The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, May 1, 1904, Page 7

— none ng b e > E e was emough to keep us f it came a great Nebraska that every brak- work get a cher is them, ! » Buckley & ng months lay and as materiai 4 mnot ken T ked one first rate. But 2 kr hav t been braking ve said frankly in ry ng, Mr. Ree e How long have you been the train service I spoke thon though. I knew service ing at my it was. Mr. Reed.” long months send you out " I saw him stiffén “You know ‘we're pret- ontinued. do you know enough to keep sur head on your shoulders and your irain on your orders? offt Ben laughed a little. “I think I do. W ere be two sections to-day?’ e loading eighteen cars of stock at Ogalalla; if we get any’ hogs Beaver there will be two big sections. 1 shall mark you up for the first one’ anyw and send you out izht behi flier. Get your badge and your punch from Carpenter—and whatever vou do, Buckley, don’t get rattled.” ? No, sir; thank you, Mr. Reed.” But his “thank vou" was so pleasant I couldn’t altogether. ignore, it; T com- 1@ cough. - Perfect .cour- hands of the awk- wore " his¥trous- y that e € a surprisingly handy thing le with. Ben was his legs were too his trousers decidedly out of with his feet; but I turned away tion that in spite of his awkward s something to the proved it. d in from -the west rnoon it carried two extra sleepers. In all eight Pullmans and ¢ of them loaded to the ators. While the train was chang- engines and crews, the excursi sts of the hot nd down the platform. New Y swarmed out cars They *0d had a band I up 2 wd as we ever I noticed girls sprink As the band_played kerchiefs selves h lgd among the grown folks. train pulled out the the women waved hand- i the boys shouted them- se—it like a holiday, everybody sce happy. Al I hoped, as I saw the sme’.e of the en- gine turn to dust on the horizon, we ., that I could get them over my division their safely hands. a week we had had heavy rains, was ed and lives For and the bridges and ‘track gave us off my worry. Half an hour after the flier left, 77, the fast stock freight, wound like a great snake around the bluff, after it. Ben Buckley, tall and straight as a stood on the caboose. It was his looked as if he felt pipe, first train and he it In the evening I got reports of heavy rains east of us, and after 77 reported of Turner Junction and pulled over the divide toward Beverly it was storming hard all along the line. By the time they reathed the hill Ben had his men out setting brakes—tough work on that kind of a night—but when the big engine struck the bluff the heavy train was well in hand and it rolled down the long grade as gently as a curtain. = Ben was none too careful, for half “out” _way down the hill they exploded tor- pedoes. Through the driving storm the tail lights of the flier were presently seerl. As -they ‘pulled carefully ahead Ben made his ‘way through the mud and rain ‘to the head end and found the passenger trzin stalled.. Just be- many boys and- THE SAN FRANCISCO SUNDAY CALL fore them was Blackwood Creek, bank full, and the bridge swinging over the swollen stream like a grapevine. At the foot of Beverly Hill there is a siding—a long siding, once used as a sort of cutoff to the upper Zanes- ville yards. This sidetrack parallels the main track for half a mile, and on this siding Ben, as soon as he saw the situation, drew in with his train, so that it Jay beside the passenger train and left the main line clear- behind. It then beCame his duty to guard the track to the. rear, where the second section of the stock train would soon be due, g 3 It was pouring rain and as dark as a pocket. H-= started his hind-end brakeman back on the run with red lights and torpedoes to warn the sec- ond’ section well up the hill. Then, walking across from his caboose, he got under the lee of the hind Pullman s HETPUSHED T8 arnd sleéper to watch for the expected head. light. : : The storm increased in Violence. It was not the rain driving in torrents, not the lightning blazing, nor the deaf- ening crashes of thunder, that wor- ried him, btit the wind—it blew.a gale. In the glare of the lightning he couid see the oaks which crownéd the bluffs whip like willows in the storm. It swept quartering down the Beverly cut as if it would tear the tles from un- der”the steel: Suddenly he saw, far up.in the black sky, a star blazing; it was the headlight of second 77. A whistle cut the wind;. then another. . It was the signal for brakes. The sec- ond section was coming down the steep grade. He wondaered how far back his man had got with the bombs. Even as he wondered he saw a vellow flash below the headlight; it was the first torpedo. The second section was al- ready down the top of the hill. Could they hold it to the bottom? Like an answer came shorter and sharper the whistle for brakes. Ben thought he knew who was on that en- gine; thought he knew that whistle, for ‘engineers whistle as differently as they talk. He still hoped and believed— knowing who was on the engine—that the brakes would hold the heavy load; but he feared— A man running up in the rain passed him. Ben shouted and held up his lan- tern; it was his head brakeman. “Who's pulling second 77?" he cried. “Andy Cameron.” “How many air cars has he got?” = <E> “Six or eight,” shouted Ben. “It's the wind, Daley—the wind. Andy can hold her if anybody can. - But the wind —did you ever see such a biow?” Even while he spoke the. cry for brakes came a third time in the storm. A frightened Pullman porter opened the rear door of the sleeper. Five hun- dred people lle in the excursion. train, unconscious of this avalanche rolling down upon them. The conductor "of the fller ran up to Ben in a panic. “Buckley, they'll telescope us.” “Can you pull ahead any?” o Rpras i - “BY A HAIR’'S BREADTH” Powerful Russian novel by Headon Hills which gives a néew insight into the maze of intrigue and plot and counterplot through which the Czar carries out his precarious existence ¥ W @ @ @ @ @ | BEGINS IN NEXT SUNDAY CALL b3 e o THRE W THE S T ‘The bridge is out.” 4 _ “Get out yaur passengers,” said Ben's brakemd#n, 3 “Phere’s no time,” cried the passenger conductor, wildly, running off. He was panic-stricken. The porter tried to speak. Heé fook hold of the brakeman's arm, but his voice died in his throat; fear paralyzed him. Down the wind came Cameron’s whistle, clamoring now in alarm. It meant the worst, and Ben knew it. The stock traim was running away. There were plenty of things to do if there was only time;” but there was hardly time to think. The passenger crew were running about like men dis- tracted, trying to get the sleeping trav- elers out. Ben knew they could not possibly reach a tenth of them. In the thought of what it meant an imspira- tion came like a flash. He seized his brakeman by the shoul- der. For two weeks the man carried the marks of his hand. “Daley,” he cried, in a veice like a pistol crack, “get those two stockmen out of your caboose. Quick, man! I'm going to throw Cameron into the cattle.” It was a chance—single, desperate, but yet ‘a chance—the only ¢hance that offered to save the helpless pas- sengers in his charge. If he could reach the siding switch ahead of the runaway train he could throw the deadly catapult on the sid- ing and into his own train and %0 save SRR HE=E e ST the unconsclous travelers. Before the words were ‘out of his mouth he start- ed up the track at topmost speed. The angry wind staggered him. It blew out his'lantern, but he flung it away, for he could ‘throw the switch in the dark. A sharp gust tore halt of his rain coat from his back; rip- ping off the rest, he ran on. When the wind took his breath he turned his. back and- fought for another. Blinding sheets of rain poured on him; water streaming down the track caught his feet; a slivered tie. tripped him.and, falling headlons, the sharp ballast cut his wrists and knees like broken glass.. In desperate haste he dashed ahead again; - the headlight loomed before him like a mountain of flame. There was light enough now through the sheets of rain that swept down- on him and there ahead, the train almost on it, was the switch. Could he make it? A cry from the sléeping children rose in his heart. Another breath, an instant floundering, a slipping leap, and he ‘had it. He pushed the key into- the -lock, - thréw the switch and snapped it and, to make deadly sure, braced himself against the target rod. Then he looked. : No whistling now; it was past that. He' knew the. fireman would have jumped. Cameron too? No, Tot Andy, not if the pit yawned in front of his pilot. : He saw streams of fire flying from many wheels—he felt the glare of a dazzling light—and with a rattling crash the ponies shot into the switch. The -bar in his hands rattled as if it 7 would jump from the socket and. lurching frightfully, the monster took the stding. A flare of lightning lit the cab as it shot past and he saw Cam- eron leaning from the cab window, with face of stone, his eyes riveted on the gigantic drivers that threw a sheet of fire from the sanded. ralls. “Jump!” screamed Ben, useless as he knew it was. What yoice could live in that hell of noise? What man es- cape from that cab now? One, two, three, four cars .pounded over ‘the #plit rails in half as many seconds. Ben, running dizzily for life to the right, heard above the roar of the storm and s¢reech of the sliding wheels a. ripping. tearing crash, the harsh scrape steam, the hoarse cries nded cattle. And through 1 ful dark and the fury of the babel wind howled in a gale and the heavens poured a flood. Trembling from excitement and ex- down the main track. a lantern ran against him; it was the brakeman who had ‘be > torpedoes; he was ery ally They stumbléd over a body. SeizinXk the lant prostr: man over mud from his face. Then r n close, .and. gave a It ‘'was Andy Cameron—unconscious true, but soomn vety much alive » worse than badly bruise good God who watches ¢ ineers had thrown h t m the horrible wreckage only He k But thers Andy lay; and with a headed a wrecking crew ighter heart Ben to begin_the task of searching for any who- might by fatal chance have been caught ia the crash. And while the trainmen of the freights worked at the wreck the pas- senger train was backed slowly—so slowly and so switch and past and so to Turner Junction, by.Oxford to Zanesville When the sun rose the earth slowed in the freshness of its June shower- bath. The flier, now many miles from Beverly Hill, was speeding in toward Omaha, and” mothers waking their little ones.in the berths told them how close death had passed while they slept. The little girls did net quite understand it, though they tried very hard, and were grateful to That Man whom they never saw and whom they would never see. But the little boys—never mind the little boys— they understood 1it, to the youngest urchin on the train, and fifty times their papas had to tell them how far Ben ran and how fast to save their lives. And one little boy—I wish I knew his name—went with his papa to the depot master at Omaha when the flier stopped and gave him his toy watch; and asked him please to give it to That Man who had saved his mamma‘s life by running so far in the rain, and please to tell him how much obliged he was—If he would be 80 kind. So the little toy watch came to our superintendent, and so to me; and I, sitting at-Cameron's bedside, talking the wreck over with Ben, gave it to him, and the big fellow looked as pleased as if it had been a jeweled chronometer; indeed, that was the only medal Ben got. The truth is we had no gold medals to distribate out on the West End in those days. We gave Ben the best we had, and that was a passenger rumn. But he is a great fellow among the riilroad men. And on stormy nights switchmen -in the Zanesville yards, smoking in their shanties, still tell of that night, that storm, and how Ben Buckley threw second 77 at the foot of Beverly HIilL il and past, and around