The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1909-10-14
THE WILDWOOD
LIMITED
By CY w A R M A N
(Copyright. by j. b. Lippincott CO..

f1enfy kaufman Was boi II o'u' -''
Is he had the face and figure of a
voter. His skin did not fit his face
it wrinkled and resembled a piece or
rawhide that had been left out in the
rain and sun.
Henry's father was freighter on
the Santa Fe trail when lndepend-
ence was the back door of civilization,
opening on wilderness. Little Hen
ry used to ride on the high seat with
his father. close up to the tail OF a
Missouri mule, the seventh OF series
of eight which his father drove in
front of the big wagon and the trail
er. 1t was the wind of the west that
tanned the hide on Henry's face and
made him look old before his time.
At night they used to range the wag-
ons in a ring, in which the freighters
slept.
One night Henry was wakened by
the yells of Indians and saw men fight
ing. Presently he was swung to the
back of a cayuse behind a painted
warrior, and as they rode away the
boy, looking back, saw the wagons
burning-and guessed the rest.
Later the lad escaped and made his
way to Chicago, where he began his
career on the rail and where this story
really begins.
1t was extremely difficult, in the
early DAYS, TO find sober, reliable
young men to man the few locomo-
tives in America and to run the trains.
A large part of the population seemed
to be floating, drifting west, west al
WAYS west. So when this stout
shouldered, strong-faced youth asked
for work the round-house foreman
took him on gladly.
Henry's boyhood had been so full
of peril that he was absolutely indif-
ferent to danger and stranger to
fear. He was not even afraid of work,
and at the end of eighteen months
he was marked up for run. He had
passed from the wiping gang to the
deck of a passenger engine, and was
now ready for the road.
Henry was proud of his rapid pro-
motion, especially this last lift that
would enable him to race along the
steel trail. though he recalled that it
had cost him his first little white lie.
One of the rules of the road said
that a man must be 81 years old be-
fore he could handle locomotive.
Henry knew his book well, but ne
also knew that the railroad needed
his service and that he needed the
lob; so when the clerk had taken his
personal record which was only a
mild way of asking where he would
have his body sent in case he met
the fate, so common at that time on
a new line in a new country-he gave
| his age as 20, hoping the master me-
chanic would allow him year for
good behavior.
Years passed. as did the Indian and
| the buffalo The railway reached out
across the Great American Desert
| The border became blurred and was
rubbed out The desert was dotted
| WIFI HOlltS. Wv uS btSth W oio" VI
| about the tanks and to bud and
| blow on the threeless plain.
Henry Kaufman became known AZ
| the coolest and most daring driver
on the road. He was good engineer
| and good citizen. He owned his
| home, and while his pay was not wha
| an engineer draws today for the same
run made in half the time, it was suf
ficient unto the day, his requirement:
and his wife's taste.
Only one thing troubled him. HI
had bought a big farm not far from
| Chicago. for which he was payins
out of his savings. If he kept well
as he had geen all his life, three year
more on the limited would let him out
Then he could retire year ahead o
time. and settle down in comfort OF
the farm and watch the trains go by
1t would be his salvation, this farm
by the roadside, for the very though
of surrendering the La Sale to ar
other was NORWOOD and gall t
Henry. But there was the law in tn
book of rules-the Bible of the c., NJ
G. Wand no man might go beyon
the limit set for the retirement @
| engine drivers. And Henry Haup
ban, the favorite of the "Old Man,
would take his medicine.
Time winged on, and as often a
Christmas came it reminded the oil
engineer that he was one year neare
his last trip, for his mother, now sleel
ing in the far west, had taught him
believe that he had come to her 0
Chistmas eve.
: One day when Henry was registe
ing in the roundhouse he saw lette
in the rack for him. and carried