The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, June 28, 1903, Page 8

THE SUNDAY CALL. through there be- iskers on rails, It may ne e genera nderstood that whiskers grow steel rafls; curi- Moreover, and at it séems, they* do, they Are dangerou: ngly dangerous ous on steel ra times excee Do mnot fer that all steel rails grow whiske s it, as one might suppose enly the old s that sport the youngest rail the curve may siout & beard as the oldest rail on the tangent, and one just as gray. They fiourish, too te of orders; for, while whiskers are pe and lerated o conductors, are never encouraged on Nature, however, provides the wk regardless of disc pline, and, wh is more, shaves them berself. This cul depends on conditions. Some er whiskers than others 1 ous for whis- kefs, while July grows very few. Whi kers wijl grow on steel rails in the a t. but not every nig It takes a one that stays out lat make ;whiske: ake, for example, night eir of th ok Hiils. It is as a beard evervwhere among steel g as the , is drawn up frost as a glass of ice water hade. And these dew »fusio 1s of ¥ pre canyo »ng white the levels down It is a very dan- posi lie the whiskers g, as pretty a flower that ever lured 1 waits for engines and sometimes gets un tr ‘ ., which is par- i r peeping over t length, on the t were too funny, and espe- e hills never turn a had done barbering. t having to do with would them, take no a nt of whiskers. They make only the schedules, and the whis- kers make the sble. To lessen their danpers engineers always start up hill or wit nkf whiskers dowy ul of #and, and they It is rough barbering, er tires grit a bit into , and in that way hang a tankful of sand the air Westinghouse is 'better ever st was a little sweeper, ring one, for even a spire, and in point of fact Aloysius worked the head of the e West End Moun- h country; akes your breath the level Three per cent—it is vslus was used d begun working for weeper under Johnnie the compar Horigar neer would have tholight ning a grade to (Dmpa. with Johnnie’s headers Horigan was the first boss Aloysius ever h Now Aioysius, if caught just righit, is ery pretty name, but Johnnie Hprigan could make nothing whatever of 15 so hp called Aloysius Cooney, as he McGrath—and, by that McGraw we As for Horigan, /thing; at least it is he West End he hes been thing ordinarily boss sweeper. suffered numerous promotiuns— theiway, if ¥ shall be star he.ma certpi called e right be called a was severn! times to wiper, and once to hos- tier; bu o celebrate these ocopsior him his job, and hy res sweeping. If he had not been such an inoffensive, sawed-off jittle old nubbin he wouldn't have been toler- &ted on the payroli; but he had been with the comp 7 80 long and discharged %o often that f emen grew tired of try- r to get rid of him, and in spite of his very irregular habits, he was hanging on somewhere all the time Wheh Johmnie ‘was gone, using the word i at least two -senses, Aloysius Coomey McGrath became ipso facto b sweeper. It happened first one Sur morning, just affer pay day, when John- nie applied to the foreman for permission o g0 to church. ' Permission was granted, and Johnnie started for church, but it is doubtful whether he ever found it. At all'events, at the end of three weeks he 1 at the roundhouse, con- QU 5 ‘ siderably the worse for his attempt to lo- of the runaway steel. cate the house of prayer, which he had tried to find only after he had been kicked out of every other place in town. Aloysius had improved the intervals by sweeping tfie roundhouse as it never had been swept before, and when Johnnie Horigau returned, morally disfigured, Aloysius McGrath was already promoted to be wiper over his old superior. Johnnie was in nowise envious. His only move was to turn the misfortune to account for an ulterfor purpose, and he congrat- ated the boy, affecting that he had stayed away to let them see what stuff g fellow was made of. This put then he made ahead for the engine. train gained a dozen. By the yo him in a position to negotiate a small loan from his protege—a position of which he never neglected the possibili out of the question to bs mad very long at Johnnie, though might be very often. After a time Aloy- sius got to firing. Then he wanted an en- gine. But he fired many months, and there came no promotion. The trouble was there were no new crews added to ties. It w: one the engine service. Nobody got killed, nobody quit, nobody died. One, two and three years without a break, and little Aloysius had become a bjgger Aloysius and was still firing. He became almost discouraged, for then the force was cut down and he was put back to wiping. mind, Coone: nie would say. “It'll come ail You'll get ¥'r ingin yet. Lind me a g , Cooney, will you? ingin’ Cooney."” surance always cost Aloy- and no end of trou- ble getting it back, for when he attempt- ed collection Johnnie took a very dark view of the lad’s future, alluding vaguely to people who were hard-hearted and un- grateful to their best friends. And Aloy- sius paid slight attention to “the old sweeper’s vaporings; he really was in the end the means of the boy getting his en- gine. After three years of panic and hard times on the mountain division the mines began to reopen, new spurs were laid out, ction crews were put on and a new activity was everywhere apparent. But to fill the cup of Aloysius' woe, the new crews were all sent up from Mc- Cloud. That they were older men in the order of promotion was ‘cold comfort— Aloysius felt crowded out. He went very blue, and the next time Johnnie applied for a loan Aloysius rebuffed him unfeel- his in turn depressed John. Yever mind, never mind, Cooney. Tll be speakin’ t' Neighbor ag'in t' set ¥ up. If ¥ like wipin' stick to it. T'll not be troublin’ Neighbor ag'in."” Johnnie pro- a great pull with the master me- * mind, nev vet, ch little sus $2 till pay day, cons us might feel still more the coldness Johnnie for some days paid much court to the new firemen and engine runners. Nothing about the house was too good for them, and as the crafty sweeper never overlooked an op- portunity he was in debt before the end of the week to most of the brotherhood. But the memorable morning for Aloy- sius came shortly thereafter. It was one of those keen October mornings that bite 80 in the hille. The construction train, extra 240 west, had started about § o'clock from the head of the pass with a load of steel for the tracklayers, and stopped for a bite of breakfast at Wind River. Above the roundhouse there is a switchback. When the train pulled in the crew got off for some hot coffee. Johrnie Horigan was around playing good fellow, and climbed into the cab to run the train through the switchback while the crews were at the eating-house. It was irregular to leave the engine, but did, and, as for Johnny Horigan, he . s regularly irregular. There wefe six- wa teen cars of steel in the string, besides a cabooseful of laborers. The backing up the leg of the nipper was easy. After the switch was newly set Johnnle pulled down the lower leg, and that, considering the whiskers, was too easy. When he pulled past the eating-house on the down grade he was going so lively with his flats that he was away before the crew could get out of the lunchroom. In just one minute everybody in Wind River was in trouble: the crew because their train was disappearing down the canyon; the eating-house man. because nobody paid him for his coffee, and Johnnie Horigan, because he found it im- possible to stop. He had dumped - the sand, he had applied the air, he had re- versed the engine. By all the rules lald down in the Instruction car she ought to stop. But she didn't stop, and—this was the embarrassing feature—she was headed down a hill twenty miles long, with curves to worry a boa constricter. John hung his head wildly over the drivers, looked back at the yelling crew, contem- plated the load that was pushing him down the grade, and his head began to swim. There appeared but one thing - ~Half Heur You'll This Is One of the Brightest, Snappiest Pages Ever hblhh‘od. Just the Thing to Read Over Your Cup of Breakfast Coffes. . i Storiettes. . Ten the length of the two flats for a head, and from the far corner threw him- 5and lever. There was nothing In earth self across the gap, like a bat, on a load Scrambling to his feet he motioned and yelled to the ho- boes, who were pouring frantic out on the hind flat of the string, to set brakes; It was a race with the odds all wrong, for, with every yard Aloysius gained the the time he reached the tender, breathless, and slid down the coal into the deserted cab, the train was heading into Little Horn gap, and every Italian aboard yelling for life. ° Aleysius jumped into the levers, poked his All Excited Over Wig Wag’s Fate For Instance, Which Will Be Only One of the Daring Storiettes in the Next Sunday Call, July 5 —_—m m — — more to do; that was to make a nolse, and as he neared the roundhouse he whistied like the wind. Aloysius O'Cooney McGrath, at the alarm, darted out of the house like a fox. As he reached the door he saw the construction train coming and Johnnie Horigan in the gang- way looking for a soft place to light, The wip.r chartered the situation in a mental second. The train was running away and Horigan was leaving it to its fate. From eny point of view it was a tough proposition, but tough propositions come rarely to ambitious railroad men, and Aloysius was starving for any sort of & proposition that would help him out of the waste. The laborers l’ the caboose, already bewildered, were craning anxious- ly from the windows. Horigan, epposite the roundhouse, jumped in & sprawl; the engine was shot past Aloysius; boarding ‘was out of the question. But n the siding stood a couple of fiats,’ empty; and with his hair straight on cen- ters the little wiper ran for them and mounted the nearest. The steel train was Jumping., Aloysius bunched his muscle, - head through the window, and looked at the drivers. They were.In the back mo- tion, and in. front of them tue sand was streaming wifle open. The first thing he did was to shuf BBiL it off the fight could * not be won by wasting-ammunition. Over and over again he jerked. at the alr. It was refusing its work. Where so many 2 hunted rurner has turned for salvation there was none for Aloyslus. He opened * and closed, threw on and threw off; it was all one, and all useless. The situation was as simple as it was frightful. Even if they didn’t leave the track, they were certain to smash into No. 16, the up-pas. senger, which must meet them somewhere on the hill Aloysius' fingers closed slowly on the for it but sand, merely sand; and even the wiper's was oozing with the stream that poured from the tank on the whis- kered rails. He shut off a bit more, think- ing of the terrific curves below, and men- tally calculated—or tried to—how long his steam would last to reverse the drivers— how he could shovel coal and sand the curves at the same t!me— and how much slewing the Itallans at the tail of the kite could stand without landing on the rocks. The pace was glddy and worse. When his brain was whirling fastest a man put a hand on his shoulder. Aloysius started as if Davy Jones had tapped him, and between bounces looked, scared, ‘around. He looked into a face he didn’t know from Adam’s, but there was sand in the eyes that met his. “What can I do? Aloysius saw the man's lips move and, without taking his hands from the levers, bent his head to catch the words. 'What can I do?’ shouted the man at his elbow. “Give me steam—steam!™ wiper, looking straight ahead. It was the foreman of the stesl gang from the caboose. Aloyslus, through the backs of his eyes, saw him grab the shovel and make a pass at the tender. Doing so he nearly took a header through the gangway, but he hung to the shovel and braced himself better. With the next attempt he got a shovel- ful into the cab, but in the delivery passed it well up Aloysius’ neck. There ‘were neither words nor grins, but just another shovelful of coal a minute after, and the track layer, In spite of the dizzy lurching, shot it where it belonged—into the furnace. Feeling that If one. shovelful could be landed more could, Aloysius’ own steam rose. As they headed madly around the Cinnamon bend the dial be- gan to climb in spite of obstacles; and the wiper, considering there were two, and the steam and the sand to fight the thing out, opened his valve and dusted the whiskers on the curve with something more than a gleam of hope. If there was confusion on the runaway train, there was terror and more below it. As the specter flitted past Prindls station, five miles down the valley, the agent caught a glimpse of the sallow face of the wiper at the cab window and saw the drivers whirling backward. He rushed to his key and called the Medicine Bend dis- patcher. Witli*u tattoo like a drum-roll the dispatcher, In turn, called Boda Bprings, ten miles below Pringle, whers No. 16, the up passenger, was then due. He rattled "on-with his heart-in his fin- gers, and the dnswer cama qn the Instant. Then.an order‘dashed into Sod4 Bprings: “To No. 180 Take Soda Springs ‘sidmg quick. Extra 240 West loat conirols ot~ train. 2. DR There never was such a bubhun“:%‘ Soda Springs as that bubbling. The 'op erator tore up the platform like a hawlkis in a chicken yard. Men never scattered: as quick as when No. 1§ began screaming and wheezing and backing for the clear. Above the town, Aloysius, eyes white to the sockets, shooting the curves like a meteor, watched his lessening stream of sand pour into the frost on the track. As they whipped over bridges and fills the caboose reeled like a dying top—fear froze every soul on board. To leave the track Now meant a scatter that would break ‘West End records. When Soda Springs sighted extrs 240 west pitching down the mountaln, the steel dancing behind and Aloysius jump- ing before, there was a painful sensation —the sensation of good men who see a disastér they are powerless to avert. Nor did Soda Springs know how desperats the wiper's extremity had become. Not even the struggling steel foreman knew that with Soda Springs passing like films of a cinematograph, and two more miles of down grade, the last cupful of sand was trickling from the wiper's tank. Aloysius at that moment wouldn’t have glven the odd change on a pay check for all the chances extra 210 and he himself had left. He stuck to his lever merely because thers was no particular reason for letting go.. It was only a question of how & man wanted to take the rocks. Yet with all his figuring, Aloysius had lost sight of his only salvation, maybe because it was quite out of his power to effect it himself. But mn making the run up to Boda Springs No. 16 had already sanded the rails below. He could feel the help the minute the tires ground into the grit. They began to smoke, and Aloysius perceived the grade Was easing somewhat. Even the dazed foreman, looking back, saw an fmprove- ment in the lurches of the caboose. There was one more hair-raise ahead—the ap- palling curve at the forks of the Goos But, instead of being hurled over the ele. vation they found themselves around it and on the bridge with only a vicious slew. Aloysius’ hair began to lle down and his heart to rise up. He had her cried the checked—even the hoboes knew {i—and & mile furthier, with the @knger pifst, they took new ones by dropping of the hind end. by . = g end Yglow . the, Goose Aloyglus -mads a stop amd- began 1o breatbe. A box was blazing, on the ten- der truck, and, with his hangly Sreman, he got down at once to doefy The whole thing. shifted . sos martall¥ - quick fromy danger t3"safety ‘that the two men never stopped to inventory theit fearsy they. seemed to have vanished with the, frost that lured them to They. jumped together whistling, a the tructions inte along t E began up Springs. Th who approached the cab as d for the plattorm—in stood back for him s endent of the divis n, at- tached to N “How did your train get away from Aloysius: there was nor sympathy in his rds were bitten with “It didn’t get away from me,” retorted Aloysius, who had never before in his 1ife seen the man and was not aware that he owed him any money. But the operator at the Springs, who knew Aloysius and the superintendent both, was standing be- hind the latter doing a pantomime that would shame a’ medicine man. “Quick talking will do more for you than smart talking,” replied the superin- tendent, crisply. “You'll never get & bet- ter chance while you're working for this company to explain yourself™ Aloysius himself began to think go, for the nods and winks of the operator were bewildering. He tried to speak up, but the foreman of the steel gang put in: “See here, sport,” he anapped, irreverent- 1y, at the angry official. “Why don’t you cool your hat before you jump a fellow Uke that?” “What business is it of vours hew T jump a fellow?” returned the superintemnd- ent, arply, “who are yop?" ¢ “I'm only foreman of tBis wtsel gang, my friend, and I don't take sny back talk from anybody.” “In that case,” responded "Busks, with velvet sarcasm, “perhaps you will em- plain things. I'm only superiitendent of this division: but it's customary to im- quire into a-matter of this ki Aloysius at the words nearly sank te the piatform; but the master of the ho- boes, who had all the facts, went at the blg man as if he had been one of the gang, and not falter till he had cove ered the perspiring wiper with gl “What's the reason the al wouldn't work?"” asked the superintendent, turning without com . when the track layer had finished, to Aloysius. t had time to find out, sir." report to me. What's “Find out and McGraw, 1 u did the 1 made the crack, I'd made it harde had known who ¥ » You know now, Ruess so. Very good,” sald Bucks in his mildest ton 1L youf wilF,report to me at i eine~Ben& thfs afterncon I'll we cgp't find something better for manned'than cursing hoboes. You can lte dowrin sport. - What do you say? THat will save you transportation.” It brought a yell frdm the raflroad men crowdingaarou for that was Bucks’ way _ofdping stings, and the men liked Bicks andihi€ way. TiHaceX-captain of the dagoeg tried-toslgok codl, Uut in point of fact went very sheepisi at his honors. Followed by a'mob, eager to see the finish, S tendent Bucks made his way up the track along the construction train to where Aloysius and the engineer of No. 1§ were examining the alr; They found it frozen between the first and sec- ond cars. Bucks heard it all-leard the whole story. Then he turned to his clerk. “Discharge both crews of extrp340. Fire Johnnte Horigdn.” Yes, sir.” ' fcGrath, run your train Sack te Wind River behind us. We'l{ scare ub & con- ductor here somewhere; if we can’t I'll be your conductor. Make ‘your repert to Medicine Bend,” Bucks added, speaking to the operator, and withbut further talk walked back to his car. 7 ¢ ¥ As he turned away the enginses of Ne. 16 slapped Aloysius on the back: “Kid, why the blazes dldi’'t yoy thaak *y u were don’t you?” What for?” 4 What for? Jimmey Christmas! What for? t he just make yoU an engi- neer? Didn’t he just say, ‘Run your trala back behind us to Wind River? * “My train?’ “Sure, your train. Do you think Bucks ever says a thing like that without mean- ing it? You bet not.” Bucks’ clerk, too was a little uncertain about the promotion. “I suppose he's competent to run the train back, fsa't he?” he asked of Buc ) gestively. Bucks was scrawling a message. man that could hold a train from Wind River here on whiskers, %ith noth- ing but a tan of sand ‘and a hobo ireman, wouldn't be likely to fall off the right. of way running back,” he retu d dryly. “He's been firing for years t he? We haven't got half enough like McGraw. Tdl Neighbor to give him an engine.” men Fun, Fast and Furious. More Awful Adventures of Phyllis the Cook, Clarence the Fly Cop, Lady Bountiful's Terrible Teddies and the Jolly Jackie: f | | | ‘Who Out-Hobson Hobson, in the Great Comic Supplement. Printed in Multiple Colors, Ai)out ,Wi:.ich the Whole Country Is Talk- 4 ing. Just Take a Peep at the Next Sunday Call, July 5. —eeeeeeh