Ladysmith news-budget. [volume] (Ladysmith, Rusk County, Wis.) 1907-1927, 1920-06-11

fact, that the crews covering it had
dubbed it the STORMY"
The Pacific Limited trailing behind
hin-crack train Of the great trans
continental system-was usually six
car affair. Today it was seven, and
all Tom Davenport's finesse as Loco
motive engineer had been called upon
to make Lordsburg with only quar-
ter-hour delay.
Up to Mescal he had climbed from
Tucson, then dropped down a terrific
grade around dead Mans Curve"
into Benson; up again the sharp
ascent into Dragon, then down through
C0chise and San Simon upon the only
few miles of straight track the entire
division boosted.
Once more Davenport set his teeth
as he damned the cutoff lever far
down in the corner and nursed his
train up through STEMS pass, over the
summit, and down again into Lords
burg.
He had still one hundred and forty
eight miles to go in two hundred and
fourteen minutes, besides making up
that lost eighteen, TO maintain his
schedule.
The grade was not so nerve-racking
into FL Paso, and once at Separ, the
summit, Tom calculated on the long,
gradual drop down through the valley
Of the Rio Grande to the terminus to
aid him in considerably exceeding the
usual running time of mile in min
ute and a third, which was the average
of his particular schedule for the en-
tire division.
Back in the sWaying, lurching Pull
mans a realization of the unusual
speed began to communicate itself to
the minds of the passengers, now
streaming forward to the dining car in
response to the first call for dinner.
Buchanan Williams, whose hurried
rush across the platform at Lords
burg had enabled him to make com
nection which saved an eight-hour de-
lay, stopped in the yestibple of the
diner to pass his ticket to the con-
ductor.
Some class to this" he chuckled as
he rendered the bit of pasteboard. "Do
you think We'll make Eel Paso on
time?"
within q few minutes of it," smiled
hack the other reassuringly. ''Tom
Davenport's up ahead, and he hates to
make explanations at either end of
the division. Going to Chicago,
Buck?"
mo; Mexico. Trouble down Culia-
can way. Another revolution; and
every man in my mine, | suppose, is
out trying to make himself president
with shotgun instead of using di-
rect primary to get the nomination.
Wish they'd settle down. The Ell
Tigre is beginning to pan out big
but we need men to work it,
"Some mine, that Ell Tigre, accord
ing to the talk of the boys coming out
of that section"
Fair" drawled Buck, with a whim-
steal smile. "She paid out more than
a half-million last year, and we've only
scratched her back so far. Wait until
we get down to the five-hundred-foot
level and drift Then Wen make
Johnny Rockefeller's wig take on
marcel-Wave effect"
He swung into the diner and seated
himself in the only vacant chair. OPP
posite sat a small, dark, unobtrusive
little man whose skin was triffe too
tawny for either Mexican or an In
dian.
His coal-black hair, large, luminous
brown eyes, and general appearance
Of intellectually were unusual, but Of
fered strange contrast to a certain
humility Of manner, Williams thought
rather cOntemptuously.
Buck scanned the card while the
waiter brought the meal his vis-a-vis
had previously ordered. The mining
mans interest in his fellow passenger
increased as he noted that his meal
consisted wholly of vegetables and
that he drank nothing but milk.
The limited was snorting up the
grade toward Separ when his own
dinner was brought in.
Williams ate voraciously, as only an
American can whose life is spent in
combat with the apparently sterile
and antagonistic country which they
were traversing.
He glanced curiously over at his
travelling companion. The brown eyes
seemed to take on half melancholy,
brooding look, as if the owner were
peering into a future pregnant with
events.
He laved his hands in the silver fin
ger-bowl, wiped them carefully, and,
while waiting for the check, drew from
his pocket a sheet of paper and began
to peruse it.
Travelling farY queried Buck, with
the bluff heartiness of the West.
''To New England, sar," smiled back
the little man.
''You don't belong in these parts,
then," laughed the miner, scrutinizing
the brown atom of humanity with
half-humorous. Multiplying expression.