The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, September 20, 1903, Page 13

THE SUNDAY CALL. 13 If he had dollars and a hal?, thought y would rather have 2y check than to hav hold up onme dollar. itactturn, sphinx-like, sportation at that par- on No. § on the run east scking passengers, keep- ventil-_tors and the he run up to the was going home, and m the Pullmans ny in the moun- ragtime and e our scenery he grade where g would alone ary eastern pull=ad imseld The Overiand Freight No. 66, east- ' of tea, was pull- tec station as No. 2 stuck e foot of the Noose. At Toltec, on the day run, we take a man’s breadth and give him large value for his money in a bit of the prettiest ngineering anywhere on earth, Toltec lies in the Powder Range, near of a great curve called ‘the because every time an engineer the head of his train into it he is glad to hold his breath till he gets it out The Toltec Noose is engineering mag- nificent; but it is rallroading without words—unless . one counts the wicked word Eagle Pass station, the head of the Noose, looks across an unspeakable gulf directly down imto Toltec, 500 feet below and barely a mile away. But by the rail we count seven miles around that curve and without any land grant per- quisites, either, Every train that runs the Noose is dou- ble-headed both w. and now—this was before—they add, to keep trainmen off the relief scrap, & pusher. That day there was no pusher behind the Overland Freight, and No. 2's crew, y pulled out of Toltec to climb the , could plainly see above and across storming, struggling, choking engines of the tea traln as they neared with their d the summit of Eagle Pass. e wind bore down to them in break. waves the sucking. roaring cut of up on one leg and fum- the quiyering furnaces. Pat Francis stood in the open door of the baggage car, old John Parker and the head brakeman be- side him, looking together at the freight bled an instant at with the absorbed air of men at the bot- 6T 5f & well who watch the loaded buck- et near the top. Through the thin, clear mountain air Shey could almost read the numbers on the engine tenders. They could see the freight conductor start over his train for the head end, and as they looked they saw his tiain break in two behind him, and the rear end, parting like a snake's tall, siovgh off, lose headway, and roll ellowston Iss 2 back down the hill. The hind-end brake- man, darting from the caboose, ran up the ladder ltke a cat and began setting brekes. The passenger crew saw the brake shoes clutch In a flame at the slip- ping trucks, but the drawbars couldn’t stand it. From one of the big tea cars @& drawhead parted like a tooth. The tea train again broke i{m two, this time be- Mnd the rear brakeman, and the caboose, with five 60,000-pound cars, shot down the grzde, and No. 2 was now climbing the lock, above Toltec. A voliey of danger signals curled white from the freight engine across the gulf. Pat Francis sprang for the bell cord, but it was needless; his engineers at the very moment threw double chambers of air.on the wheels. It caught-cards off the whist tables, and swept baked potatoes into the bosoms of astonishd diners; it spoiled the point of pretty jokes and broke the tedium of stupld stories; it upset roysterers and staggered sober men; it basted the cooks with gravy and the waiters with fruit; it sent the blood to the hearts and a chill to the brains; it was an emergency stop, and a severe one—No. 2 was against it. Before the frightened porters could open the vestibules the passenger engines were working in the back motion, and No. 2 was scuttling down the Noose to get and then (IPEOd Its away from Impending disaster. The trainmen huddled again In the baggage car door, with their eyes glued on the runaways; the Noose is so perfect a curve that every foot of their flight could be seen. It was a race backward to save the passenger train; but for every mile they could crowd Into its wheels the run- aweys were making two. Pat Francis saw it first—saw it before they had cov- ered half the distance back to Toltec. They could never make the hill west of the Noose; it wasn't in steam to beat gravity. Moreover, if they crowded No. 2 too hard she might fly an elevation and g0 into the gulf. It is one thing to run down hill and another thing to fall down hill. The tea train was falling doWwn hill. Francis turned to bare-headed John Parker and handed him his watch and his_money. “What do you mean?" John Parker choked the words out because he knew what he meant. “Turn this stuft in to Bucks, John, if I don’t make it. I{’s all company mone. The brakeman, greenish aad dazed, steadled himself with a hand on the jamb; the baggageman stared wild-eyed through his rusty lenses. “Pat,” he fal- tered, “what do you mean?”’ “I'll drop off at the Toltec switch and maybe I can open it to catch that string ‘—we’'ll never make it this way, John, In Ged's world “You might a'most as well jump out into the canyon: you'll never ilve to use a switch key, Pat—we're crowding a mile a minute.—" Francis looked at him steadily as he pulled his ring and took a switch key off the bunch. hey're crowding 2, John." The car siued under them. John Parker tore off his spectacles. “Pat, I'm a lighter man than you- 1" he ecried, grip- give me the switch-key! ping the conductor's shoulder as he fol- lowed him out of the door to the plat- fom. “No. “Your children are younger than mine, Pat. Give me the key.” “This is my train, John. to look after my Insurance.” With these words Francis tore the old Ask Bucks JerKed the target. man’s hand roughly away. When a min. ute s a mile, action is quick. Sixty, reventy seconds more meant the Toltec switch, and the conductor already hung from the bottom step of the baggage car. Fat Francls was- byflt like a gorila. He swung with his long arms in and out -from the reeling train into a rhythm, one foot dangling in the suck of dust and cinders, the other bracing lightly against the steptread. Then, with the switch key In his mouth, with Parker's whirtwind sucking to the wheels under him, with No. 2's drivers racing asove 2'm and a hundred passengers starinz velow him, Pat Francis let go. Men In the sleepers, only half under- standing, saw as he disappeared a burst of alkall along the track. Only old John Parker’s gray eye could see thut his con- ductor, though losing his feet, had rolled clear of the trucks and drivers and was tumbling in the storm center like a por- cupine. Above him the tea cars were lurching down the grade. Oid John, straining, saw Francis stagger to his feet and double back like a jackkhife on the ballast. A lump jumped into the baggage- — 4 man's throat, but Francls’ head rose again out of the dust; he raised agaln on his hands and dragging after him one leg like a dead thing, crawled heavily toward the switch. He reached the stand and caught at it. He pulled himself up on one leg and fumbled an Instant at the lock, then he jerked the target. As it tell, clutched in both his hands, the caboose of the tea train leaped on the tongue rail. The fore truck shot into the sw! The heels, caught for a hundredth of a second in the slot, flew out, and like the head of a foaming cur the cabocse doubled frantically on fits trallers. The tea cars tripped, jumped the main rall like cannon balls, one, two, three, four, five—out and into the open guif. The crash rolled up the gorge und down. It drove eagi*s from their nesis and wolves from their hollows. Startied birds wheeling above the headlong cars shrieked a chorus; a cloud ilke smoke followed the wreck down the mountain side. And the good people of No. 2, the pleasure-seekers that Pat Francis was taking care of—$125 a month—saw It all and tried to keep cool and think. He lay prostrate across the road, a bruized and dirty and bloody thing. John Parker, stumbling on ricke reached him first, but he spoke az: again before the bloodshor eyes reluct- antly opened. And then Pat Francls, choking, spitting, gasping. clutching at John Parker's bony arm, ralsed his head. It fell back iInto the cinders. 3ut he doggedly raised it agaln—and shook the broken teeth from between his and lived. His face was Ilike a séction of beefsteak, and the iron leg that struck the ballast last had snapped twice under him. A few minutes afterward he lay In the statercom of the forward slceper and tried with his burning, swollen tongue to talk to Brooklyn men who feelingly stared at him, and to Brooklyn women who pret- tily cried at him, and to old John Parker who unsteadily swore at him as he fanned his own whiskers and Pat Francls’ head with the baggage clip. ‘When No. 2 rolled Into Medicine Bend next morning Bucks climbed aboard, and without ceremony elbowed his way through the efcursionists dress in the alsles to the injured conductor's state- room. He was in there a good bit. When he came out the chief priests of Brooklyn crowded around to say fast things to the superintendent about his conductor and their conductor. As they talked Bucks looked In a minute over thelr heads; he did that way when think- ing. Then he singled out the Depew of the party and put his hand on his shoul- der. “Look here,” sald Bucks, and his words snapped like firecrackers, “I want you gentlemen to do something for your con- ductor.” “We've made up a purse of $300 for him, my friend,” ‘announced the spokes- man, gladly. “I don’t mean that, not that. trouble. You needn’t waste any breath on me. I know that man as well as if 1'd made him. I'll tell you what I want. I want you to come upstairs and dic- tate your acceunt of the accident to my stneographer. While vou're eating break- fast he'll copy it, and you can all sign it afterward. Wil you?” “Will we? Get your slave!" “I'll tell you why,” continued Bucks, addressing the Brooklyn man impressive- ly. “You look like a man who, may be, knows what trouble fs. “I do.” “I thought s0,"” exclaimed Bucks, warm- ing. “If that's so, we belong to the same lodge—same degree. You see, there's charges against him. They've had spot- ters after him,” added Bucks, lowering his voice to the few gentlemen who crowded about. “There's plenty of Brooklyn men here for a Ilynching! Bucks smiled a far-off smile. *“The boys wouldn’t irouble you to help if they could catch them. I want your statement to send in to headquarters with Francis’ answer to the charges. They tried to make him out a thief, but I've Jjust found out they haven't touched him. His explanaticn is perfectly straight.” The men of Brooklyn tumbled up the Wickiup stairs. At breakfast the news traveled faster than hot rolis. When the paper was drawn the signing began, but He's In Exevrsiop ~ -- - ursuver they so crowded the upper floor that Bucks was afraid of a collapse, and the testimonial was excitedly carried down to the walting-room. Then the women wanted to sign. When they began It looked serious. for no woman could be hurried, and those who were creatures of sentiment dropped a tear on their signa~ tures, thinking the paper was to hang in Pat Fran parior. In the end Bucks had to hold No. 8 thirty minutes and to lay out the Te- mains of the tea traln, which was still walting to get out of the yard. After the last yell from the departing excursionists, Bucks went back to his of~ fice and @ ed for the general manager a report of the Toltec wreck. Then he wrote this letter to him: Replying to yours of the 8th, relative to the charges against Conductor P. J. Francts, I have his statement in the matter. The detestive who paid the cash fare to Red Cloud was not put off thers becauss no stop was made, the train being that night unde: make no stops below Wild Hat first of the Brookiyn Yellowstone excursions, and Chicago was anxious to make the Colum- blan Pacific connection. This was done in spite of number one’s coming into this division three hours late and agal Hat the detective, rigged as an Itallan, was overlooked In the hurry and carried by. While sifp was fssued, the fare was nductor Franeis to the auditor estigation of his his statement of It 50, agres with me that he is relfeved of any suspicion of dishom- ter. 1 have nevertheless cau- tioned him on his faflure to hand th esty In the m: their opinion of m No. 2 to set ¢ which Is respect: "KS, Superir Pat Francis s still running passenger. But Alfabet Smith's men work more now on the East E (Copyright, 192, by Frank Spearman.) priciemety Child Life in Siam. When the Slamese girl gets up In the morning she does not go to the wash- stand to wash her face, for the simple reason that ese housed can boast no such article of furniture. So she just runs down to the foot of the ladder—for the house s buflt on posts—to a large jar of water with a cocoanut shell dipper. There she washes her face by throwing the water over her hands and rubbing them dver her face. She needs no towel, for the water is left to dry. She does not brush her teeth, for they are stained black by chewing the betel nut. Her hair does not require combing, either, for it is all shaved except & little tuft on the top ¢ the head, and that is tled In & lttle knot, and not often combed. After breakfast is over the children go off and find some pleasant piace in which at keeping house, to play. The girls play and make dishes of clay dried in the sun.* Little images of clay washed with lime are their only dolis. The boys in Siam are very fond of pitch- ing coins, and spend much time in this game. They play leapfrog, very often Jump rope and p.ay marbles. the month of March, though usually and hot, winds are blowing. At this the Siamese, young and old, are ed with whistles and the air resounds with the noise produced by them and the shouts of the multitudes of people engaged in the sport. As the streets in Stam are almost all rivers and canals, the Siamese boys and early learn to row and paddle boats arn to swim, are only 4 or § girl almost as soon as they which they do wh years old. e Oldest House in the World. Not since humanity began delving into the mysteries of the existence of primi- tive man has a discovery been made so rich In its suggestiveness of the home Yife of prehistoric races as that made by the United States Revenue cutter Bear on her recent cruise to the Arctic Ocean. A house built by human beings at least 3000 years ago, and probably of an antiquity far greater, was discovered by Alaskan natives near Point Barrow, and many of the utensils used by the people who made it a habitation were secured. Stone hatchets, stone knives, and other stone and bone implements belonging to races that flourished before the dawn of his- tory, have frequently been found, but never before has a house in which they lived been found preserved through the wrecks of time and all the elemental catastrophes that have strewn the sur- face of the earth with ruin and death. — ——————— The Telegraph Plant. Professor J. C. Bose recently presented to the Linnean Society in London the re- sults of experiments which will show that the peculiar movements of the leaflets of the so-called “telegraph-plant” are due to an electrical disturbance traveling as a “current of action” in the plant. Each leaf consists of a large terminal leaflst and two smaller lateral ones. The later- al leaflets spontaneously rise and fall like the arms of a semaphore, the period of & complete movement being about three and a half minutes. Hence the name of the plant, which is a species of “desmo- dium,” or tick-trefoil, native to the East Indies, but easily cuitivable in conserva- tories. -+ Frank H. Spearman’s Thrilling Railroad Stories. This Is the First of a Remarkable Series by This Talented Writer. Wateh for “The Trainman’s Story’’ ---Next Sunday. o O i S B