“Down at Panama. I run an engine on the Isthmus railroad.”
“Do you?” and Mr. Schofield looked at him with interest. “How are things getting along down there?”
“The dirt is certainly flying some. But it’s an almighty big job we’ve tackled.”
“Oh, by the way,” Mr. Schofield added, “there used to be a brakeman on this road named Guy Kirk, who went to Panama about a year and a half ago. Did you ever hear of him?”
“Hear of him? I guess I did. He’s a conductor, now, freight, and everybody thinks a whole lot of him. And he gets around mighty lively considerin’ what he went through.”
“Went through? How do you mean?”
“Well, sir,” said the stranger, getting out a darkly-coloured brier and filling it from a red-leather pouch, “it was this way. There’s a mighty mean grade going down into Ancon—mighty mean. It’s steep and it’s got a sharp curve at the bottom. It’s pretty ticklish getting down sometimes, especially when the rails are slippery and the road-bed squashy after one of them heavy tropical rains. One night a heavy freight, on which Kirk was front brakeman, started down that grade. The engineer threw on his air, but there wasn’t any, and the first thing he knowed they were scootin’ down that grade at forty miles an hour. The engineer whistled five or six times to warn the crew in the caboose and then he and his fireman jumped.”
“And what did Kirk do?” asked Mr. Schofield, deeply interested.
“Well, sir,” answered the narrator, slowly exhaling a long puff, “Kirk didn’t jump. Instead o’ that, he hustled out on that train an’ began to set the hand-brakes. The first eight or ten cars were full of nut coal. Kirk only got about two brakes set, when the train hit the curve. The rails spread, o’ course; Kirk hit the ground first an’ the ten cars o’ nut coal piled up on top of him. Nobody ever expected to see him alive again, but when they dug the coal off, blamed if there he didn’t set in a kind o’ little hut the cars had made over him as they fell. Only both his legs was caught below the knee an’ broke so bad that they never did get quite straight again. But it wasn’t long after that he got his promotion.”
Other occupants of the sleeper had come in while the story was in progress, and a few minutes later came the first call to breakfast. Allan, at least, was ready for it, and he and Mr. Schofield lost no time in seeking the diner.