Waterbury evening Democrat., 1905-10-05
PIPE WALKERS. LONESOME JOB.
Few Can Stand the Monotony-Con- stant Fear of Disaster.

"Talk about the monotony of sheep herding and track walking and sentry duty," said pipe line walker, sitting at his camp fire near here last night Tt is nothing compared with the hor. rors of my job. The track walker hears the trains go by and he hears noises, companionable sounds and things which make him think he is a part of life. Occasionally he gets a | chance to oficiate at wreck. or to prevent a wreck and get his name in the papers and medal from the Hu- mane society and a bonus from the railroad. The sheep herder. has his dogs and his sheep for company, and. besides, he is always on the move to some place. or other. Now. a pipe line walker is the limits
 The man who was doing the talking is a college graduate, who came to Kansas for the outdoor life to build up his constitution. He is a pipe line walker for the Kansas Natural Gas Co out. of this place, and he covers twenty-five miles day. He starts at 6 o'clock in the morning and returns at 6 o'clock in the evening
 "Oh. 1t was fun at flrst,a he went on. "You know, in the east we do not have this succession of prairie and trees and creeks. That is. we do not have them in New York Well, I liked it. It was refreshing to get out in the morning and tramp away through the fresh air to the end Of the section. The smells of the morning were good. The birds seemed to take on a new note for me. I felt as if it was worth all of life to be out here walking the dump Then got to know every tree, to know every bird call, to know every tEist and curve of the route, to know every road crossing to know every de- tail of the whole thing. I got tired of it. I dreamed of 1t. thought about the same, old things for the same old hours every day for more than a month. I forgot who is president of the United States and what county New York city is in, and where the De- claration of Independence was signed. I forgot all about the Japanese war It was all a blur of trees and land. of land and trees, of more trees. then more land-just always trees and laRd. ,a ---....,
 eff the pipe lines followed the-rail- road or even the roads where we could see things it would be different But all pipe lines around here, go across the country. All we have to do is to look for leaks. We have to keep our ears strained for hissing sound. That is all we are hired to look for-just the leaks. Now when you have only ono thing to look for and listen for and it does not occur every day the anticips' tory nervousness breaks you down. Every time the trees rustic you think there is a leak ahead of you. Every time a cicada drones you think the pipe line has gone to smash. You start out in the morning with the fear of disaster, and if twig cracks under your foot you get the jumps If break would come along once in while it would be easy. But the lone Illness of it gets into your bones; worse than that, 1t gets into your mind. It stays on your mind. This perpetual period of introspection grows oppressive. Finally you begin pinching yourself to see if you are all there. Then you begin talking u your self to see if you can hear. We'll, | haven't got to the very last stage, but it looks like OsawatomIe to me. So me to New York and the chutes on Coney Island"
 There are some 300 or 400 men pa trolling the gas pipe lines fin Kansas now. and as the lines increase the pa trol increases. Most of the patrolmen are high class young fellows, who went into the work at first because 1t looked like a snap. The job pays from SsO to 800 a month.--Kansas City Star.