IT
gave sullenly, toppled back with a crash,
and the foremost axman, peering into the
| opening, saw the heart of the wreck Bend
| ing forward he picked up something strug-
| Cling in his arms. They thought it was
a man; but it was a sheep, alive and un-
| injured, under all the horror; that was the
! breathing they heard. Benedict Morgan
| threw the man and his burden aside and
stepped himself into the gap and through