The Havre herald. [volume] (Havre, Mont.) 1904-1908, 1906-03-02
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HI 2hffe1fasfS5s both-without ever locat.
S'"as'''a'--s1'@a"D ing the Spider water
by map or by name.
But if you should happen anywhere
on the West End to sit among a gang
Of bridge carpenters, or get to conf
dcnce with bridge foreman, or find
the springy side Of roadmaster's
heart, then you might hear all j you
wanted about the Spider water, maybe
more; anyway full plenty, as HALEY
used to say.
The Sioux named it. and, whatever
may be thought Of their Interpretation
of Scriptural views Oh land grabbing.
no man with sense ever attempted to
improve on their names for things,
whether birds or braves or winds Or
Watel's-they know.
Our general managers hadn't always
sense-this may seem odd, but on the
system it would excite no comment
and one of them countenanced shame
full change in the name of the Spider
water. Some polytechnical idiot at a
safe distance dubbed it the Big Sandy,
and the Big Sandy it is to this day on
map and in folder, but not in the lingo
Of trackmen nor the heart of the Sioux.
Don't say Big Sandy to tracEmen and
hand ont cigar. It will not go. Say
Spider water without any cigar, and
you will get a word and a stool and, If
YOU ask it, fine cut.
The Spider water-although ours is
the pioneer line-was there when we
first bridged it. 1t is probably as old
as shutdown and nothing like as pretty
The banks-it has none to speak Of;
it's stones-they are whiskered; its bed
full Of sand burs. Everything about
the villain stream has dilapidate, bro
ken down air. The very mud Of the
Spider water is rusty.
So our people bridged it, and the trou-
BILE began. A number Of matters both
cred our pioneer managements-Ind
ans, outlaws, cabinet officers, congress
sional committees and Wall street mag,
nates-but at one time or another our
folks managed all Of them. The only
thing they couldn't at any time salts
factorily manage was the Spider water.
Bridge after bridge they threw across
it and into it. Year after year the Spi-
der water toyed with our civil engi-
neers and our material department
One man at Omaha given to asthma
and statistics estimated between spells
that the Spider water had cost US
more money than all the water courses
together from the Missouri to the Sier-
ras
Then came to the West End a MASTER
full man, a Scotchman, paWky and
hard Brodie was his name, an Edin-
burgh man, with no end Of degrees and
master of every one. Brodie came to
be superintendent of bridges on the
western division and to boss every wa
ter course on the plains and in the
mountains. But the Spider water took
fall even out of Brodie. 1t swept out
q Howe truss bridge for Brodie before
he got his bag unpacked, and there
after Brodie. who was reputed not to
care a stringer for anybody, did not
conceal a distinct respect for the Spi-
der.
Brodie went at 1t right He tried not
to make friends with the Spider, for
nobody could do that, but to get ac-
Quainted with it. For this he went to
its oldest neighbors, the Sioux. Brodie
spent weeks and weeks up the Spider
water hunting, summers, and with the
Sioux he talked Spider water and drank
fire water. That was Brodie's shame
the fire water.
But he was pawky, and he chinned
increasingly the braves and the medi-
cine men about the uncommonly queer
water that took the bridges SO fast
the river that month in and month out
couldn't squeeze up water enough to
baptize a pollywog and then Of a sud
den and for few days would rage like
the Missouri, restore to the desert It's
own and living image and leave our be-
wildered rails hung up either side in
the wind.
Brodie talked cloudbursts up coun-
try, for the floods came, times, under
clear skies. and the Sioux sulked In
silence. He suggested an unsupported
inlet from some mountain stream
which maybe, times, sent its storm wa
ter over low divide into the Spider,
and the red men shrugged their faces.
AS last resort and In desperation he
limited at the devil, and the skeptics
took quick brace with as much as to
say, now you are talking, and muttered
very bad medicine
Then they gave him the Indian stuff
about the Spider water, took him
away up where once party of Pawnees
had camped In the dust of the river
bed to surprise the Sioux and told
Brodie how the Spider, more sudden
than buck, tleeter than pony. had come
down in the night and surprised the
Pawnees. and SO well that the next
morning there wasn't enough material
left for scalp dance.
They took Brodie out into the ratty
bed himself, and when he said heap
dry and said no water they laughed.
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