Walker of the Secret Service

by Melville Davisson Post

They were met by Mooney, the black mask over his face and a pistol in his hand.

I had recovered myself and stood now beside him, also masked and with a weapon. It was the old form of mask which Mooney had invented; attached to the inside of the hat and loaded with shot to hold it down. The men in the engine cab made no resistance. The fireman merely stood with his mouth open, like a child before a ghost. The engineer had some composure.

“Don’t shoot,” he said; “what’s the order?”

Mooney told the engineer to stop opposite a fire he would see on the right hand side of the track about a mile further on. With the pistol at his temple the engineer was not slow to obey this direction. Mooney had told White to build a fire beside the track when he reached the point about two miles west.

White had suggested a flash light as being better for this purpose.

But Mooney said there was always a possibility of a wrecking train, or some special, passing, and if so, the man with the flash light would stop the wrong train, but if it were a fire, built in the woods, a passing train would give it no attention, as merely a hobo camp.

White had followed his direction and we presently pulled up by the fire. Mooney left me to guard the engineer while he took the fireman in front of him and went down the side of the train. He made the fireman cut the train in two back of the mail car.

I stood in the door of the cab with my weapon on the engineer. I knew when the train had been cut, and, as Mooney had directed me, I ordered the engineer to pull forward for fifty yards and stop. Mooney sent the fireman back to the rear of the train after the mail car had been uncoupled, then he went forward and joined White.

The two men took the clerks out of the mail car; they selected the chief clerk, then they sent the remainder of the mail clerks to the rear of the train. There was a touch of thoughtfulness in Mooney’s consideration for these men; there was a chill of frost in the air and he told them to put on their coats before they went out into the night.

When these men had gone back to the rear of the train, Mooney, White, and the chief clerk got into the mail car, then they signaled the engineer to move ahead. I understood the signal and when the engineer paid no attention to it I spoke to him as roughly as I could.