New Mexico state record. (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1914-19??, 1921-07-08

was getting his change, he grabbed
the pen out of the counter inkstand,
n made out as if he was shading in
a picture, or something, on the open
register.
A half-minute later he vas gone.
When the taxi purred away l turned
TO the open register to see what our
maniac had been drawing in it. What
he had lone was completely to OBJ
literate his signature. He had scratched
the handwriting experts that ever
lived couldn't have told what the name
was.
1t was while we We're eating break
fast the e morning in the Billiard
cafe-the boss and THAT we got our
first news of the Petrolite wreck. The
story was red-headlined in the Morn
ing Herald-the H~atch-Owned paper
and besides being played up good and
strong in the news columns, there was
an editorial to back the front-page
scream.
At two O'clock in the morning a
fast westbound freight had left the
track in PetrOlite Canyon, and before
they could get the flagman out, a de-
layed %eastbound passenger had col
lided with the ruins. There We're no
lives lost, but a number of people,
including the e%ngineman, the postal
clerks and the b%aggageman on the pas
senger, We're injured.
The editorial, commenting on the
wire stuff, was sharply critical of the
Short Line management. 1t limited
broadly that there had been no such
thing as discipline on the road since
Mr.. Shaffer had left it that the rank
and file VAS running things pretty
much as it pleased; and with this
there was a dig at general managers
who let old and time-tried depart
ment heads go to make room for their
rich and incompetent college friends
which was meant to be a slap at Mr..
Van Britt, our own and only mil
~lionaire.
Unhappily, this fault finding had a
good bit to build on, in one way. As
| have said, we were having operat-
ing troubles TO beat the band. With
the rank and file apparently doing its
level best to help out in the new
''public-be-pleased" program, it seemed
as if we couldn't worry through a
single week without smashing some
thing.
Iatterly, ven the newspapers that
We're friendly to the Norcross manage
ment were beginning to comment on
the epidemic of disasters, and nothing
in the world but the boss policy of
taking all the editors into his con
tidence when they wanted to in
vestigate kept the rising storm of
criticism somewhere within bounds.
Mr.. Norcross had read the paper
before he handed it over to me, and
aftefward he hurried his breakfast a
little. When he reached the office, Mr..
Van Britt was waiting for the chief.
We've got it in the neck once
more" he gritted, flashing up his own
copy of the Herald. did you read
that editOrial?'
"Never mind the newspaper talk.
How bad is the trouble this timer
Pretty bad. The freight is prac-
tically Il total loss; n good half of it
is in the river. Kirgan says he. can
pick the freight engine up and re-
build it but the passenger machine is
ii wreck"
How did it happen?'
ITS like n good many Of the 9TH
erS. Nobody seems TO know. Brock
put the freight engine crew on
the rack, and they say there was a
small boulder on the track-that it
rolled down the canyon slope just
ahead of them as they were turning a
They struck it, and both men
say that the engine knocked it off
into the river apparently without hurt
ing anything, But two seconds later
the entire train left the track and
piled up all over the right-of-way."
The boss was sitting back in his
chair and making little rings on the
desk blotter with the point of his
letter-opener.
upton, these knock-outs have got
m no slammed |