Waterbury evening Democrat., 1904-02-26
FOLD 1" MAN SPECIAL"
BxcuRRAN R. GREENLEY
n@oM@@0@ON0ONNOO0O@
Copyright, 1903. by Daily Story Pub. Co.,,

THE division superintendent had \ stretched out a few inches further
 on the leathern lounge in the smoker as Jake, the porter, reported: Shell be here in about two hours, Cap'n. The fireman of p done come from the sta
 ton above, an he say that am de latest
 wire"
 Here's kettle of fish, growled Brax- ton, the travelling auditor. Heres both
 of us that ought to be in Denver to-mor-
 row morning, tied here by one leg like Widow Malone's COW. No telling
 what ducks and drakes those C. H. & T. L. fellows will make of that bill 1T
 they happen to get old man Padget in
 their clutches 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 superintend-
 ent, who puffed away at his cigar and
 watched him between shut lids, and drawling, in his lazy, good-humored voice: Quiet down, Braxton. We ain't the whole road. You've got your bones left and all your skin, and Jimmy At kins doesn't own the legislature. If the
 old man did call us in to assist in pull
 ing 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
 silver ribbon, on the other-far belo1 ', blue trail of water wound between
 ochre gorges, and already, where the
 fragments 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 smoking 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 1 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 made it risky question
 getting through on the upgrade, and backing down an impossibility.
 The division superintendent yawned lazily. He had been called from his
 berth in the dead of night to stand six
 hours in the bitter mountain wind di- recting the demoralized train crew. The fast freight had been making time ! to Barry's. where they would switch to let the Limited through; when sud- denly the great engines reared, snorted like a wild thing and plunged head
 foremost into the mountainside. 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. 41s 3@5f TG sf'5<
 Crash! Crash! A blinding hor-
 TOT filling earth and sky as the death
 cry of man and beast went up to God. The division 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 Don3-
 hughe up the mountain and laid him in the superintendent's own berth. he felt l at peace with the world. and inclined to l be just little impatient with Braxton. There was something familiar about the crag that loomed above him-and l then 1t all came back. "Braxton!" he turned to where the travelling auditor l sulked behind day-o1d newspaper. "l | thought this place felt natural Here's | where met "Old Man Special" Brax- | ton dropped the paper. "You don't mean
 to say that you share in that nonsense = ] he growled.
 No nonsense about it. mean every
 word of it, You have heard the boys l tell how, when this line was new, and l things went haphazard generally. Mad l Murphy was running the Fast Mail. The Benson gang wrecked it one night | and Mad Murphy waa killed at his post. l He was to have been married the night that they buried him, and his girl went l crazy and had to be shut up in a mad
 house down there in Denver. It wasn't more than few months after, when the
 boys began to talk of seeing things, and
 1t did look like Mad Murphy's old en- 1 zine, No. 26. was completely hoodooed.
 She never went over the road but some
 thing happened to her, and finally she
 broke 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 man
 was warned, there was some good rea-
 son back of 1t. Tom Baynes went out
 with No. 28 one night. and just before he got to Grants Crossing. there 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 dange, l signal, and there was no lantern there: 1 though Tom said he was near enough to it when it went out to see it shine on 1 the rails. The strangest of all. was the
 night when Bill Manners was taking the
 Special through with the president I aboard.
 | They had the road; but just before | 41 ~;x ;rl,4