The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, May 29, 1904, Page 7

THE SAN FRANCISCO SUNDAY CALI! the d sion—the man on the whole endent mas- rekeep- There were hem, tee y wd down at eet She he big even if lock climbed 1 shoved slan nwd a trunk without a pretense > outgoing crew in hurry. The ; downstairs from g lled his cap down d ahead against give the engineer his copy as the new engine was puiled the can- e cab end. The 1 vack to exam- ng and gave his 3 the conductor " t gineer. There were shor snorts from the 101, and 5% moved out crea‘n ily, evenl was Bucks. He came up to fice and sat down. Callahan wondered why be didn’t go home and to bed; but the dispatcher's of- an was t to ask ques suy Bucks might have stc s ad on the stove, and it re being pur- sued with inqu allahan. If Bucks chose to sit up re on the prairies y barn of a n and w wind howling rder at 12 o'clock past, and that on “hri—the of December, it was Juck’s own business 1 kind of looked for my mother to- night,” sal ter Callahan got his orders out ¢ e way for a minute Vrote she w coming out pretty soon “Where does your mother live?” “Chicago. 1 sent her transportation two weeks ago. Reckon she thought she’'d better stay at h for Christ- as. Back in God's cour 'l) they have Christmas just about this time of year. h out to-night, Jim I'm going € s a wind for your life.” Callahan was making a meeting point "1*&.“& when !}‘" door closed he did even sing out t” And as to Merry Chri— had no place on the West End an D-i, D-i, into th D-i, D-1,” came clicking Callahan wasn't asleep, Once he did sleep over the key. When he told Bucks he made sure of his time; only he thought Bucks ought to know. Bucks shook his head pretty hard that time. “It's awful business, Jim. It's murder, you know. It's the peni- tentiary, If they should convict you. But it's worse than that. happened because you went to sleep over the key, you’d have them on your mind all your life, don't you know— forever. Men—and—and children. That's what 1 always think about—the children. Maimed and scalded and burned. Jim, if it ever happens again, If anything »ad manquit dispatching; get into commercial work; mistakes don't cost life there; don’t try to handle trains. If it ever happens with you, you'll kill your- self.” That was all he said; it was enough. And no wonder Callahan loved him. The wind tore frantically around the station; but everything else was so still. It was one o'clock now, and not a soul about but Callahan. D-i, D-, J,” clicked sharp and fast. “Twelve or fourteen cars passed here—just—now east—running a-a-a-" Callahan sprang like a flash—listened. What? n-i-n-g a-w-a-y? It was the Kacons operator Callahan jumped to the key. that?" he asked, quick as could dash it. “Twelve or fourteen cars coal passed here, fully forty miles an hour, headed east, driven by the wi—" That was all J could send, for Oga- lalla broke in. Ogalalla 1s the station Just west of Jackson. And with Calla- han’s copper hair raising higher at every letter, this came from Ogalalla: “Heavy gust caught tweive coal cars on side track, sent them out on main line off down the grade.” They were already past Jackson, eight miles away, headed east, and running down hill. Callahan's eyes turned llke hares to the train sheet. 69, going west, was due that minute to leave Callendar. From Callendar to Griffin is a twenty-mlle run. Thére is a station between, but in those days no night operator. The runaway coal train was then less than thirty miles west of Griffin, coming down a forty- mile grade like a cannon ball, If 59 could be stopped at Callendar, she could be laid by in five minutes, out of the way of the certain destruction ahead of her on the main line. Calla- han seized the key and began calling calling; “What's lightning T L Peaw %flsfll’wzfp “Cn.” He pounded until the call burn- ed into his fingers. It was an age be- fore Callendar answered; then Calla- han’s order flew: “Hold 59. Answer quick.” And Callendar answered: “59 just pulling out of upper yard. Too late to stop her. What's the matter?” Callahan struck the table with his clinched fist, looked wildly about him, then sprang from the chair, ran to the window and threw up the sash. The moon shone a bit through the storm of sand, but there was not a soul in sight. There were lights in the roundhouse, a hundred yards across tlHe track. He pulled a revolver—every railroad man out there carried one those days—and, covering one of the roundhouse win- dows, began flring. It was a risk. There was one chance, maybe, to a thousand of his killing a night man. But there were a thousand chances to one that a whole trainload of men and women would be killed inside of thirty minutes if he couldn't get help. He chose a window in the machinists’ section, where he knew no one usually went at night. He poured bullets into the unlucky casement as fast as pow- der could carry them. Reloading rap- idly, he watched the roundhouse door, and, sure enough, almost st once, it was cautiously opened. Then he fired into the air—one, two, three, four, five, six—and he saw & man start for the station on the dead run. He knew, too, by the tremendous sweep of his legs, that it was Ole Anderson, the night foreman, the man of all others he wanted. “Ole,” cried tHe dispatcher, waving his arms frantically as the glant Swede leaped across the track and looked up from the platform below, “Go get Bucks. I've got a runaway train going against 69. For your life, Ole, run!" The big fellow was into the wind with the word. Bucks boarded four blocks away. Callahan, slamming down the window, took the key and began calling Rowe. Rowe is the first station east of Jackson; it was now the first point at which the runaway coal train could be headed. “R-0 R-0,” he rattled. The operator must have been sitting on the wire, for he answered at once. As fast as Calla- han’s fingers could talk he told Rowe the story and gave him orders to get the night agent, who, he knew, must be down to sell tickets for 69, and plle all the tles they could gather across the track to derail the runaway train. Then he began thumping for Kolar, the next station east of Rowe, and the sec- ond ahead of the runaways. He pound- ed and pounded, and when the man at Kolar answered, Callahan could have sworn he had been asleep—just from the way he talked. Does it seem strange? There are many strange things about a dispatcher’s senses. “Send your night man to west switch house-track and open for runaway train. Set brakes hard on your empties on siding, to spill runaways If possible. Do anything and everything to keep them from getting by you. Work quick.” Behind Kolar's O. K. came a frantic call from Rowe. “Runaways passed here like a streak. Knocked the ties into toothpicks. Couldn't head them."” Callahan didn’t wait to hear any more. He only wiped the sweat from his face. It seemed forever before Ko- lar spoke again. Then it was only to say: “Runaways went by here before night man could get to switch and open it.” Would Bucks never come? And if he did come, what on earth could-stop the runaway train now? They were head- ing into the worst grade on the west end. It averages one per cent from Kolar to Griffin, and there we get down off the Cheyenne Hills with a long re- verse curve and drop into the canyon of the Blackwood with a three per cent grade. Callahan, almost beside him- self, threw open a north window to look for Bucks. Two men were flying down Main street toward the station. He knew them;j it was Ole and Bucks. But Bucks! Never before or since was seen on a etreet of MeCloud such a figure as Bucks—in his trousers and slippers, with his night shirt free as he sajled down the wind. In another instant he was bounding up the stairs. Callahan told him. -“What have you done?” he panted, throwing himself into the chalr. Qal- lahan told him. Bucks held his head in his hands while the boy talked. He turned to the sheet—asked quick for 59. *She’s out of Callendar. I tried hard to stop her. I didn’t lose a second; she ‘Barely an instant Bucks studied.the sheet. Routed out of a sound sleep after an eight-hour trick, and on such a night, by such a message—the mar- vel was he could think at all, much less set a trap which should save 59. In twenty minutes from the time Bucks took the key the two trains &8 -_— = would be together. Could he save the passenger? Callahan didn’t believe it. A sharp, quick call brought Griffin. ‘We had one of the brightest lads on the whole division at Griffin. Calla- han, listening, heard Grifin answer. Bucks rattled a question. How the heart hangs on the faint, uncertain tick of a sounder when human lives hang on {t! ‘“Where are your section men?” ask- ed Bucks. “In bed at the section-house.” ‘“Who's with you?" “Night agent. Sheriff with two cow- boy prisoners waiting to take 59.” Before the last word came Bucks was back at him: “To Operator: Ask Sheriff release his prisoners to save passenger train. Go together to west switchhouse track; open and set it. Smash in section tool- house; get tools. Go to point of house track curve; cut the rails and point them to send runaway train from Oga- lalla over the bluff into the river. “BUCKS.” The words flew off his fingers like sparks, and another message crowded the wire behind it: “To Agent: Go to east switch; open and set for passing track. Flag 59 and run her on siding. If can't get 59 into the clear ditch the runaways. “BYCKS.” They look old now. The ink is faded and the paper is smoked with the fire of fifteen winters and bleached with the sun of fifteen summers. But to this day they hang there in their walnut frames, the original orders, just as Bucks scratched them off. They hang there in the dispatchers’ offices in the new depot. But in their present swell surroundings Bucks wouldn't know them. It was Harvey Reynolds who took them off the other end of the wire—a boy in a thousand for that night and that minute. The instant the words flashed into the room he in- structed the agent, grabbed an ax and dashed out into the walting-room, where the Sheriff, Ed Banks, sat with his prisoners, the cowboys. “Ed,” cried Harvey, “there's a run- away train from Ogallala coming down the line in the wind. If we can’t trap it here, it']l knock 59 into kindling- wood. Turn the boys loose, Ed, and save the passenger train. Boys, show the man and square yourselves right now. I don’t know what you're here for, but I belleve it’s to save 5. Will you help?” The three men sprang to their feet; Ed Banks slipped the handcuffs off in a trice. “Never mind the rest of it. Save the passenger train first,” he roared. Everybody from Ogallala to Omaha knew Ed Banks. “Which way? How?" cried the cow- boys, in a lather of excitement. Harvey Reynolds, beckoning as he ran, rushed out the door and up the track, his posse at his heels, stumbling into the gale like lunatics. “Smash in the toolhouse door,” pant- ed Harvey as they neared It. Ed Banks seized the ax from his bands and took command as naturally , boys, as Dewey. “Pick up that tie and ram her,” he cried, pointing to the door. 1 to- gether—now.” Harve the cowboys splin ink in the pan at with a clean strokes, ing. Th boys, jun ran in began fishir the dark. One got holc the other a pick a clawba. maul. In of the c lies the stone biuff that looms up above the river But it is g to order a comtact opened, and anotk thing to ¢ on De ty-fifth know no more about tra about logarithms. Sic shoulder to shoulder t law and the men out roughriders and the ral and wrenched and ¢ 1 and stru gied with the steel. While Harvey and Banks clawed at the s the cow- boys wrestled with t bolts of the fish-plates, It The nuts wouldn't twist stuck llke piles, sweat cov sailants, Harvey went Boys, we must work fa. tugging at the frosty s and blood could do no m “There they come—th s e away train—do you hear 1t 1 to open the sw shouted, starting up the k. “Save yoursclves.” + Heed] the wa Banks the p s in & the mau vy t ried e a tack- hammer heavily he bolt nuts; o and again; and they flew in a stream lik the bluff. The tal knees, rais given. Springi rall, Banks str mad tr: above them der the loos pry that bent the ¢ yell that reached Harve g at the switch, they t the stubborn contac e ralls over the precipice. The shriek of a locomotive whistle cut the w L boking east, Harvey had been watching aJ s headlight. She was pulling In siding. He still held the switc aways Into the the passenger train get into the clear; but there w: ute yet— a bare sixty seconds—anda }hr\'-y had no idea of dum r‘n‘. lars’ worth ‘of equi unless .‘" had to ck—i line was clear. waiting br with a determine line contac In the next breath the sweep of the gale Harvey ose the main > coalers, with ir frightful velocity, smashe switch and on. A rattling f ballast and a dizzy clatter of before the e, and frightened crew ses what «#as up agair runaway train was passe “T wasn't goir t top here to- night,” mutte: ngineer, as he stood with the conduct ver Harvey's shoulder at the o ator a min- ute later and wiped t} from his forehead with a | f “We'd have met them | anyon.” Harvey was r yrtin to Bucks. Callahan heard it coming. “Ralls cut, but 59 safe. naways went by here fully seventy F - It was r Grifin s the foot of the gra >m there on the runaway trair to climb. Bucks had held 250, t 1l passen- X rty miles the wind, the hough not at half their highe: An instant later 250's eng cut loose and started after them llke a scared col- lle. Three miles east of Davis they were overh e light engine. The firema crawled out of the cab window, alo g the footrall and down on the pilot, caught the lad- der of the first car and, ruaning up, crept along to the leader and began setting brakes. Ten minutes later they were brought back in triumph to Davis. When the multitude of orders was out of the way Bucks wired E4 Banks to bring his cowboys down to Mo~ Cloud on 0. Sixty was the eastbound passenger dus at McCloud at 5:30 a. m. It turned out that the cowboys had been arrested for lassoing a Nor- wegian homesteader, who had out their wire. It was not a heinous of- fense and after it was straightened out by the intervention of Bucks—who was the whole thing then—they were given jobs lassoing sugar barrels In the train service. One of them, the tall fellow, is a passenger conductor on the high line yet. It was 8 o'clock that morning—the 25th of December in small letters, on the West End—before they got things decently straightened out; there was so much to do—orders to make and reports to take. TLucks, still on the key in his flowing robes and tumbling hair, sent and took them all. Then he turned the seat over to Callahan and, getting up for the first time in two hours, dropped iInto another chair. The very first. thing Callahan ceived wad a personal from Pat Fran- cis, at Ogalalla, conductor of §9. It was for Bucks: “Your mother is aboard §9. She was carried by McCloud in the Den- ver sleeper. Sending her back to you re- on 60. Merry Christm It came off the wire Callahan, taking it, didn't think Bucks heard Any- to- hear. clip ov though. it’s probable he way Callahan threw ward him with a laugh “Look there. old mother comi —carried by on There’s your r all your kicking 59.” As the boy turned he saw the big dispatcher’s head sink between his arms on the table. Callahan sprang to his side; but Bucks had fainted.