Lakeland Evening Telegram Newspaper, June 11, 1913, Page 6

Parw Y THE EVEN.NG TELMGRAM, LA ELAND, FLA., JUNE 11, 1913. [J ; {ore s a faiv sample of the dire work of the tornado that hic Seward, Neb reduced to debris. dence ol F. . Ficke AAAAAAAAAA A CREDENERENEE AT HER POST OF DUTY Heroic Manner in Which Girl Telegrapher Foiled Band of Train Robbers. MARION LOWELL LIVINGSTON. “You are not afrald, Esther?” J “Not a particle, Nettie. Why should 5. pe? This is not my first time on uty here, you know.” “Yes, but at night, and all by your- pelf! 1 should think you would die pith loncsomeness.” “What! With your dear brother §:u| to think of? Why, Nettie, just agine it—he may be a passenger on tha very train I send speeding to the city at midnight.” Fsther Manning mounted the iron ladder leading to the track tower, falf a mile from the nearest house of & small scattered settlement. Her father had been dispatcher at Tower 10 for fifteen years, and befose that {n other employment with the Central Northern. He was something of an invalid, and in one month would be due for honorable retirement from the service and a pension, if nothing kappened to spoil his record. During 3ha past year, while not teaching school, his helpful daughter, Esther, had learned telegraphy and had famil- farized herself with all the details ot her father's work. The night shift, The Services of Artists Are Yours When You Bring I“_ Lake SEWARD BLOWN TO PIECES _ L] It 15 the resi Ficke was found unconscious, but uninjured in the cellar. the other day. Mra | with its chill nifsts and tiresomeé ! fhen Tnto a Thinking spell. Tt was treadmill system, had been & hard-| pleasant to realize that she was doing ship to old Mr. Manning. He was par | her duty and helping her father; it : Flyer was due. ticularly indisposed this particular acting a8 his substitute. She was engaged to Paul Reynolds, who had been for a year in the west | and was expected home daily. His sister had accompanied Esther to the tower, as noted. The latter waited till Bruce Vallette, the day operator, was relieved by Esther. Then the two walked away, leaving Esther alone at her post of duty in the gathering' dusk, | Tower 10 commanded the wires west thirty miles to Lyons dunction, and east past the dangerous curves and trestles of the next section. The track inspection patrcl reported from | | that branch shortly after dark. Then Esther saw an accommodation through to the east, and by nine o'clock two freights in the cpposlte direction. | Everything was now trim and tidy on the schedules. Sho had only the Night Flyer to take care of, due at 12:03. That crack train of the road usually went through clean as a whistle. All Esther had to look out for was cross orders from either end of the line. - Esther saw that the west sema- phore was set for clear tracks. Half a mile distant where the big curve began was the east semaphore. S8he noted that the go-ahead white light showed. Some occasional messages went over the wires, but no call for Tower 10 through the ensuing hour. “Now for a comfortable resting; spell,” reflected Esther; but the rest- |lng spell merged into a reading, and evening, and Esther had insisted onI nd YOU get your work done by people who know--who will not let some foolish error creep into your work that will make your printed matter incffective, and perhaps was still more so to anticipate the home coming of Paul Reynolds. He had written a glowing account of his success as & gold miner, hinting at & comfortable nest egg, and telling Esther to keep her eyes open for a neat little cottage, big enough, though, to shelter “father,” as well as them- . selves. Esther roused from her day dream reverle with something of a shock. Very suddenly the trap door in the floor was given a great push, as if| Esther | from a man's strong shoulder. had taken the precaution to bolt it. She heard a muffled ejaculation of disappointmient, Warned—more, alarm- ed—Esther sprang up quickly and | threw the tin shade over the lamp on the operator's table, She ran to the window and glanced down. It was just in time to see a lurking form steal from the tower base and slink over behind the cattle | pens. Herc he was jolned by two men. They seemed.to converse ani- matedly. Two of them leaped into the ditch at the side of the tracks and started in the direction of the east semaphore. The third man stood half concealed by a great frame filled with hay used in the cattle pens. Esther wondered what these suspi- olous movements betokened. Just then she chanced to glance down the 2ast tracks. A startled cry escaped her lips. The white clear signal was not visible. It had been changed to the red stop signal. Esther sprang to the semaphore levers. Tne wires | white and trembling and almost over come. Within fifteen minutes the Night The signal to come on was set, and sh~ could not change it. The east signal had been tam- pered with. The Flyer would not dis- { ' cover this until its engiueer had pass- od the tower. The train would halt around the curve at a deserted spot, | outside of any immediace help. | “prain robbers!” breathed Esther, aghast. “What shall I do?” She imagined the Night Flyer at the mercy of lawless, armed bandits. | She Had Shot Out the White Light Signal. Fslher glanced at the clock. {tral Northern would come dashing down the rails. She could sce one of the men in half view, as if hig special mission was to prevent her from In- terfering with his nefarious plans | Ee ther summoned all her innate {bravery and good sense. in one cor- !ner of the tower room stood a repeat- ing rifle, a part of the furnishment of all isolated stations along the line. With pride and nerve she recalled some of her past proficiency in arch- took aim at the semaphore, and fired. No result. Again—and there was a crash. She had shot out the white light signal! Surely the Night Flyer would take some heed of this circum- stance! A second rapid suggestion came to her mind, and she ran for a corner where a big bundle of red fire signal fuses lay. Carrying these to the table, she se- lected one. Drawing the screen from e e are cut!™ she gasped, s Yaim, she Hared The -ead of e Tn six | Iminutes the fastest train on the Cen- | ery. She threw up a west window, | fusee and gave it a fling. It landed, hissing and sputtering, amid the loose hay near the cattle pens. In an in- stant the mass burst into flames Un til the bundle was exhausted she 1t and hurled fusees. It was not only a grand beacon, the blazing hay, but the glare spread red and warningly across the sky. Bang—bang—bang! A hail of bul lets from the revolver of the man left on guard rattled across the crashing windows of the tower. Then he dart- ed down the rails In search of his companions. Up dashed the Night Flyer. Esther was down from the tower, rifle in band, a figure heroic as the train came %0 & stop and its crew surround- od her. In an instant an armed party was made up, proceeding to the east semaphore to investigate the situation at that point. The bafled bandits had fled, but preparations were discovered to hold up the train in true wild western tashion—the train which carried in its express car over half a million in currency. The leader of the investigating group was a young man from the west —Esther's lover. When the Night Flyer resumed its run, Paul Reynolds came back to the tower to greet the brave girl soon to become his wife. The raillroad company did some thing more than pension old Mr. Man- ning. They sent Esther a substantial wedding present as & reward for her herolc efforts In saving the Night Flyer. (Copyright, 1913, by W. G, Chapman.) bHE WAS A REAL ENTHUSIAST‘ | What the Great American Natlonal ‘ Game Did for One Ardent Fanatic. He had turned away from the front of a newspaper office, when he found a man at his elbow smiling at him, land, after a feeling of anger, he also smiled, and said: “I see you have got on my curve. Yes, I turned aside to look at the baseball score, forgetting that the games were over for the season. | Force of habit, you know. Been do- ing the same thing for months and | months.” | “You were an enthusiast?” queried | the other. | “say, I lived on it? I ate and slept { with it. Every morning I made & bet 'and every evening I found I had lost i it. When the games began last spring IT had a hundred friends. When they | closed I hadn’t one. I had called them |'all Hars and horse thieves over base- | ball, and they couldn’t stand it." | “It gets in the blond.” “You bet. I couldn’t think of any- thing but baseball all day, a night 1 dreamed of it, and ey | in my sleep. My wife refugeq uf | cuss the game, and the rely, tween us were strained. Oy g girl refused to argue, and [ dlseyy her. Mv fatherdn-law sald the,, no game like poker, and | ‘flln" him. On Sunday, when therg w.,? ‘ game, the day seemed a ey .3 to me. The boss offered to ry,. wages five dollars a week f [, cut it out, and I told him he y,| patriot.” “But it's all over now." “Yes, and I'm glad of it. |y month I can get over thinking , it and turn to something else, ] fore the winter 18 over perhap; || get interested in Shakespears (, tory again. I may have to gy | into the back yard and yell oy then as a safety valve, but [ ghy it as gently a8 I cam, and g threatening to knock the othg | low’s head oft.” Ony ;- { Unusual Way. “A thief's way ought certaigy confound a mathematichn.” “Why so?’ “Because the thief multiply subtractine ” Undertaker's Feeling, “Pierpont Morgan was a goog He could like a man well, gyl could hate a man well.” The speaker, a divine, r. with a smile: “T once heard Mr. Morgan ¢ he hated a certain financier yi played him false—that he falt - him a good deal like the under; . “At an evening party,” he w8 “a wit endeavored to be fucet an undertaker's expense *“‘Yours must be a gha gald the wit. ‘T suppose look at a man without wishin, dead?” “‘No. said the undertaker ¢ ‘Oh, no. There are quite a i men whom I'd be more tha to bury alive’” anf Rough Rhyming. “l1 want a word to rhyme wit hitable,” said the amateur poet would you suggest?” His friend wrestled with the lem for awhile. “] would suggest that you g other girl,” he finally said Ditferent Kind. Wite (anxiously)—I do were in some other work, dear in constant fear that you will: charged wire at the shop” i “Oh, the charged wire at the doesn’t bother me; what I ha dread about {s the charged ac the stora® wish Your Printing to the 20N B O T R T subject it to the amused comment of discriminating people. Our plant turns out ten newspapers ever papers of state-wide circulation; but this does not mean that we do not also give th: i closest attention to the small work. An order for visiting cards, or for printing a rib- us to secure and successfully carry out our large contracts. And, having had to fit up KY;‘)/_\.!_' b Printing v veck--two of them being sixteen-page — for the bigger work naturally enables us to do the smaller work better. THE LAKELANDNEWS J0B OFF For Printing--a Line or a Volume--We Are At Your Serbice KENTUCKY BUILDING Office 23 coulg Asis Sois ¢ We Mo Sof M. 4 bon badge, or a hundred circulars, is given the same careful consideration that enables P:E {RAVED