Bucks was scrawling a message.
"A man that could hold a train from Wind River here on whiskers, with nothing but a tankful of sand and a hobo fireman, wouldn't be likely to fall off the right of way running back," he returned dryly. "He's been firing for years, hasn't he? We haven't got half enough men like McGraw. Tell Neighbor to give him an engine."
The Roadmaster's Story
THE SPIDER WATER
Not officially; I don't pretend to say that. You might travel the West End from fresh water to salt—and we dip into both—without ever locating the Spider Water by map or by name.
But if you should happen anywhere on the West End to sit among a gang of bridge carpenters; or get to confidence with a bridge foreman; or find the springy side of a roadmaster's heart; then, you might hear all you wanted about the Spider Water—maybe more; anyway, full plenty, as Hailey used to say.
The Sioux named it; and whatever may be thought of their interpretation of Scriptural views on land-grabbing, no man with sense ever attempted to improve on their names for things, whether birds, or braves, or winds, or waters—they know.
Our General Managers hadn't always sense—this may seem odd, but on the system it would excite no comment—and one of them countenanced a shameful change in the name of the Spider Water. Some polytechnical idiot at a safe distance dubbed it The Big Sandy; and the Big Sandy it is to this day on map and in folder—but not in the lingo of trackmen nor the heart of the Sioux. Don't say Big Sandy to trackmen and hand out a cigar. It will not go. Say Spider Water without any cigar and you will get a word and a stool, and if you ask it, fine cut.
The Spider Water—although ours is the pioneer line—was there when we first bridged it. It is probably as old as sundown, and nothing like as pretty. The banks—it has none to speak of. Its stones—they are whiskered. Its bed—full of sand-burs. Everything about the villain stream has a dilapidate, broken-down air: the very mud of the Spider Water is rusty.