The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-01-23
"OLD MAN SPECIAL. :"
BY CuRRAN R. oREENIEY.

0L SoNhAN ks. 66EEN1Ex.
 tCopyright. 1904, by Daily Story Pub. Col
 The division superintendent had stretched out few inches further on the leathern lounge in the smoker as Jake, the porter, reported: Shell be here in 2 done come from the station above, an he say that am de latest wire"
 Here's a kettle of fish," growled Brax- ton. the travelling auditor. Here's both ot us that ought to be in Denver tomor- row morning. tied here by one leg like Widow Malone's COW. No telling what ducks and drakes those C. H. 6 T. l.. fcl- lows will make of. that bill if they hap pen to get old man Padget in their clutch es. Trust Jimmy Atkins for making hay while the lobby is clear-and here we are, penned up in, our. own cars. the wrecking crew 40 miles away and ten carloads of cattle and God only knows what else, piled up on the track. Get out of here! You'll! A black face vanished through the crack of the door, and Braxton collapsed into the deep chair opposite the division superintendent. who puffed away at his cigar and watched him between shut lids, and drawing, in his lazy, good-humored voice: Quiet down, Braxton. We ain't the whole road. You've got your bones left end all your skin, and Jimmy Atkins doesn't own the legislature. If the old man did call us in to assist in pulling wires. that doesn't mean that they won't be pulled without us.''
 He sat up and looked out of the win dow. On one side, the granite wall of the mountain went up and up behind the mere shelf on which the track lay like a silver ribbon; on the other-far below, a blue trail of water wound between ochre .yr 4H< lfsa of wreckage had been hurled down, heavy winged buzzards Tapped to and fro, and the sun poured a flood of gold through the clear, thin air, while from the smok- ing wreck, the noises of hell went up and rent the sacred quiet of the mountain as men toiled and sweated amid the moans of tortured animals imprisoned in the burning wreckage. Fifty yards away stood the Limited Mail, trapped between the wreck in front and the landslide two miles in the rear, that had make it a risky question getting through on the up- grade, and backing down an impossibility.
 The disision superintendent yawned la8i- ly. He had been called from his berth in the dead of the night to stand six hours in the bitter mountain wind direct ing the demoralized train crew. The fast freight had been making time to Barry's, where they would switch to let the Linn tied through; when suddenly the great engines reared, snorted like a wild thing and plunged headforemost into the moun- tainside, and with the recoil went over and over. carrying poor Tom Donohughe down with her. The fireman had gone back on the tender just before the shock came.
 Crash! Crash! A binding horror fill- ing earth and sky as the death cry of
 toC Cnd H. vision superintendent had worked like madman. and now that the wrecking crew would soon be on the spot. and the searchers that went out with the dawn, had brought Tom Donohughe up the mountain and laid him in the superin- tendent's own berth, he felt at peace with the world, and inclined to be just little impatient with Braxton.
 There was something familiar about the crag that Ioomed above him-and then 1t all came back. "Braxton!' he turned to where the travelling auditor sulked be- hind a day-old newspaper, 'I thought this place felt natural. Here's where met "Old Man Special" Braxton dropped the paper "You don't mean to say that you share in that nonsense?" he growled.
 'No nonsense about 1t. I mean every word of it. You have heard the boys tell how. when this line was new. and things went haphazard generally, Mad Murphy was running the Fast Mall. The Benson gang wrecked it one night. and Mad Mur- phy was killed at his post. He was to have been married the night that they buried him, and his girl went crazy and had to be shut up in mad-house down there in Denver. It wasn't more than a few months after when the boys began to talk of seeing things. and it did look ike Mad Murphy's old engine, No. 26. was completely hoodooed. She never went over the road but something happened to her, and finally she broko her neck and carried Jim Garret with her off of Dead Mans trestle. and from the day that old engine made scrap iron of herself. the queer things began to happen. and just as sure as a man was warned, there was some good reason back of it. Tom Baynes went out with No. 2S one night. and just before he got to Grants Crossing. the1e was a danger signal. He put on all the brakes and brought her to standstill not ten feet from two rails spiked across the track; but there was never sign or token of the man that set that danger signal, and there was no lantern there; though Tom said he was near enough to 1t when it went out to see it shine on the rails. The strangest of all. was the night when