The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1903-10-11


end Jack Moore and Oyster were backing
down on the olive green string with the
two smoothest moguls on the division.
Bucks and Neighbor had held back every
thing good all day for De Molay 4. down to
engines and runners and conductor. Pat
Francis carried the punch. and the little
chief sat in the dispatchers chair for De
Molay 4.
And while the lovely women strolled in
the cool of the evening and the odor of
mountain sweetness. and the guard drilled,
and the band played. the chief knit his
brows over his train sheet 1t looked now
rearranged, reoTdered readjusted and re-
organized, as if ella monster had crawled
over it without wiping his feet. And when
De Molay got ready to pull out with
Moore and Oyster OH the throttles and old
John Parker in the baggage, where he had
absolutely nothing to do but drink cham
payne and smoke cigars, and Pat Francis
in the aisles, and Bucks, with Mr.. and Mrs.
Callahan and their crowd i'm private No. II
there was that much shouting and footing
and waving that Martin Duffy simply
couldn't think for a few seconds; yet he
held them all, for life or for death, every
last one. in the curve of his fingers.
So they stood ready in the gorge while
Duffy studied YEARLY how to handle first,
second and third 50 against them.
First, second and third so. If they
could have been wiped off the face of the
rails easy they might have been
wiped off the train Sheet But there they
were, three sections, and big ones, of the
California fast freight. High-class stuff
for Chicago and New York that couldn't
be held or laid out that Sunday, not for
dozen conclaves. All day first, second and
third sc had been feeling their way
east through the mountains, trying 10
dodge the swell communicates rolling by
impudent as pay cars. But all the final
plans to keep them out of everybody's way,
out of the way of fez and turban and cha
peau and Greek cross and crimson-spashed
sleepers were now dashed by thirty min
utes at Medicine for De Molay T.
Order after order went from under his
hand New meeting points for first, sec
ond and third 50 and De Molay 4, other
wise special 326.
Pat Francis snatched the tissues from
Duffy's hand and, after the battalion had
dispersed among their wives and sisters,
and among the sisters of the other fellow;
trombones and cymbals and drums at old
John Parker's shins; after the last air-cock
had been tested and the last laggard cru
sader thrown forcibly aboard by the pro-
vost guard, the double-header footed
"Out!" and, with the fiutter of an ocean
liner, De Molay pulled up the gorge
The orders buttoned in the REFERS gave
De Molay free sweep to Elcho, and Jack
Moore and Oyster were the men to take it,
good and hard. Moreover, there was glory
abroad. Pennsylvania nobs, way-up rail-
road men, waiting to see what for motive
power we had in the Woolly West; how we
climbed mountains and skirted canyon
| walls, and crawled down and per cent
grades. Then with Bucks himself in the
private car-what wonder they let her out
and swung De Molay through the gorge
as may be you've seen a particularly
buoyant kite snake its tail out of the grass
and drag it careening skyward. When
| they slowed down for Elcho at nightfall,
past first and second 80, and Bucks named
| the mileage, the Pennsys refused to believe
ii for the hours run. But fast as they had
sped along the iron trail, Martin Duffy s
work had sped ahead of them, and this
order was waiting:
Photographic order No. 49, c. and E.
| third No. 80. Rat River. c. and T.. special
1926, Elcho. Third No. so, engine 21O, and spe-
cial 326 will meet at Rock Point.
az NJ c. DE-
With this meeting point made it would
be pretty much over in the Dispatcher
office. Martin Duffy pushed his sallow hair
back for the last time, and, leaving young
Gddings to get the last o. ks and the last
Iafa \, trio Al H.;
1t had been tremendous day for Gid
dings, tremendous day. Thirty-two spe-
Gals on the dispatchers, and Giddings
copying for the chief. He sat down after
Duffy, filled with a riotous Importance be-
cause it was now, i'm effect, all up to Gid
dings, personally; at least until Barnes
Tracy should presently kick him out of
the seat of honor for the night trick. Mr.
| Giddings sat down and waited for the sig
nature of the orders.
Very soon Pat Francis dropped off De
! Molay 4, slowing at Elcho ran straight to
the operator for his order. signed it and
at once Order 70 was throbbing back to
young Giddings at Medicine Bend 1t was
precisely 1854 p m when Giddings gave
back the complete and at 7:55 Elcho re-
ported special No. $685. "out," all just like
| clock-work. What a head Martin Duffy
has, thought young Giddings-and behold,
! all the complicated everlasting headwork
of the trick and the day, and of the west
end and it's honor, now up to the sig
nature of third so at Rat River Just third
SOS signature for the Rock Point meeting,
and the biggest job ever tackled by a
single-track road in America lGiddings
thought was done and we'll done.
| So the ambitious Giddngs by means of
a pocket mirror inspected a threatening
pimple on the end of his chubby nose palm
ing the glass skillfully so Barnes Tracy
| couldn't see it even if he did interrupt his
eruption, and waited for Bob Duffy, the
Rat River nightman, TO come back at him
with third SOS signature. Under Giddings' s
| eye, as he sat, licked Martin Duffys chro-
nometer-the watch that split the seconds
and chimed the quarters and stopped and
started SO impossibly and ran to a second
| a month-the watch that Bucks (who never
did things by halves) had given little Mar
| tin Duffy with the order that made him
chief 1t lay at Giddings's fingers. and
the minute hand wiped from the enameled
dial 1850 o'clock, :56, 80, :5S-9. Young Gid
| dings turned to his order book and in
spected his entries like methodical book