The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, September 20, 1903, Page 12

12 THE SUNDAY CALL. HERE he que been some talk at head- It ut our conductors. decent nger con- fncidental ; that pass th an who were s all Bucks like people s and > intere toox a tack b was bad. “A neis callel it, and the bad nights in . -two _ years g and e d blow- cups k. It was because excurs! ab. nd time, bend, and the pull Colum- wih bureau t night. There he mountains, but Bucks nev d any of them by going to bed. ( bad nights, Bucks, like & switc s always out. He ppeared at the hings went. The he was always he asked them a morale— whatever nd a loyalty to Bucks persona which made our men teke the chances that pay checks don't cover. mbian Pacific con- Ic clally doubtful that night, nevertheless there was Bucks, un- der a slov g Stetson and an Irish frieze th ught all the water coming its ding at the drivers of the he: engine, while Jack Moore, in leather heel to jaw, went into the slush under her to touch up an eccentric with a repu- tation for cussedness in & pinch. And a er Bucks was walking back to he out conductor, Pat Fran- make schedule across to Wild as they talked, each man cr was not thinking at all make schedule, but thinking— never a word out loud of it, and e all the way up the gorge on of how—with flesh and blord 1 to beat schedule that night and ertain connection, in spite of weather and the bureau's fears spatcher's growls. his for what? To dump a r two Brooklyn people into the twenty-four hours earlier otherwise would have been ugh without doubt they would t that much better off loaf- ur hours longer away from ipapers and ferries and street at Francis listened grimly. (A cky fellow, Pat Francis. Not firm as a Bessemer bar, and with rably quicker play in his joints.) He listened grimly, for he thought he could domino every play VBucks could make when it came to tricks for saving time on the Wild Hat run. Yet it heart- even Pat Francis, uncompromising erim, to have his superintendent in the storm helping cut out the work for such a particularly beastly pull. As Bucks broke away and started for the door of the Wickiup, Morris Barker conductor who had just brought the In—saluted, walking out. With his buttoned snug, in the comtortabie ence of a man going home, Morris to the edge of the platform to ange confidences with Pat Francis. “Pat, there’s a half-fare back in the Portland sleeper. I heard Mcintyre say cCloud that some of Alfabet Smith's are working up here. Anyway a cattleman in a canvas coat e chair car, smooth face, red tle, to look out for. He got on at Harding and tried a short fare on me., I sized him up for a spotter.” “Why didn't you chuck him off?” growled Pat Francis. He put up after a while—and you bet t fare goes in with an embrotdered re- port. Well, good luck, Patsy.” Pat Francls raised his lamp through the and rain at the engineers. Jack Moore shed suddenly and twice with his hol- whistle. The hind engine saluted hoarsely; from the rear the pusher piped irill, and Bucks in the doorway watched the panting train pull taut up the bend In the swirling snow. And he knew as he watched that nothing worth consider- ing would get away from Pat Francis— not a scheme, nor a cut-off nor a minute, nor a revamped coupon ticket. Pat, be- fore quitting at Benton; Pat up the gorge and over the Horseback, was pretty sure to catch everything inside the vestibules. He swung up on the platform of the baggage car 2s the train moved out and shook the snow off his cap as he opened the door. He set his lamp on an up end trunk, took off his overcoat and hung it up. In the front end of the car a pack of hunting dogs yelped a dismal chorus. Oid John Parker, the baggageman, w: checking up a pile of trunks that rose tier on tler to the roof of the car. John Parker wore a palr of disreputable iron there re's low spectticles. His hair, scant where It wasn't extinct, tumbled about his head ldose at both ends. His gray beard was a good bit stronger in the fly than in hofst and it blew In the wind tmn as a coach whip: but old John had Dhe- dirty spectacles a pair of eyes 3 fine as strel. Francls opened his train box and asked the baggagaman why he didn’t xill those dogs, and got- ting no answer—for John Parker was checking hard and stopped only to shiit his whiskers off the clip—the conductor got out his biue pencil and his black pencil and filed them away, took up h's punch and his trip checks and put them in their proper pockets, shifted his time- table from the box to stiil another pocket, and picked up his lantern. The head- end brakeman coming in just then wi:h a sash puller, Francis asked him to cican up the gilobe. While the brakeman fished for a piece of waste, the conductor moved his wet overcoat a peg nearer the stove and spread It out better, and listened to a wild rumor old John Parker had picked No. 1's being turned into a limited” and carrying a “diner” of Bear Dance. Without wasting any comment, Pat looked at his watchy and listened to -the click of the truck over the fish-plates under foot, and to the angry, tremulous roar of the three furnaces melting coal to. push No. 1 up against tne wind that curled like a cork- screw down the long, narrow gorge. Then he tovk the lantern from his menial, and strode quickly through the vestibule into the dirty light and foul air of the smoker. “Tickets!" No “please” that night; just “Tickets!"” short and snappy as a bear trap. He could talk very differently at home to the bables—but there was no suggestion of kootsylng in the tone that called for transportation in the smoker. He passed down the aisle, pulling, hauling, shaking the snorting brutes, ‘noting, punching, checking under the rays of his lamp until the last man was passed and he walked into the chair car. There wi only one “go-back,” a sleepy Itallan who couldn't even after he had been jerked out of his seat and turned upside down and inside out, and shaken and cursed—still he couldn’t And his ticket. So Pat Francis passed him with the shocking intimation wlich amounted to an assurance, that it he didn’t find it by the time he got back he would throw him off. The transportation on No. 1 was mostly through tickets and rmulna only ordi- nary care as to the date limits; not much scalper's stuff turned up on the west- bound. Pat called agaln as he closed the door of the chalr car behind him a shade less harshly for tickets, because one naturally respects more people who ride In the chair car—and then there are women. One speaks more civilly to wo- men passengers, but scans their trans- portation more !aoh.u:. However, he A lump jumped into the baggageman’s wasn't thinking of women's wiles as he quietly roused the sleepers and asked for their credentials. They were worn tired- looking womer); haggard, a good many of them, from catnaps snaiched in the specilally devised discomfort chairs, while thelr more fortunate sisters sicpt peace- fully back in the hair-mattressed Pull- man berths. He was thinking solely, as he mechanically went through the check- ing operation, of a cattleman in a can- vas coat, smooth face and red tie, who should by rights be now half way down the car, just ahead of him. But the con- ductor Francis didn’t look. His eyes never rose byond the passenger under his nose, for in front of a company detective the hate and the curiosity are all concealed; the conductor i} strictly on dress parade with a sting in his right arm that he would lke to land directly under the spotter's ear. A shabby traveling man—a cigar man— handed up & local ticket. It was for Antelope Gap. Pat Francis looked at it for a minute before he punched it and stuck it in his pocket. “We don’t stop at Antelope Gap to- night,” sald he shortly. “Don’t stop?” echoed the cigar man, wide awake In a .fraction of a second. “Vy, since ven? Day tclt me you dit,” e Frank H. Spearman’s Thrilling knllroad Stories. This Is the First of a Remarkable Series by This Talented Writer. Watch for | “The Trainman’s Story”---Next Sunday. TS SR he cried in the most injured tone on the train. “Can’t help it* “But vy-e?* “I'm lat “Bud ¥ god-do!" cried the cigar man, raising & note of absolute terror, as Pat Francis passed calmly on without at- tempting to controvert the confidence of the drumme; “Aln't you god-do?” appealed the latter, weakening a bit as he realized he was against a quiet man and hard. “Not on local transportation. Tickets!” he continued to the next. But the cigar man happily came of a race that does not uncomplainingly sub- mit. and he kicked vociferously, as Pat Francis expected he would, By the time the excited salesman had woke every- body up in his end of ths car and worked himself into a lather, Pat came at him with a proposition. “Where are you going from Antelope?” “Vild Hat.” “What's the matter with going up to ‘Wild Hat to-night and I'll give you a train check back to Antclope on 2 to-mor- row; then you can get back on 71 to the Bend?”’ The injured man considered quickly, ac- cepted speedily. Twe hundred miles for nothing. “My frient! Haff a cigar, aber don forgod my dransbordation back,: vill vou?” The conductor nodded as he took the cigar stoically and moved on. It was one stop saved and the Antelope stop was a terror at any time with a big train like No. 1. Francis had reached the rear of the chair car, when he had an impression he had forgotten something. He stopped to think. The cattleman! Turning, he looked back sharply over the passengers. He even walked slowly back through the car looking for the fellow. There was no cattieman in sight and, walking back, Francis dismissed him with the conclusion that he must have gotten off at the Bend: and at once the air in the / chalr car smelled fresher and cleaner, Into the sleepers then—that was easy. Orily to take the batch of envelopes from each porter or conductor and tear.off the coupons and in the Portland sleeper a half fare, which meant only a little row with the tactless man who had gone into throat, but Francis a bitter discussion with a’ conductor the day before way back at the Missour! River as to whether his boy should'pay fare. Instead of gracefully paying when called on, he had abused the conductor, who, may be because there was a *‘spot- 5 ter” sitting by, had felt compelled for self-protection to collect the half rate. But In retaliation for the abuse the con- ductor had reported to the next conduc- tor a half fare in the Portland sleeper, and thus started an endless chain of an- noyance that would haunt the traveler all the way to the coast. But sometimes travelers will. study tact and forswear abuse and its penalties. Conductor Francis, finishing the string of loaded Pullmans sat down in the smoking-room of the last car with the hind-end brakeman to straighten out his collections. The headlight of the pusher threw in a yellow dazzle of light on them and the continuous cut of its fire boomed from the stack. Pat Francis, setting down his lamp, began to sniff. “Smell anything?’ he asked presently of his companion. “No,” answered the brakeman, draw- ing his head from the curtain hood un- der which he had been looking out into the storm. “Something here don’t smell right,” sald Francis shortly, sorting his tickets, ““Where are we?” “Getting out of the gorge.” Francis looked at his watch. “Is Jack Fi Frapei BY holding his own?” ventured the brake- man. “Just about.” “Stop at Antelope to-night?" ‘Not on your lifel” “Réd Cloud?” ot to-night. “How about the pusher?” “All the way over the Horseback to- night.” “That's the stuff.” “That’s Bucks. Bucks is the stuft,” sald Pat Francis, arbitrarily picking up his lamp to go forward. Two minutes later he was in the smoker bending over the Itallan and shaking him. head rose again out of the dust. “Got your ticket, Tony?" “No gotta’ ticket.” “Money 2" “No gotta &' mun.” “Come on then!™ by the collar. “Whata do?” “Throw you oft.” The Itallan drew back to resist. They parleyed a moment longer, only because Francis was bluffing. If he had meant to stop the train at any point he would have said nothing—simply dragged the fellow out by the hair. At last the Itallan produced three dol- lars and a half. It was only enough to check him to Red Cloud. He wanted to go through, and the fare was eleven dollars and twenty cents. The silent conductor stuck the money in his pocket and drew his cash fare slips. Just then the pusher whistled a stop signal. Francis started, suddenly furious at the sound. Shoving the slips into, his pocket he hurried to the vésti- bule and put his head angrily out. Ahead he saw _only John Parker's lamp and streamers. John had slid his door be- fore Francis could open the vestibule. That was why the conductor loved him, Francls gripped him Y FRAN : because nobody, not even himself, ever got ‘shead of John. When Francis poked his head out to look for puble, J Parker’s head w already the wind inspecting the trouble, which came t time from the hind end. Looking bac Francis saw a blaze leaping from a jou nal box. ust as I expectes he muttered with a freezing word. “That hind end man couldn't smell a tar bucket if you stuck his bead Into it. Get your grease, John,” he shouted to the old baggzage- man, nd a palr of brasses. Hustle!” There was hardly time for the crew to slip into their overcoats, when Moore made a sullen stop. ~ But old John Parker wes ready, and walting ahead stop, with & can of grease, because J didn’t have any overcoat. He bad nights without any overcoat; two girls were at boarding in Ilinols. John picked up e wmonth carrving dogs to buy an overcoat, but the dog money went largely for music and French, which were extras in Illi- 80 the girls parlez vous'd and John plled out without any overcoat. Pat Francis stormed worse than mountains as he followed him. Al scheming to save a single stop was z ing away in a hot box. Moore, on the head engine, was too angry to leave his cab. It was just a bit too exasperating. The pusher crew stood by and the second engineer helped just a little. But it was Pat Francis and John, with the safeties screaming bedlam In ears, with the sleet creeping confidingly down their backs, and with the wate soaking unawares up their legs—it w Pat and John, silent and stubborn, who dug bitterly at the sizzling box, flung out the blazing waste, set the screw, twisted 1t, hooked out the smok brasses, shoved In the new ones, dw the grease, stuffed the wasts, and ralsed their lamps for Moore before the last of the bad words had blown out of the head cab and down the canyon. With a squeaking and groaning and jerking, with a viclous breakaway and an anxious In- terval whenever a pafr of drivers let go, Moore got his enormous load rolling up the grade again, and kept her rolling hour after hour along curve and tangent to the Horseback, and across. At the crest day broke, and the long, heavy train, far above the night and the storm, screamed for the summit yard slowed up, halted, and every man-jack of the train crew and engine crews jump off to shake hands with himself on t plucky run—in spite of it all, and a hair better. “How’d you ever do It, Jack? asked Pat Francis at the head engine, &3 Moore crawled out of his undersides “How late are we? returned the & sineer, stowing his can and calling for a wrench. “Three hours.” “Beat the time a little, didn’'t laughed Moore, with a face lke a lob- ster. “Couldn’t done it, Pat, If you'd stopped me anywhere. I wouldn't done ft—not for anybody. Burdick s knocked clean out, too. Are you all ready back there?” The pusher, foped by with a jubilant ki roundhouse; and the doub! aders, wa- Sered and coaled afresh, started with No. 4 down the mountain side. schedu we?” discor He A different start that—a-running past the wind instead of into it; a sluing that brought excursionists up in a tumble as the sleepers swung lariat-lke around the canyon corners. It was only a case of hang-on after that, hanging on all the way to Wild Hat; and then, just as the Columbian Pacific train passengers left their breakfasts at Benton, No. 1, gray and grimy, rolled into the junctiom thir- ty-five minutes late and the agony was over. The connection was safe, but no- body noticed who made it. Everybody was too much occupled with the sunshine and the scenery to observe a pair of dis- reputable, haggard, streaked, hollow-eyed tramps who made thelr way modestly along the edge of the platform. It was only Pat Francis and Moore, conductor and engineer of No. L The agony was over for everybody Pat Francls. Ten days later Bucks, perintendent of the mountain diviston, sat in his den at the Wickiup, reading a let- ter from the general manager: Sir: On Thursday, June 28, Conductor P. Francis, leaviag M. B. on No. 1, collected & cash fare of $3 50 from ome of our special service men. He falled to issue a cash fare slip for this as required; furthermore, he car