“I don’t suppose he likes it at all,” replied the boy; “but I couldn’t think of anything else to do.” Then he told them of the terror inspired in the animal by the recent drilling; how it had broken loose and dragged him up and down the car, and how he came to occupy his present position.
“Well, you’ve got sand!” remarked Conductor Tobin admiringly when the story was finished. “More ’n I have,” he added. “I wouldn’t have stayed here in the dark, with a loose horse tearing round like mad. Not for a month’s pay I wouldn’t.”
“No more would I,” said Brakeman Joe; “a scared hoss is a terror.”
Then they brought some stout ropes, and Juniper was helped to his feet, securely fastened and soothed and petted until all his recent terror was forgotten. To Rod’s great delight he was found to be uninjured, except for some insignificant scratches; and by his recent experience he was so well broken to railroad riding that he endured the long trip that followed with the utmost composure.
CHAPTER XI.
A BATTLE WITH TRAMPS.
After quieting Juniper, and having the satisfaction of seeing him begin to eat hay quite as though he were in his own stable, Rod left the car and followed his railroad friends in order to learn something about getting a train ready for its run. He found them walking on opposite sides of it, examining each car by the light of their lanterns, and calling to each other the inscriptions on the little leaden seals by which the doors were fastened. These told where the cars came from, which information, together with the car numbers, and the initials showing to what road they belonged, Conductor Tobin jotted down in his train-book. He also compared it with similar information noted on certain brown cards, about as wide and twice as long as ordinary playing-cards, a package of which he carried in his hand. The destinations of the several cars could also be learned from these cards, which are called “running slips.” Each car in the train was represented by one of them, which would accompany it wherever it went, being handed from one conductor to another, until its final destination was reached.
At length, about ten o’clock, through Freight Number 73, to which car number 1160 was attached, received its “clearance,” or order to start, from the train-dispatcher, and began to move heavily out from the yard, on to the main west-bound track. Juniper now did not seem to mind the motion of the car in the least; but continued quietly eating his hay as though he had been a railroad traveller all his life. So Rod, who had watched him a little anxiously at first, had nothing to do but stand at the open door of his car and gaze at what scenery the darkness disclosed. Now that he was beginning to comprehend their use, he was deeply interested in the bright red, green, and white lights of the semaphore signals that guarded every switch and siding. He knew that at night a white light displayed from the top of a post, or swung across the track in the form of a lantern, meant safety, a red light meant danger, and a green light meant caution. If it had been daytime he would have seen thin wooden blades, about four feet long by six inches wide, pivoted near the top of the same posts that now displayed the lights. He would have learned that when these stretched out horizontally over the track, their warning colors must be regarded by every engineman; while if they hung down at an angle, no attention need be paid to them.
Being a very observant boy, as well as keenly interested in everything to be seen on a railroad, Rod soon discovered that the semaphore lights also appeared at intervals of a few miles along the track, at places where there were no switches, and that these always moved as soon as the train passed them. He afterwards discovered that these guarded the ends of the five-mile blocks, into which the road was divided along its entire length. Each of the stations, at these points, is occupied by a telegraph operator who, as soon as the train enters his block, displays a red danger signal behind it. This forbids any other train to enter the block, on that track, until he receives word from the operator at the other end of the block that the first train has passed out of it. Then he changes his signal from red to white, as a notice that the block is free for the admission of the next train. This “block system,” as it is called, which is now in use on all principal railroad lines, renders travel over them very much safer than it used to be before the system was devised.