The Yakima herald. [volume] (North Yakima, W.T. [Wash.]) 1889-1914, 1909-10-06

and the coffee plus some doughnuts
made me all right. and I now had 80
cents. You see when I reached that
town I had been sixteen hours without
food and sleep, in the rain one night
and passing coal one afternoon, but
If a fellow is well and strong there is
no great harm, and at the present mo-
ment am in better condition than 1
ever was in New York.
| At 10 p. m. the express for Chicago
pulled into Lester. 1 was going to try
for the blind baggage, but my friend
of the quarter said we'd only get put
off there at the first stop, and sug-
gested the cowcatcher as a pleasant
roosting place. The train of nine
Pullman cars had three engines in
front and one at the back to climb
the Cascades. The front engine was
one of those immense, long twelve
drivers and any one on the "cow"
cannot be seen from the cab.
We stood in the dark. just out of
the patch of her electric headlight,
and waited until they started, so as
to be sure the crew was all aboard,
and then climbed on. We both had
, to get on the left or fireman's side of
the cowcatcher as the engineer leans
| way out on his side when he starts
and would have seen us run to the
front.
I let my partner get on first, as IA
was carrying little wickerwork
suit case, about a foot square, which
made it more difficult for him We
locked arms, and with our backs to
the boiler were out of sight of the
engineer and fireman. You have rid
den on the front seat of an open trail
ley to Coney Island with the wind
beating against your face. Can you
i'm agine my ride? And it lasted for
four hours and forty minutes, for we
dropped off at North Yakima, unable
| to stand any more, at 2:40 a. m. Now
let me tell you what those four hours
and forty minutes produced.
With her four engines our train
went up the mountain at probably
thirty miles an hour; the wind tore
against us and we had to put the
mouth close to the others ear and
| yell when we spoke. Eleven miles up,
not straight up. of course, for the
/ track winds great deal, there is a
tunnel 5000 feet long A mile is $3.50.
l had been warned to attempt to tun-
mel only inside a box car, so shouted
in my partners ear how was he go
ing to manage. He said Put your
coat collar over your head and hold
it together in front, and don't try to
hold your breath, as we are five min
utes going through
He had hardly finished speaking
when the black mouth in the hill
! doomed at the end of the path Of
light from our one-eyed monster. Five
minutes never seemed longer owing
to the dense coal gas, flying cinders
and sparks. Tn a minute I felt his
hand brushing my back. I under
stood and did the same for him, and
we served each other this way re-
peatedly, but this morning I saw
number of burnt holes in my coat,
nevertheless.
I was getting more and more gas in
my little coat chamber and was just
commencing to doze when we shot out
into fresh air again. If that tunnel
was 500 feet longer I would not be
writing this; but then 'if' is long
word.
| 1t was out Of the frying pan into the
| fire. for the side of the mountain was
being drenched under a cloudburst of
hail and rain. We soon slowed up
and then stopped. This was our first
danger point. for up to now it had
been Just a matter of holding on but
now we We're up the steepest grade,
the first of the three forward engines
was to be taken off and our seat must
he changed to the cewcatcher of the
next.
The second we came to a stop, and
not a second too soon, or the engine
would have passed us and we would
have been seen from the cab, We
jumped off and into the brush. where
we watched them uncouple the en-
CINE. Down the hill the released en-
CINE went onto siding; back the en-
gineers climbed on the remaining en-
gines after oiling up, and slowly they
started. Luck was with us. The fire.
men were not at their windows, but
were stocking, and we climbed aboard.
| AcccSis
woven. We did not have a fiat place
to sit, but each straddled an iron bar
and hung cur feet down inside.
Now we swooped down through
some wild and rugged country at a
hair-raising speed. At each curve l
thought Now we surely will jump the
track" and my hands ache today from
the grip l maintained. The lightning
was binding as it flashed from peak
to peak and the hailstones beat
against our defenseless persons like
stones. OF course we were soon wet
to the skin.
With one hand pressing my hat rim
down against my glasses and the 9TH
er holding like grim death to an iron
bar l was soon aching in every joint
from my cramped position, and almost
frozen. That was a wind and storm
of high altitude and / didn't have my
furs along. In about an hour / was
relieved of the discomfort of aching
joints l don't know why, unless it is
that joints can get a sort of second
wind for main At any rate at last