Then Erma whispers to Harry, "What chance?" But he shakes his head, for he knows what those gray-blue lips mean—he has seen them too often on battlefields.
As he does so, the boy, whose face has already grown pallid, and upon whose forehead the dew of death is standing, gasps: "I saved ye, Miss Beauty!—Didn't I do the trick like—like a Chicago railroad man?"
"Yes," sobs the girl, bending over him. "What can I do for you?"
"The Cap won't be jealous—just give me one kiss—that's all. I've never been kissed—by—a—beautiful—young lady."
And two sweet lips come to his, that are already cold, and he gasps: "You're pretty as a Chicago girl—that's where I'm goin'!"
And delirium coming on him, he laughs; for his old life is coming back to him! And the railroad, and the city that he loves so well and is so proud of, getting into his mind, he cries: "I'm braking on the Burlington again, an' we're bound for Chicago. Hoop! we're at the Rock Island crossin'—we've whistled first an' got the right o' way. C. B. & Q.'s always ahead!—Two long toots and two short toots! Town whistle! We're goin' into Aurorie an' out of it again. Now we whiz through Hinsdale an' Riverside!—I can see the lights of the city.—Engine has whistled for the Fort Wayne crossin'! Sixteenth Street! Slow down! The bell's beginning to ring—the lights are dancin'—Michigan Avenue! We're runnin' for the old Lake Street Station! I'm a-folding up the flags and takin' in the red lights—the bell's ringin' fainter—the whistle's blowin' for brakes—the wheels are goin' slower—slower—slower—the lights is dancin' about me—the wheels are stopped. The train is dead—the lights is goin' out! CHICAGO!!"
And with this cry, Buck Powers goes to Heaven.
Then Erma, bending over him, and wringing her hands, and tears dropping on his dead face, whispers: "Let us take him to Chicago, Harry, and bury him in the city he loved so well!"
And so they do, some months afterward; and there he lies, entombed in that silent city of the dead, beside the waters of the blue lake, and that great city of the living. And no truer heart, nor nobler soul, will ever tread the streets of that grand metropolis of the West, than that of this boy, who loved it so well, and who gave his life for gratitude—now nor to come, even if it grows to have ten millions.