Every one of us started. It was throwing the gage of battle. Our word had gone out; the division was pledged; the fight was on.
Next evening the strikers, through some mysterious channel, got word that the Flyer was expected. About nine o'clock a crowd of them began to gather round the depot.
It was after one o'clock when No. 1 pulled in and the foreman of the Omaha round-house swung down from the locomotive cab. The strikers clustered around the engine like a swarm of angry bees; but that night, though there was plenty of jeering, there was no actual violence. When they saw Neighbor climb into the cab to take the run west there was a sullen silence.
Next day a committee of strikers, with Andy Cameron, very cavalier, at their head, called on me.
"Mr. Reed," said he, officiously, "we've come to notify you not to run any more trains through here till this strike's settled. The boys won't stand it; that's all." With that he turned on his heel to leave with his following.
"Hold on, Cameron," I replied, raising my hand as I spoke; "that's not quite all. I suppose you men represent your grievance committee?"
"Yes, sir."
"I happen to represent, in the superintendent's absence, the management of this road. I simply want to say to you, and to your committee, that I take my orders from the president and the general manager—not from you nor anybody you represent. That's all."
Every hour the bitterness increased. We got a few trains through, but we were terribly crippled. As for freight, we made no pretence of moving it. Trainloads of fruit and meat rotted in the yards. The strikers grew more turbulent daily. They beat our new men and crippled our locomotives. Then our troubles with the new men were almost as bad. They burned out our crown sheets; they got mixed up on orders all the time. They ran into open switches and into each other continually, and had us very nearly crazy.
I kept tab on one of the new engineers for a week. He began by backing into a diner so hard that he smashed every dish in the car, and ended by running into a siding a few days later and setting two tanks of oil on fire, that burned up a freight depot. I figured he cost us forty thousand dollars the week he ran. Then he went back to selling windmills.