"By George! I'll risk it. Get on that engine, my boy; take this one wiper left for a fireman, and pull out. But first go over to the office for your orders. You won't need many, because everything is tied up between here and Johnsonville, and you will have a clear track. Now fly, and let me see what kind of stuff you are made of."
Strangely enough, after he had consented I was not half so eager to undertake it; but I had said I would and now I must stick to my word, or acknowledge that I was a big bluffer. I went up to the office and Fred Bennett gave me the orders. But as he did so he said: "Bates, that's a foolhardy thing for you to do, and I reckon the old man must be crazy to allow you to try it, but rather than give in to that mob out there I'll see you through with it. Now don't you forget for one minute, that you have twenty-three cars and a caboose trailing along behind you; that I am on the hind end, and that I have a wife and family to support, with a mighty small insurance on my life."
He went out, and Bennett told the cattle men to get aboard as we were about to start. All this had been done unbeknown to any of the strikers; but when they saw me coming down that yard with a piece of yellow tissue paper in my hand they knew something was up, for every man of them knew that was a train order. But where was the engineer?
I went down and climbed up in the cab of old 341, and removing my coat, put on a jumper I had brought from the office. Engine 341, as I have said, was run by Horace Daniels, one of the best men that ever pulled a throttle, and his pride in her was like that of a mother in a child. She was a big ten-wheeled Baldwin, and I have heard Daniels talk to her as if she was a human being; in fact, he said she was the only sweetheart he ever had. He was standing in the crowd and when he saw me put on the jumper he came over and said:
"See here, Mr. Hebron, who is going to pull this train out?"
Mr. Hebron who was standing by the step, said, "Bates is."
Daniels grew red with rage, and said:
"Bates? Why good heavens, Mr. Hebron, Bates can't run an engine; he's nothing but an old brass pounder, and, judging from some of the meets he has made for me on this division, he must be a very poor one at that. This here old girl don't know no one but me nohow; for God's sake don't let her disgrace herself by going out with that sandy-haired chump at the throttle."
Mr. Hebron smiled and said, "Well then, you pull her out, Daniels."
Daniels shook his head and replied, "You know I can't do that, Mr. Hebron. It's true I'm not in sympathy with this strike one jot, but the boys are out, and I've got to stand by them. But when this strike is over I want old 341 back. Why, Mr. Hebron, I'd rather see a scab run her than that old lightning jerker."