The Lake County times. [volume] (Hammond, Ind.) 1906-1933, 1907-01-08


\ \ k1sssz<zazzS3 Pat Francis I
was very old conductor. but old man /
Sankey was a veteran when Pat Fran
els began braking. Sankey ran a pas
senger train when Jimmie Brady was
running, and Jimmie afterward enlist
ed and was killed in the Custer fight.
There was an odd tradition about
Sankey's name. He was tall,
swarthy fellow and carried the blood
of q Sioux chief in his veins. 1t was
in the time of the Black Hills excite
ment, when railroad men. struck by
the gold fever, were abandoning their
trains, even at way stations, and strik-
ing across the divide for Clark's Cross
ing. Men to run the trains were hard
to get and Tom Porter trainmaster,
was putting in every man he could
pick UP without reference to age or
color.
Porter-he died at Julesburg after
ward-was a great jollier, and he was
not afraid of anybody on earth
One day a war party Of Sioux clat-
like storm and threatened to SCALP
everything, even to the local tickets
The head braves dashed in on Tom
Porter, sitting in the dispatcher's of
fee upstairs. The dispatcher was hid
ing under a loose plank in the baggage
room floor. Tom, being bald as a sand
hill, considered himself exempt from
a1xNir, To
game of solitaire when they bore down
on him and interested them at once.
That led to a parley, which ended in
Porter's hiring the whole band to
brake on freight trains. Old man San
key is said to have been one of that
original war party.
Now, this is merely a caboose story,
told on winter nights when trainmen
get stalled in the snow drifting down
from the Sioux country. But what fol
lows is better attested
Sankey, to start with, had a peculiar
name an mpronounceable, unspell-
able, unmanageable name. | never
heard it, SO l can't give it. 1t was as
hard to catch as an Indian cur, and
that name made more trouble on the
payrolls than all the other names put
together Nobody at headquarters
could handle it. 1t was never turned
in twice alike, and they were always
Tom explained several times that it
was Sitting Bulls ambassador who
was drawing that money and that he
usually signed the payroll with toma-
hawk. But nobody at Omaha ever
knew how to take a joke.
The first time Tom went down he
was called in very solemnly to ex-
plain again about the name, and, be-
ing in hurry and very tired of the
whole business, Tom spluttered:
Hang it, don't bother me any more
about that name. If you can't read it,
make it Sankey and be done with it"
They took Tom at his word. They
actually did make it Sankey, and that's
how our oldest conductor came to bear
the name of the famous singer, and
more l may say-good name as it was
and is. the Sioux never disgraced it.
Probably every old traveller on the
system knew Sankey. He was not
only always ready to answer questions,
but, what is much more, always ready
to answer the same question twice. 1t
is that which makes conductors gray
headed and spoils their chances for
heaven-answering the same questions
over and over again. Children We're
apt to be a bit startled at first sight
Of Sankey, he was so dark, but he
had a very quiet smile that always
made them friends after the second
trip through the sleepers, and they
sometimes ran about asking for him
after he had left the train.
OF late years-and it is this that
hurts-these very same children, grown
ever so much bigger and riding again
to or from California or Japan or Aus
tralia, will ask when they reach the
West End about the Indian conductor
But the conductors who now run the
overland trains pause at the question,
checking over the date limits on the
margins of the coupon tickets, and.
handing the envelopes back, will look
at the children and say slowly, He
isn't running any more"
If you have ever gone over our line
to the mountains or TO the coast you
may remember at McCloud, where they
change engines and set the diner in or
out. the pretty little green park to the
east of the depot, with row of catalpa
trees along the platform line. 1t looks
like a glass of spring water
If it happened 10 be Sankey's run
and a regular West End day, sunny and
delightful, you would be sure TO see
standing under the catalpas a shy.
dark skinned girl of fourteen or fifteen
years silently watching the prepare
tons for the departure of the over
land.
And after the new engine had been
backed, champing down and harnessed
to its long string of vestibuled sleen-