The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, June 5, 1904, Page 3

ting Denver ke running a ven to Dad at Oxford nough to an fter many once more as he does Creek way aha and Den- port of his father's d day-coach be- over of the remodeled by while ling and asked t she could Foley was feeling I mean,” all grimly and roaded too long to But, one d gotten with ust be y-scraper declared H class r old ectionately, Georgle,” corgie “stop a Sal Soda at all— ; and otests vigor- the stuck to hulking ma- ve s ; a story of the when old the Acton ustration I adage that one looks of a frog story the best il e wind? Not, lived on the everywhere t it really 1 and the i took the Acton h steadily. All erciless; the r 1 e terror ng, with the 1 the south- ng into n. He form he st th the pl when Reynold: coz up to the e and sprang into ds “was one of the s in the service. To see t or hat didn't count her, but to see it and almost ugh to stir even old habit to ask ques- looked at the man in g amazement Reynolds his breath, as he arm and pointed Dad,” he gasped, “three cars of ng there on the second spur . few minutes ago.” ? Blown through down the line, forty n grasped the frightened y shoulder. “What do you How long ago? When ‘s it due? ck, man! Whats the matter man by i Yo t five minutes ago. No..1 is due hesein less than thirty mioutes; they’'ll £0 into her sure “Dad.,” cried Rey nolds, all in a fright, “what'll 1 do? For heaven's sake do something. I called up Riverton and tried to catch No. 1, but she had passed. 1 was too late. There’ll be a wreck, and I'm booked for the penitentiary. What can I do?” AIll the while the station agent, panic-stricken, rattled on. Sinclair was looking at his watch—casting it up— charting it all under his thick, gray, grizzled wool, fast as thought could compass. No. 1 headed for Acton, and her pace was a hustle every mile of the way; three cars of coal blocking down on her —how fast he dared not think; and through it all he was asking himself what day it was. Thursday? Up! Yes, Georgie, his boy, was on the Fiyer No. 1. It was his day up. If they met on a curve— “Uncouple he in a giant tone. “What are you going to do?” “Burns,” thundered Dad to his fire- man, “give her steam, and quick, boy! Dump in grease, waste, oil, everythin roared Dad Sinclair, Are you clear there?” he cried, opening the throttle as he looked back. The old engine, pulling clear of her coaches, guivered as she gathered her- self under steam. She leaped ahead with a swish. The drivers churned in the sand, bit into it with gritting tires, and forged ahead with a suck and a hiss and a roar. Before Reynolds had fairly gathered his wits, Sinclair, leav- ing his train on the main track in front of the depot, was clattering over the switch after the runaways. The wind was a terror, and they had too good a start. But the way Soda-Water Sal took the gait when she once feit her feet under her made the wrinkled en- gineer at her throttle set his mouth with the grimness of a gamester. It meant the runaways—and catch them— or the ditch for Soda-Water Sal; and the throbbing old machine seemed to know it, for her nose hung to the steel like the snout of a pointer. He was a man of a hundred even then—Burns; but nobody knew it, then. We hadn’t thought much about Burns THE SAN FRANCISCO SUNDAY CALL. before. He was a tall, lank Irish boy with an open face and a morning smile. Dad Sinclair took him on because no one else would have him. Burns was so green that Foley said you couldn't set his name afire. He would, so Foley said, put out a hot box just by blink- ing at it. But every man’s turn comes once, and it had come for Burns. It was Dick Burns’ chance now to show what manner of stuff was bred in his long Irish bones. It was bis task to make the steam — if he could — faster than Dad Sinclair could burn it. What use to grip the throttle and scheme it jurns didn't furnish the power, put life into her hecls as she raced the wind—the merclless, relentless gale sweeping over the prairie faster than a horse could fly before it? Working smoothly and swiftly into a dizzy whirl, the monstrous drivers took the steel in leaps and bounds. Dad Sinclair, leaning from the cab window, gloatingly watched their gathering speed, pulled the bar up notch by notch, and fed Burns’ fire into the old engine’s arteries fast and faster than she could throw it into her steel hoofs. That was the night the West End knew that a greenhorn had cast his chrysalis and stood out a man. Knew that the honor roll of our frontier di- vision wanted one more name, and that it was big Dick Burns’. Sinclair hung silently desperate to the throttle, his eyes straining into the night ahead, and the face of the long Irish boy, streaked with smut and channeled with sweat, lit every minute with .the glare of the furnace as he fed the white-hot blast that leaped and curled and foamed under the crown-sheet of Soda-Water Sal. There he stooped and sweat and swung, as she slewed and lurched and jerked across the fishplates. Carefully, nursingly, ceaselessly he pushed the steam-pointer higher, higher, higher on the dial—and that despite the tremen- dous drafts of Dad’s throttle. Never a’ glance to the right or the left, to the track or the engineer. From the coal to the fire, the fire to the wa- ter, the water to the gauge, the gauge to the stack, and back again to the coal—that was Burns. Neither eyes nor ears nor muscles for anything but steam. Such a firing as the West End never saw till that night; such a firing as the old engine never felt in her choking flues till that night; such a firing as Dad Sinclair, king of all West and East End firemen, lifted 'his hat to— that was Burns' firing that “hight on Soda Water Sal the night she chased the Acton runaway down the lime to save Georgie Sinclair and No. 1. =) It was a frightful pace—how fright- ful no one ever knew; neither the old man Sinclair nor Dick Burns ever cared. Only, the crew of a freight, sidetracked for the approaching Flyer, saw an engine flying light; knew the hunter and the quarry, for they had seen the runaways shoot by—saw then, a minute after, a star and a streak and a trail of rotten smoke fly down the wind, and she had come and passed and gone. It was just east of that siding, so Burns and Sinclair always maintained —but it measured ten thousand feet . the footboard, clinging the FORLAED ON 2, 7 -BOAEY east—that they caught them. A shout from Dad brought the drip- ping fireman up standing, and, look- ing ahead, he saw jn the blaze of their own headlight the string of coal- ers standing still ahead of them. So it seemed to him, their own speed was so great, and the runaways were almost equaling it. They were mak- ing forty miles an hour when they dashed past the paralyzed freight crew. Without waiting for orders—what orders did such a man need?—without a word, Burns crawled out of his win- dow with a pin and raff forward on best he could, as the engine dipped and lurch- ed, cliinbed down on the cow-catcher and lifted the pilot bar to couple. It was a crazy thing to attempt. He was much likelier to get under the pilot than to succeed; yet he tried it. Then it was that the fine hand of Dad'Sinclair came into play. To tem- per the speed enough—and just enough; to push her nose enough and far enough for Burns to make the draw-bar of the runaway—that was the nicety of the biz, seamed hands on the throttle ana on tne air; the very magic of touch which, on a slender bar of steel, could push a hundred tons of flying metal up and hold it steady in a play of six inches on the teeth of the gale that tore down behind him. Again and again Burns tried to couple and failed. Sinclair, straining anhxiously ahead, caught sight of the headlight of No. 1 rounding O'Fal- lons Bluffs. He cried to Burns, and, incredible though it seems, the fireman heard. Above all the infernal din, the tearing of the flanges and the roaring of the wind, Burns heard the cry. It nerved him to a supreme effort. He slipped the eye once more on the draw and managed to drop his pin. Up went his hand in signal. Choking theé steam, Sinclair threw the brake-shoes flaming against the bjg drivers. The sand poured on the rfip, and with Burns up on the coal- ers setting brakes the three gfeat run- aways were brought to with a jerk that would have astounded the, most reckless scapegraces in the world. While the plucky fireman cyept along the top of the freight cars "to keep from being blown bodily through the air, Sinclair, with every resource that brain and nerve and power could ex- ert, was struggling to overcome the terrible headway of pursuer and pur- sued, driving now frightfully into the beaming head of No. L ‘With the Johnson bar over and the drivers dancing a gallop backward; with the sand striking fire and the rails burning under it; with the old. Sky- Scraper shivering again in a terrific struggle and Burns twisting the heads off the brake-rod with every trick of old Sinclair's cunning, and his boy duplicating évery one of them in the cab of No. 1—still they came together. It was too féarful a momeatum to overcome, when minutes mean miles and to: re reckoned by thousands. They came together; but instead of an appalling wreck—destruction and death—Iit was only a bump. No. 1 had the speed when thev met, and it was a car of coal dumped a bit sudden and a nose on Georgie's engine like a full-back’'s after a center rush. The pilot doubled back into the ponies and the headlight was scoured with nut, pea and slack, but the stack was hard- 1y bruised. The minute they struck, Georgle Sin- clair, making f and, leaping from his cab, ran forward ing with rage and ex torch in hand, was himself just jump- ing down to get forward. His face wore i ual grin, even when Georgie the dark, pant- ement. Burn led him with a torrent of abuse. hat do you mean, you red-headed lubber?” he shouted, h much the lungs of his fathe hat are you = switching coal here on the main line?” In fact, Georgie called the astonished fireman evervthing he could think of, until his father, who was blundering forward on his side of the efigine, hear- ing the voice, turned and ran around Mean?” he roared above the blow of his safety. Mean?” he bellowed in the teeth of the wind. “Mean? Why, you impudent, empty-headed, ungrate- ful rapscallion, do you soming around here to abuse a man *hat's saved you and your train from the scrap?” And big Dicl ns, standing by with his torch, st into an Irish laugh, fairly doubled up before the nonplused boy, and listened with great welish to the excited father and not hard to understand son. was Georgie's amazement and anger at finding da-Water Sal behind three cars of coal half way between stations on the main line and on his time—and that the fastest time on the division. But what amused Burns most was to sea the imperturbabie old Dad pitching into his boy with as much spirit as the young man himself showed. It was because both men were scared maybe—the son and father, -and the father and son For brave men do get scared; don't belleve anything else But between the fright of a coward and the fright of a brave man there is this difference: the -oward’'s scare is apparent before the danger, that of the b nan after it has passed; and Burns laughed with a tremendous mirth “at th’ two o' thim a-jawin’,” as he ex d it. No man on the W nd could turn on his pins quicker than Georgie Sin- clair though, if his hastiness misled him. When it all came clear he climb- ed into the cld cab—the cab he him- self had once gone against death In— and with stu ords tried to thank the ta who still laughed in the having won. And when Neighbor, next & thoughtful and taciturn, heard it all, he very carefully looked Soda-Water Sal all over “Dad,” s: the boys got hrough telling it for last time, he’s a better machine than I thought she was.” “There coaches,” stoutl “r and Eh™ “The 168 will sui isn’t a better pulling your maintained Dad Sinclalr, put her on the main line, Dad, give you the 168 for the cut-off. me, Neighbor; any old tub- ., Foley said Dad. turning to the ¢l engineer, who had come uwp in time most of the talk. The old fellow t forgotten Fo- -Water Sal when he But Foley, too, had his mind and was ready to Dad,” he aec- more out the division than can get out of a I mean it, too, ever heard of. for Burns, vith his us- right, 1o zsive him on the t run. Soda-Water k right side of the « hand way, string of runaways ju emember to climb up the adde: and set brakes before you couple; it will a good deal of wear and tear pilot-bar—see? I hear you're 8¢ get a run: don’t fall out the w when you get over on the right.” And that’s how Burns was made an out of their wits; scared over their engineer, and how oda-Water Sal NArrow e pe from a frightful wre was rescued from the disgrace of run- from having each killed the other, ning on the trolley. | E ; HEROISMS | i | | | ‘ BY THE PARSON URING the weeks which have passed since Mr. Carnegie's es- tablishment of his hero fund in- stances have come to light here and there throughout the country of persons deserving portions of the in- terest on the $5.000,000 which he has set aside to reward the heroes of peace rather than war. Doullless as the years roll by there will be an ample number of claimants for the revenue derived from this magni_cent gift. But it s preposterous to suppose that all of those who ought to be rewarded will receive their just dues. And under- neath all the specific Instances of heroic action must be at all times the sub- stratum of a vast deal of heroism ‘which never gets into the public prints. It is of these unpublished heroisms that we may ptofitably think to-day. Is the heroism of the battlefield any nobler than that of the sickroom, mot alone of the persons condemned to long and apparently unending years of in- validism, but of those who minister unto them? I am thinking now not of paid nurses and attendants, but of rel- atives and friends who spend consid- erable time night and day in caring for the sick. The man whose wife is a con- firmed invalid carries a heavy burden. Hard as it is to be deprived of her compamy and co-operation in the joys and the work of life, it is still harder to see your dearest one wasting with dis- ease, the victim of unstrung nerves or of unsound organs. Many a man goes to his business in the morning heavy- hearted and returns at night in deep apxiety because ill health has comae to be a permanent guest under his roof. Yet T have known men who have borne even this trial with serenity, courage and trust in an all-wise, overruling Providence. What about the small army of per- sons who give up cherished plans and strong ambitions for a home of their own in order to take care of infirm par- ents or other relatives who need not only physical assistance, but cheerful companionship day by day, who want to be read to, talked to, amused, di- verted, who want some one else to them sunshine or even life itself. all know daughters who thus stand loy- ally by aging and sometimes aggravat- ing mothers, sons and younger brothers who cheerfully take up a cross of this sort. Their unpublished heroism de- serves as high praise as that of a man who risks his life to carry another per- son from a burning building. Another group of unpublished here- isms compri those sacrifices my in order to give advantages to child&n or to brothers and sisters. I know more than one su ful business man whose mental poverty and social dis- abilities are due to the fact that he began in his early days to make his own llving, and before. he was 20 to take care of his younger brothers and sisters. He went into the factory or the warehouse that they might go teo college. He scrimped that they might have money for tuition and books. He saw them growing In brain power, while his crowded days left him no opportunity to look wit the covers of a book. He is now past middle life. Yet he would not do differently were he to live his life over again. He knows the greatest of all joys, that of pouring himself Into the life of an- other. No one speaks of him as a hero, but he has been just that all these years. =<=a {s something herole, too, about the man who retrieves his fortunes, after having met with some great re- versés. It is easy to begin at the bot- tom of the hill when one is young, but when one has reached the time of life of Mr. McKinley when he suffered financial disaster, At takes a brave heart to start all over agin. Yet men all over this land are dcing this thing every day. They refuse to be dis- appointed ard discouraged. They will risk another venture, and whether they win out or not the mere fact that they are ready to try with all their might entitles them to a place among the unbrevetted, unadorned heroes of the race. Don’t, In your search of heroes, look exclusively at the ranks of policemen, firemen, nurses, fesavers. Many among them me come in for a share egie's benefi- cence. But open your eyes to the un- recorded heroisms of daily life about you, and if you want to be a hero yourself, do not wait in the hope of seeing a runaway horse gome tearing down the street with a child in the car- riage, but begin to-day and meet your responsibilities and bear your burdens like a hero. Then you will not prove wanting when some great test arises,