Arizona republican., 1912-05-16
Crazy River
 Bridge
By ARTHUR K. AYERS

DOIt or lightning mat made all things lighter than day. Balls of blue fire skipped over the windlashed waters and from point to point of the steel work of the bridge For one little moment the wind died and 8 great tar-ofr murmur was heard that carried d monstrous nameless menace in it's sound. Then came the thunder. peal on peal. booming. echoing. rumbling. shaking the solid ground beneath it. But in that moments comparative calm Shelburn caught the significance Of the muffied roaring
 Whistle the men off the bridge" he yelled to the engineer of passinc locomotive and as other engines Joined in. wild chorus of warning was carried far out over the river by the gale. Immediately men appeared fighting their way back into the teeth Of the storm to regain the shore A sound like the soughing of the wind through a thousand thousand pines. not loud yet seeming to dominate all others, grew and grew Another light ming flash revealed the peril Just above the bridge. stretching from bank 10 bank. great wave bore dowo on it. The Durban flood had come.
 Clean and bare it swept the bridge The heavily loaded ears were whirled and tumbled about and smashed against the girders. The water poured over the embankment. tore resistlesaly al the eaTthwork and flooded the rails far back from the bridge Fires were put out and the men driven to the higher ground. The previous flood stage had been as a spring freshpt 10 this one. Four times it's usual width and flowing three feet above the tracks on the bridge, the Crazy made it's final assault upon the thing il hated Grim and awful was the struggle now in which the human allies of the bridge could only watch and wait IL must make its fight alone and the woTn-out men slept wherever they dropped down on the rain-soaked ground, sprawling grotesquely like the dead on a battlefield Against thc fast-gTaying sky in the east Shelburn loomed large as he waited for an en- zine to be sent down to bear him home. The downpour had ceased and the wind was dying away New fires blazed and smoked feebly because of wet fuel The Chief found his mus Cles rigid and his jaw aching with his sympathetic tension al the strain he knew the bridge was enduring. II was as though he 5eheld the agony of weariness of some vast dumb animate Thing
 bo y+f1- h,,, Tod itself against the structure Never a seconds rest did it get as the swrling waters strove to overwhelm and rend limb from limb this man-made creat. ure that ventured 10 oppose them. Down beneath the surface there was a mighty trembling of truss and beam. Like an artillery fusillade came the snapping of Eolts and rods. The su- perstructure parted from the piers, poised for moment. and slid slowly beneath the yellow river A tremen- dous wave spread out over il and as though in mockery, it's edge Tapped the boots of the man whom the water had beaten. His head and shoulders bowed beneath the bitterness of the blow. Tn addition to his benumbing weaTiness there settled upon him like a leaden cloud the conviction that down under the flood lay part of his best work and of still more priceless thing, his reputation. Only an engineer can know in the fullest the heartsickness of such a loss. Instinctively the others drew back from him as though it were indecent to look boldly upon the strong mans helplessness and defeat
 The Crazy swept on through the great gap in the rails. The sun burst through the clouds and the crests of the river hills were touched with glory, but Shelburn did not see. His face was gray beneath the grime as he swung up into the cab of McCul- lough's engine and the little engineer, peering into it, knew how he would look when he was old. Oliver said nothing-there was absolutely nothing to say-and he reached for throttle and sand-rod Twice the steam had shot hissing out through the cylinder
 cocks when the undiscovered, unkempt
 figure of the operator bore down on
 the engine, leaping the prostrate forms
 of the weary sleepers as he ran. Mes
 sage for MT. Shelburn," he called as
 he grasped the hand-hold on the
 tender.
 Yes, I know" said the Chief duly
 as he took it. "The boys dead. He
 couldn't have lived through the night
 I knew that when I came"
 The telegrapher gave him a curious searching glance as he dropped of Better read it, he suggested
 When Shelburn looked up from the paper he discovered that 1t was the most beautiful day since the world began For the first time he noticed
 that Oliver and his fireman were the | handsomest men he had ever beheld and that the big engines thunderous exhaust were singing exultantly, Lad 1 die is safe, Laddie is safe!"