The Democrat-sentinel. [volume] (Logan, Ohio) 1906-1935, 1907-01-24

/ No. 1. 1t was his day up. If they met
OH Il curve
"Irncouple herr roared Dad Sinclair
in giant tone.
what are you going to dog
"Bulns," thundered Dad TO his fire
man. give her steam. and quick. boy
Dump in grease, waste, oil. everything
Are you clear thcrc?' he cried open.
ing the throttle as he looked back.
The old engine. pulling clear of her
coaches. quivered ms she gathered her
self under the steam. She leapcd ahead
with n swish. The drivers churned in
the sand, bit into it with gritting tires
and forged ahead with suck and
hiss and a roar. Before Reynolds had
fairly gathered his wits Sinclair, leav'
ing his train on the main track in front
of the depot, was gathering over the
switch after the runaways. The wind
was terror, and they had too good a
start. But the way Soda Water Sal
took the gait when she once felt her
feet under her made the wrinkled en-
gineer at her throttle set his mouth
with the grimness of Il gamestcr. 1t
meant the runaways-and catch them
or the ditch for Soda Water Sal. and
the throbbng old machine seemed to
know it, for her nose hung TO The steel
like the snout of Il pointer.
He was a man of Il hundred even
hen-Burns-but nobody knew it then.
We hadn't thought much about Burns
before. He was a tall, lank Irish boy,
with an open face and morning
smile. Dad Sinclair took him on be-
cause nobody else would have him.
Burns was so green that Foley said
you couldn't set his name atire. He
would, so Foley said, put out Il hot box
just by blinking at it,
But every mans turn comes once,
and it had come to Burns. 1t was Dick
Burns chance now to show what man
ner of stuff was bred in his long Irish
bones. 1t was his task to make the
steam-if he could-faster than Dad
Sinclair could burn it. What use to
grip the throttle and scheme if Burns
didn't furnish the power, put the life
into her heels as she raced the wind
the merciless, restless gale sweeping
over the prairie faster than horse could
fly before it?
Working smoothly and swiftly into IA
dizzy whirl, the monstrous drivers took
the steel in leaps and bounds. Dad Sin
clair, leaning from the cab window,
gloa tingy watched their gathering
speed, pulled the bar up notch after
notch, and fed Burns fire into the old
engines arteries fast and faster than
she could throw it into her steel hoOfs
That was the night the West End
knew that greenhorn had cast his
chrysalis and stood out man-inew
that the honor roll of our frontier dl-
vision wanted one more name, and
that it was big Dick Burns. Sinclair
hung silently desperate to the throttle,
his eyes straining into the night ahead,
and the face of the long Irish boy,
streaked with smut and channeled
with sweat, lit every minute witt the
glare of the furnace as he fed the
white hot blast that leaped and curled
and foamed under the crown sheet OF
Soda Water Sal
There he stopped and sweat and
swung as she Slowed and lurched and
terked across the fish plates. Carefully.
nursingly, ceaselessly he pushed the
steam pointer higher, higher, higher on
the dial-and that despite the tremen
dous drafts of Dads throttle.
Never a glance 10 the right or the
left, to the track or the engineer. From