Arizona republican., 1912-02-28
66e Dynamite Car By ARTHUR K. AYERS. Copyright, 1910, by the Pearson
 Publishing Co.)


 After it was all over George Amhorn climbed out on the running board of his engine and kicked the few remain. ing fragments of the caboose off the boiler. While he did so the guilty brakeman who had failed to go far enough back with his flag hurriedly sought seclusion in the nearby woods and the train ahead proceeded minus its "doghouse"
 'Of course they'll blame me for it. Qqoth George in injured tones. They always do. That's what rules are for. I'm expected to break them-couldn' t get over the road on schedule if didn't-but once let anything happen and it's the Peary-Cook shoulder for me"
 Did you run by his torpedoes?' 9 says McKelly.
 "I did, says I, but
 'Ain't there a rule about ignoring them? he comes at me then.
 "'There is, say l, but
 But nothing says he. Thirty days for you.'
 And as Amhorn prophesied so. in q manner, it came about. The brake man returned from the timber after discovering that no one had been hurt, with stout affirmations that he had gone back a quarter of mile with his flag. Mckelly, who had done his teeth ing on track spike. fired him for un- necessary lying. Then he addressed himself 10 the old engineer.
 George" he said, "lay-offs don't have the proper effect on you. I'm go- ing 10 try something new. I'm going 10 put you to switching in the yard up at North Haven indefinitely and see how it works. You report there in the morning"
 Amhorn stormed; he swore that never would he submit to the degrada- ton of running a condemned yard en- zine; he implored the superintendent 10 let him have his time.
 Co on, George" said his Hibernian superior unmoyed. We couldn't drive you off the payroll with a Gatling gun, and you know it."
 With a whole basket of chips on each shoulder the old engineer finally de- parted, muttering that matters had come to a sad pass when q man waSn' [ allowed to quit when he wanted to be- cause of a red-headed Irishman that thought he owned the entire road. Serves me right he added on his way down the stairs, with the inconsistency that made him a joy and delight to the division. Tn the train-shed below he encountered the call-boy's monde script dog and relieved his feelings. The started mongrel fled, proclaiming aloud hat he had been kicked griev- ously and without due process of law.
 True to McKelly's expectations. Am horn was on hand at North Haven the next morning. North Haven was on the crest of the long swell of Laurel Ridge, at Pine Gap, and the temporary terminus of the track on the new Lit tie River coal branch. Beyond it the grade sloped eastward twenty feet to the mile and the line followed the face of the river cliffs with curves that were all of ten degrees. Dennis O'Rourke's track gang was laying the rails at the rate of half a mile day, and the hastily built yard at North Haven was congested with construction material. Twice daily the local freights brought in carloads of ties. rails, angle-bars, spikes. dynamite and camp supplies of all descriptions. With these George and switch en- zine emeritus that had been resur- rected at Damascus Junction wrestled from dawn until dark. The reduction in rank and pay were wormwood and bitterness to him and he soon devel- oped an ingrowing grouch of the worst kind. chronic case of irritation of the disposition that made life for Combs Halliday, his fireman, far from one grand sweet song. All day they pushed and jerked the cars up and down the crowded sidings, getting the empties in line for the locals to take west, showing ties and steel and ballast down over the queer uneven track on the grade to where O'Rourke's men swung their sledges and the air was full of their snatches of song and the rhyth- mic ring of their hammers on the spikes. And amid it all George found time to worry Halliday in the many little ways that an engineer can. Sat urday nights he offered to lend him money and privately wrote letters to Hayes, the Master Mechanic, saying that the boy was the best fireman he had ever had.
 Combs held on to himself manfully being handicapped in his right of free speech by the fact that he was courting Georges daughter, Bettie, most assid- uously during his Sunday trips to Da- mascus Junction. Talk about Jacob serving seven years for Rachael!" he conided to his bosom friend, Shorty Oakes. the yard clerk. That wasn't nothing to the seven weeks I've served on that tea-kettle of an en- zine under old man Amhorn for Bet tie. Why he lies awake nights think ing up new kinds of hell-on-wheels to try on me"
 But all of Georges i'll temper was not bestowed on the fireman. Part of it descended upon Shorty, the happy go-lucky clerk, and part upon the help less cars that fell to the tender mercies of him and the venerable yard engine. Saving only those that bore the shriek- ing red-lettered placards, "EXPLO- ! SIVES," he slammed them about un- mercifully. The more fragile freight began to reveal a battered condition when opened at the North Haven com missary. Oficial-looking packages of papers were soon coming to him from headuuarters for statement of how