THE YOUNG TRAIN MASTER

The Works of

Burton E. Stevenson

♣

The Quest for the Rose of Sharon $1.25

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The Young Section-Hand 1.50

The Young Train Dispatcher 1.50

The Young Train Master 1.50

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L. C. Page & Company, Publishers

New England Building———Boston, Mass.

THE

YOUNG TRAIN

MASTER

By BURTON E. STEVENSON

Author of “The Young Section-Hand,” “The

Young Train Dispatcher,” “The Quest

for the Rose of Sharon,” etc.

ILLUSTRATED BY

HENRY GOSS

Boston ❧ L. C. PAGE & COMPANY ❧

Mdccccix

Copyright, 1909

By L. C. Page & Company

(INCORPORATED)

All rights reserved

First Impression, August, 1909

Electrotyped and Printed by

THE COLONIAL PRESS

C.H. Simonds & Co., Boston, U.S.A.

TO

The “Beddy Magraw”

WHOM I KNEW

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

[“Leaped out into the darkness” Frontispiece]

[“The next instant it flashed into view around the curve” ]

[Time-chart]

[“Controlling it, as it were, by a movement of a finger, stood Jim”]

[“He explained the difficulty to the engineer”]

[“Then, with a hoarse yell of rage, hurled himself upon them”]

[“He heard the bullets sing past his head”]

THE

YOUNG TRAIN MASTER

CHAPTER I
OLD FRIENDS

Nestling among the hills of the Scioto valley, in the south-central portion of the state of Ohio, lies the little town of Wadsworth. Venerable in its age, proud of its history, the first capital of its state and the home of men famous in their time, it lives in the past rather than in the present, and life there moves in a quiet and dignified manner, conducive to peace but not to progress.

Its streets, shaded by the elms planted by the pioneers, show traces of those early days; one of the old inns, with its swinging sign still stands; no roar of traffic disturbs its Sabbath stillness. Just to the east of it rises Mount Logan, named for the Indian chieftain known to every train-service, and there is a legend that, standing on the summit of that hill, the day before his death, he cast a spell over the surrounding country, in order that the peace of his grave might never be disturbed. However that may be, certain it is that a dreamy influence pervades the atmosphere and gives to the town an air of leisure and calm deliberateness which nothing can dispel.

It had been founded more than a century before, when the country for a hundred miles around was an unbroken forest, by a little band of pioneers who, acquiring title to unnumbered acres by virtue of their service in the Revolution, pushed their way over the mountains from Virginia. Some of them brought their slaves with them, only to free them when they reached their new home. Other families from Virginia joined the little settlement and lent their hands to the battle with the wilderness. That southern flavour had never been lost, nor the southern deliberateness and dislike of innovation, nor the southern preference for agriculture rather than for manufacture.

By mere chance of geographical position, Wadsworth lies half way between Parkersburg, a hundred miles away to the east, and Cincinnati, a hundred miles away to the south-west; so, when the great P. & O. railway, looking for new fields to conquer, purchased the local line which connected those two cities, and which was fast degenerating into a “streak of rust,” it saw that Wadsworth must be the centre of the new division, since it was the most economical place from which to handle the business of the division and at which to maintain the division shops. All this, however, it carefully concealed from public view, but, expressing a supreme indifference as to whether the shops were placed at Wadsworth or somewhere else, offered to bring them there for a bonus of a hundred thousand dollars. After long delay and hesitation, the town was bonded for that amount, and the shops were formally established at the spot where they must, of necessity, have been placed.

Here also were the division offices, from which the business of the division was handled. They were upon the second floor of the dingy depot building which has been described more particularly in “The Young Train Dispatcher,” and need not be dwelt upon here, except to observe that the passing years had added to its dinginess and disreputable appearance.

From these offices there descended, one bright October evening, lunch-basket in hand, a young man, who, springing lightly across the branching tracks of the yards, reached the street beyond and turned eastward along it. It was noticeable that he seemed to know everyone employed around the yards and that they seemed to know him, and greeted him with a cordiality evidently genuine.

Ten minutes’ walk brought him to a trim cottage standing back from the street, amid a bower of vines. Its grounds were ample, and well-kept. At one side was a little orchard, whose trees showed the glint of ripening fruit. Farther back, near the barn, a cow was grazing, and the busy clatter of chickens came from an enclosure to the right. The place somehow gave the impression that those who lived within were happy and contented people; not rich, but able, by the labour of their hands, to assure themselves a comfortable livelihood—which is, perhaps, the happiest condition vouchsafed to human beings.

Through the gate of this house the young man turned, and went slowly up the walk leading to the door. But as he stretched out his hand to turn the knob, the door flew open and a girl of about sixteen fairly flung herself into his arms.

“Why, Mamie!” he cried. “Is it Mamie?” and he held her off for a moment’s inspection. “When did you get back?”

“On Number Three,” she answered. “I had a notion to wait for you, and then I thought it would be nicer to come home and surprise you.”

The words “Number Three” stamped both speakers as of the railroad. For who but one raised in the atmosphere of the road would know that “Number Three” was the west-bound flier?

“See how brown I am,” she added, holding her face up for his inspection.

“Yes,” he agreed, looking down at her, “you are. Did you have a good time?”

“Only so-so,” she answered, smiling up at him. “I can have the best time of all right here at home.”

“So can I,” he agreed. “It’s been a little lonesome with you away.”

“Has it, Allan?” she asked, quickly, her eyes shining with the glint of sudden tears. “It’s nice of you to say that.”

“Well, it’s true: and it won’t hurt to say it, now you’re back. But I didn’t dare tell you when I wrote. I wanted you to enjoy your visit. I thought you were going to stay till Tuesday.”

“Oh, I couldn’t stay any longer than to-day!” she protested, quickly.

“Why not?” he asked, looking at her in surprise. “What’s going to happen to-day?”

“Come in and you’ll see,” she answered, and led him triumphantly into the house.

Through the hall they went, into the dining-room beyond, where a bright-faced woman, just entering middle-age, was putting the finishing touches to a table immaculately spread.

“Oh, there ye are!” she cried, turning as they entered. “What kept you so long, Allan?”

“I’ve been out here gossiping with Mamie,” he explained, laughing.

“I was afeerd the supper would git stale,” she said. “I don’t like to keep things warmed up; they ain’t got the same taste they have when they’re cooked jest right and served right away.”

“You needn’t wait for me, if there’s company,” he said, seeing that an extra place had been laid.

“Oh, I reckon the company’s willin’ to wait,” she retorted, with a laugh. “Only don’t be no longer than ye kin help.”

“I won’t,” Allan promised and hurried away.

Five minutes later, he opened the door of the dining-room again, and saw who the visitor was.

“Why, Reddy!” he cried, going quickly forward, his hand outstretched. “How are you? I’m glad to see you.”

“The same here, Allan,” answered Reddy Magraw, warmly gripping the hand outstretched to him in his own honest palm. “An’ mighty glad I was when Jack asked me t’ be here t’-day.”

“To-day,” echoed Allan, glancing quickly around at the smiling faces. “Why, what day is it?”

“Don’t you know?” asked Jack, his face all one broad grin. “Don’t you know, boy?”

Mamie’s eyes were dancing, as she looked at Allan’s perplexed countenance.

“Oh, it’s a disgrace, Allan, if you don’t remember!” she cried.

“I’ll tell you what day it is, me boy,” said Reddy, his face beaming. “It’s jist eight year ago t’-day sence a little scalpeen named Allan West come along out there on Section Twinty-one an’ asked the foreman, Jack Welsh, fer a job. We’re meetin’ here t’-night t’ celebrate his good jedgment in givin’ ye one.”

“’Tis the thing in all my life I’m most proud of,” said Jack.

“An’ the thing that has made me happiest,” added Mary.

“And I’d never have forgiven him, if he hadn’t,” cried Mamie, at which they all laughed, a little uncertainly, and sat down, their hearts very tender.

“Can it really be eight years?” asked Allan, after a moment’s silence. “It doesn’t seem possible. And yet when one thinks what has happened—”

“They has a lot happened,” agreed Reddy. “An’ many a happy day we had out there on Section Twinty-one. Not that I don’t like the work now, Jack,” he added. “But my gang don’t seem t’ be loike the old one. Mebbe it’s because I’m gittin’ old an’ don’t see things with quite so much gilt on ’em as I used to.”

“Old! Nonsense!” cried Jack. “Why, you’re a young man, yet, Reddy.”

“No, I ain’t,” said Reddy. “I ain’t young by no means. An’ I’ve allers thought that that belt I got on the head from that runaway ingine had took some of the ginger out o’ me. But that’s all fancy, most likely,” he added, hastily, seeing Allan’s eyes upon him.

“Look here, Reddy,” said Allan, “do you think my hitting you that time had anything to do with it?”

“No, I don’t,” said Reddy. “I think that was the only thing that saved me. I’ve told ye already that I wouldn’t have complained if ye’d kilt me. Tell me about it ag’in, boy; I can’t hear that story too often.”

So Allan told again the story of that wild Christmas eve when, as track-walker, he had found a gang of wreckers tearing up the rails, and how the pay-car had been saved, and the lives of those in it.

“Oh, it must have been terrible!” cried Mamie, who had been listening with starting eyes, as though she had never before heard the story. “Think of creeping up alone on that gang of men! Weren’t you awfully frightened, Allan?”

“No,” answered Allan, smiling at her earnestness. “I didn’t have time to get frightened, somehow. But,” he added, laughing, “I don’t mind confessing, now, that two or three days later, as I lay in bed thinking the whole thing over, I was scared nearly to death. It’s a fact,” he went on, seeing their puzzled countenances. “I just turned kind of faint thinking about it.”

“An’ no wonder,” said Reddy. “’Twas enough t’ make anybody turn faint. I remember jest sich another case. You knowed Tom Spurling, Jack?” he added, turning to Welsh.

“Yes,” nodded Jack.

“Well, then you’ll remember what a hot-headed feller he was—he had a head o’ red hair, by the way, purty nigh as red as mine. Well, one evenin’ he was hurryin’ acrost the yards t’ git his train—he was conductor on the west-bound accommodation. He was carryin’ his cap an’ his dinner-bucket an’ his lantern an’ his little red tin dickey-box, an’ he was hittin’ it up lively, bein’ a minute or two late. It was a kind o’ foggy night, an’ jest as he got to the platform, Bill Johnson’s yard ingine come up behind an’ poked him in the legs with its footboard. Well, everybody expected t’ see Tom ground up in about two winks, but some way the ingine throwed him up on the platform, where he fell sprawlin’. Bill stopped the ingine an’ got down t’ see if Tom was hurted. Tom was settin’ up rubbin’ his head an’ glarin’ down at the lunch his missus had fixed up fer him an’ which was now scattered all over the platform and purty well mixed with cinders.

“‘Are ye hurted, Tom?’ asked Bill.

“‘Hurted!’ roared Tom. ‘No, o’ course not, ye blame fool! But look at them victuals!’

“‘Jumpin’ Jehosaphat!’ says Bill. ‘Ye ain’t worryin’ about them are ye?’

“‘Yes, I am!’ yells Tom, jumpin’ to his feet. ‘Why don’t ye look where ye’re goin’ with thet ole mud turtle o’ yourn? Fer jest about half a cent—’

“But some o’ the fellers got ’em apart, an’ Tom climbed on his train a minute later, still cussin’ Bill fer the loss o’ his lunch.

“Well, sir, he run his train down t’ Cinci all right, an’ next mornin’ started back with her, an’ they’d got as fer back as Midland City, when one o’ the passengers come an’ told the brakeman that the conductor was sick. An’ mighty sick he was, layin’ in a seat, white as a sheet, lookin’ like his last hour had come.

“‘Fer Heaven’s sake, Tom,’ says the brakeman, ‘what’s the matter?’

“‘Oh, I was nearly kilt!’ groans Tom, hoarse as a frog.

“‘Kilt!’ says the brakeman. ‘Where? Shall I holler fer a doctor? Mebbe they’s one on board.’

“‘No,’ says Tom. ‘I ain’t hurted.’

“The brakeman thought he’d gone crazy.

“‘What you talkin’ about, anyhow?’ he says.

“‘No,’ goes on Tom, ‘but it’s God’s providence I wasn’t chewed into mincemeat.’

“‘When?’ says the brakeman.

“‘Last night,’ says Tom, ‘by thet yard ingine at Wadsworth. It’s jest come to me what a narrer escape I had.’

“Well, the brakeman told me, Tom was about the sickest man he ever seen fer an hour or more, an’ then he peckered up a little, an’ finally was all right ag’in.”

“I can imagine just how he felt,” said Allan, amid the laughter caused by Reddy’s story. “I fancy it’s a good deal like seasickness. It just swoops down on you and takes the nerve out of you and leaves you limp as a rag.”

From one story, they passed to another—the wreck at Vinton, the fight at Coalville, Dan Nolan’s death—stories which have already been told in the earlier books of this series, and which need not be repeated here.

“Did ye ever hear anything more o’ that snake, Nevins, what I chased all over creation that night he tried t’ wreck the president’s special?” inquired Jack.

“Yes,” Allan answered, “I heard about him just the other day. Mr. Schofield told me that he had seen him at Cincinnati—passed him on the street.”

“What’s he doin’?” asked Jack, quickly.

“I don’t know. Earning an honest living, I hope. Mr. Schofield said he was well-dressed and seemed to be prosperous.”

“Well, mebbe he is earnin’ an honest livin’, but I doubt it,” said Jack. “I don’t think he knows how. That reminds me. I heard this arternoon that Hayes is goin’ to Springfield.”

“Yes,” said Allan. “He’s to be train master on the Illinois division.”

“Then that means that they’ll be a chief dispatcher to appoint here. Who’ll get it? Goodwood?”

“Yes; he’s next in line.”

“An’ that’ll make you senior dispatcher?”

“Yes.”

“When I think,” said Jack, “that eight year ago, this here felly was a kid lookin’ fer a job an’ that now he’s senior dispatcher, with a mighty good chance o’ bein’ superintindent some day, I begin t’ believe that a felly has a fair chance in this country, arter all. You know they’s allers sayin’ we’re all ground down by wealth; but I’ve noticed that the fellies who’s ground down are them that spends most o’ their time in some bar-room hollerin’ about it.”

“That’s true,” Allan agreed. “And don’t forget that you’ve gone up from section foreman to division roadmaster in the same time, and that you’re not done yet.”

“Yes, I am, me boy,” said Jack, gravely. “I haven’t got th’ eddication t’ go any furder. I’ve got the experience, but that’s only half the equipment a felly has to have to reach the top. I don’t know jest how it is, but eddication—the real thing—seems t’ kind o’ give a man a bigger grasp of things. He kin put two and two together quicker—he kin see furder.”

“Jack’s right,” said Reddy. “Now I’ve reached my limit in section foreman. It’s as fur as I kin go. I ain’t complainin’. I’m contented. But some of us is built fer speed, an’ some of us is built fer strength. Some of us has to pull freight, and some gits to pull polished Pullmans, but I reckon it all comes to th’ same thing in the end.”

“Yes,” said Allan, quietly, “passenger and freight all have the same destination. And you know, as well as I do, that it’s the freight that counts most when it comes to figuring results.”

The ringing of the telephone bell interrupted them, and Mamie ran to answer it. She was back in a moment.

“Somebody wants you, Allan,” she said. “Mr. Schofield, I think.”

Anxious eyes followed him, as he arose and went to the ’phone. A call from the superintendent might mean so many things—usually did mean disaster of some kind. He was gone a long time, and as the minutes lengthened, the shadow on the faces of those about the table deepened. They tried at first to keep up a semblance of conversation, but that finally dropped away and they sat silent. That it was something serious was evident.

But Allan came back at last, and as he caught sight of their anxious faces, he laughed outright.

“No, it’s not a wreck,” he said, “and I’m not fired.”

He sat down, and the others waited. If it was anything he could tell them, they knew he would. If it was official business, they did not wish to question him.

“The fact is,” he went on, slowly, Mamie’s face with evident amusement, “a very unusual thing has happened.”

“Oh, Allan!” Mamie burst out, “if you’re going to tell us, please hurry and do it.”

“A very unusual thing,” Allan proceeded with provoking deliberation. “You know I told you that Mr. Hayes is going to Springfield.”

“Yes,” said Mamie, encouragingly, bouncing in her seat.

“Ain’t he goin’?” asked Jack.

“Oh, yes; he’s going. He went this afternoon. But the fact is, Goodwood don’t want his job.”

“Why?”

“He says the hours are too long, and the added responsibility more than the added salary. He says he’s contented where he is.”

“Ho!” said Reddy. “Reached his limit jest like me, an’ knows it. Well, it’s a wise man that knows when to let well enough alone.”

But Mamie’s face suddenly gleamed with understanding, and she jumped from her seat and rushed around the table to Allan’s side.

“I know!” she cried. “I know! Oh, you stupid people! Don’t you see? Allan’s to be chief dispatcher!”

They were all on their feet now.

“What, Allan! Is it?” cried Jack, incoherently.

“Yes,” answered Allan, “I guess it is.”

Jack came over to him and put his hands on his shoulders.

“Eight year ago to-day,” he said, looking him in the eyes. “I’m proud of ye, me boy. But I don’t need t’ tell ye that.”

“And he’ll make the best chief this division ever had,” added Reddy with conviction. “Where’s my hat?”

“But you ain’t goin’!” protested Mrs. Welsh. “It’s early yet.”

“I know it is,” said Reddy. “But I can’t stay. Not with this news in my craw. I must tell the old woman and the boys. They ain’t a man on the division that won’t be glad.”

CHAPTER II
NEW DUTIES

Two days later, Allan West entered regularly upon his new duties as chief dispatcher of the Ohio Division of the P. & O. railway. Meantime, news of his promotion had got about, and it seemed as though every employee of the division, high or low, had made it a point to seek him out and congratulate him. For Allan, in the eight years he had been with the road, had endeared himself to everyone by kindness and considerateness, and even those engineers and conductors who had a standing grievance against all dispatchers had come to confess that he was the squarest one they had ever met.

The chief dispatcher’s office is a large and pleasant room, looking down over the busy yards, and is shared by Mr. Plumfield, the train master. A great desk stands between the front windows, one side of which belongs to the train master and the other to the chief dispatcher. On it two sounders clicked, and from the open door of the dispatchers’ office, at Allan’s back, came the incessant clamouring of other instruments.

To one unaccustomed to it, this ceaseless noise would have been perfectly distracting, but to the habitués of the offices it was scarcely noticeable. And yet, though they seemingly paid no heed to it, it had a meaning for them, and anything out of routine attracted their attention instantly. For telegraphers develop a sixth sense, which takes up and translates what the instruments are saying without interfering with any of the others.

Perhaps you have seen an engineer sitting beside his engine, reading a paper while the complicated mechanism whirls smoothly along at its appointed task. Suddenly, without cause so far as you can see, he starts up, snatches up an oil can or a wrench, and squirts a jet of oil upon a bearing or tightens a nut somewhere. No sign of trouble has been audible to you, but his trained ear, even though his brain was otherwise engaged, had caught an unaccustomed burr or rattle and had called his attention to it.

Such instances might be multiplied indefinitely. Everyone who works at a certain task, or goes through a certain set of motions, becomes, after a time, to some extent automatic. Physiologists call such motions “reflex,” and tell us that in time the brain passes on such volitions to the spinal cord and so frees itself for other work—one of the wise provisions of our bodily mechanism, whose wonder and perfection very few of us understand or appreciate.

Allan was, of course, acquainted, in a general way, with the duties of his new position, and he lost no time in further familiarizing himself with them. All of the operators along the line were under his control. He assigned them to their duties, promoted them or discharged them as occasion might arise, investigated any delinquency on their part, and held them accountable for the proper performance of their duties. In addition to this, he was required to see that empty freight cars were furnished the various agents along the line, as they needed them, and that loaded cars were taken up promptly and sent forward to their destinations. Every day, each agent wired in his car requirements, and it was the chief dispatcher’s business to see that these requirements were filled as speedily as possible. He was also expected to see that the dispatchers understood their duties, and to unravel any knotty point which any of them might not understand.

Further than that, the clerical duties of the position were very heavy. He must make daily reports of the amount of freight handled; and if any freight crew was kept on the road more than sixteen hours, a special report must be prepared for the Interstate Commerce Commission, giving the facts in the case, and explaining why the crew had been kept out so long; for it is unlawful to keep any crew on duty for more than that length of time. A wise provision, for before this law was enacted, in busy seasons, railroads sometimes kept their crews on duty for twenty-four, thirty-six and even forty-eight hours at a stretch—an abuse which inevitably resulted in accidents from the men going to sleep while on duty, or being so exhausted by the long hours as to grow careless and forgetful of orders.

These were the duties when everything was moving in regular order. At other times, the supreme duty of every one connected with the office was to get them back to regular order. For a great railroad system is like a complicated machine—no part can run smoothly unless all are running smoothly, and the throwing of the smallest cog out of gear cripples the entire mechanism. Although the train master was the “trouble man,”—in other words, the man whose especial duty it was to superintend the clearing away of wrecks, and the straightening out of traffic—whenever anything happened to interfere with it, all other work became subordinate to that of restoring traffic to its normal condition.

On this morning, however, everything was moving in regular order; the sounders clicked out the reports of trains on time; there were no calls for cars which could not be answered promptly and no freight along the line which the regular locals could not handle. Conductors came and registered, compared their watches with the big electric clock which kept official time for the division, and departed; others reported in; trainmen loitered before the bulletin board, or gossiped in their lounging-room across the hall; the typewriting machine of the train master’s stenographer clicked steadily away; and there was about the place a contented hum of industry, such as one hears about a bee-hive on a warm day in late spring when the apples are in bloom.

“I heard some bad news about Heywood, while I was in Cincinnati yesterday,” remarked Mr. Plumfield casually, in the course of the morning, referring to the general superintendent.

“Bad news?” questioned Allan, looking up quickly.

“I don’t believe he’s making good. Nothing definite, you know; just a general feeling of dissatisfaction with him. I shouldn’t be surprised if he lost out.”

“What’s the matter with him?”

“You knew his wife died?”

“Yes.”

“She was a mighty sweet woman, and I imagine had lots of influence on Heywood. Well, after her death, he seemed to go to pieces more or less. His daughter, Betty, was away at school, or somewhere, and didn’t know until she came home. You knew her?”

“Oh, yes; very well. I used to see her when they lived here.”

“Yes; I rather fancied, sometimes—”

“I thought a great deal of her and still do,” Allan interrupted.

Mr. Plumfield nodded.

“Well, she came home and tried to brace him up, and I dare say succeeded pretty well for a while—”

He stopped. There was no need that he should say anything more.

Allan, staring at the report before him, remembered how kind Mr. Heywood had been to him years before; remembered his first vision of Betty Heywood, as she came bursting into her father’s office, one day when he was there. He had not seen her for nearly four years—not since the night when she had ridden away on the east-bound flyer to go to school in the East. Had she changed, he wondered, or was she still the same warm-hearted, impulsive girl whom he had known?

The sounder on Allan’s desk began to call him, and he came back to the present with a start. He opened the key and replied with the quick .., .., which told that he was ready to receive the message.

“Chief dispatcher, Ohio Division,” clicked out the little instrument. “A special train consisting of combination coach and private car will leave Cincinnati east-bound about ten o’clock to-morrow morning. You will have your best engines ready to take it through to Wadsworth, and from there to Parkersburg. This special is to run without orders, its time to be governed only by the maximum speed of the engine, and is to be given a clear track with rights over everything. It must be expedited in every way possible.”

A. G. Round,

“General Manager”

Mr. Plumfield whistled softly, as the message ended.

“Who do you suppose it is?” he asked. “The Emperor of Germany?”

“That’s certainly an unusual order,” agreed Allan.

“I never saw but one like it before,” added Mr. Plumfield. “That was when the president of the road was somewhere in the west, and his wife was reported dying back at Baltimore. We gave him right of way then.”

“Did he get there in time?” asked Allan.

“Oh, she didn’t die. Maybe it was his presence saved her. Anyway, his train covered the two hundred miles from Cincinnati to Parkersburg at an average speed of fifty-three miles an hour. That was going some.”

“We’ll see if we can beat it to-morrow,” Allan answered, and turned to the task of clearing the track for the special.

As he knew only the approximate time that the special would leave Cincinnati, it was necessary to prepare several plans, the one to be adopted depending upon the exact time the train pulled out from the Grand Central depot. From Cincinnati to Loveland he had a double track to work with, but from Loveland east, only a single track, and it was necessary to so arrange the schedule that no train would interfere with the special and at the same time to provide that they be interfered with as little as possible. Another difficulty arose from the fact that it was impossible to tell exactly how fast the special would run, and Allan’s brow wrinkled perplexedly as he bent above the time-card.

“I tell you what I’m going to do,” he said, at last, “I’m going over the road with this train myself. I’m not going to take any chances.”

And that night, with the time-card in his pocket and his plans carefully laid, Allan boarded the accommodation for Cincinnati.

The man in whose behalf this extraordinary order had been issued was no less a personage than a candidate for the Presidency of the United States. His election had been thought fairly certain, but hinged upon New York State. This, he had been confidently assured by the party leaders, he would carry without difficulty; and he had not visited it except early in the campaign, for a few speeches. He had then devoted his attention to some doubtful states in the middle west, when, with the election only ten days off, he had received a message urging him to reach New York at the earliest possible moment, that unexpected opposition had developed there, and that every moment was precious. In this strait, he had appealed to the railroads, and they had leaped to his aid.

Not because of the man, nor because of the fact that he was a candidate for the greatest office within the gift of the people of this republic; but because they regarded his election as vital to their welfare. For the railroads had fallen among troublous times. The business regeneration of the past few years had affected them deeply. Whether rightly or wrongly, the American public, or a large portion of it, had come to believe that railroad management was corrupt and wasteful, that it discriminated against its patrons and used its wealth and influence to secure the passage of laws inimicable to public welfare. So severe measures had been taken to curtail this power, and to protect the interests of both the stockholders of the roads and of the people who gave them business. The issuing of passes had been forbidden; a commission had been established by the government to prevent and punish any discrimination in favour of any shipper of freight; laws had been passed curtailing the hours of railway employees; in many states the legal fare to be charged passengers had been reduced by act of legislature from three to two cents a mile, and there had sprung up a wide-spread demand that freight rates be also regulated by law. Many roads felt that ruin was staring them in the face, and an all-important question with them was the election of a president who would regard them with friendly eyes and who would throw his influence against any revolutionary measures which might be aimed at them.

It was not wonderful, then, that they should have rushed to the assistance of this man, since his opponent was pledged to work for the very measures which the roads dreaded; and that, when his election seemed in danger, they should have placed their resources absolutely at his disposal, and have given him right of way over everything. He had been hurried across the plains of Missouri, shot into Saint Louis, flung across the prairies of Illinois and Indiana, and now, at 9.45 o’clock in the morning, the train shot into the Grand Union station at Cincinnati, and came to a stop with a jerk.

Ten minutes before, Allan, able at last to time the exact minute of its arrival, had sent out the messages which would govern its movements from Cincinnati to Wadsworth. There were to be no stops, except one for water, and, if all went well, He was determined to cover the hundred miles in a hundred minutes. He knew his engine and knew the engineer—957, with Tom Michaels, lean, gray-haired, a bundle of nerves, a man to take chances if necessary, yet never to take one that was unnecessary; and he believed that the distance could be covered in that time.

Three minutes were allowed in which to change engines, and half a dozen men were waiting to make the change. The air-hose was uncoupled and the old engine backed away. While the 957 was run down and coupled up, four men with flaring torches had been making an examination of the coach and private car, and in just three minutes, or at 9.48 A. M., the conductor held up his hand and Michaels gently opened the throttle.

The old engineer’s face was gleaming. It was the first time in his long life at the throttle that he had ever been given a free track and told to go ahead. But he nursed her carefully over the network of tracks in the yards, out through the ditch and past the stock-yards before he really let her out. Then, slowly and slowly, he drew the throttle open, and with every instant the great engine gathered speed, while the fireman, equally interested and enthusiastic, nursed the fire until the fire-box was a pit of white-hot, swirling flame.

Allan had ensconced himself on the forward end of the fireman’s seat, and sat for a time, watch in hand. Then he looked over at Michaels and nodded. They were making their mile a minute.

“It’s like ridin’ on a shootin’ star,” the fireman shouted up, as he rested for a moment from his exertions, bracing himself, his feet wide apart, against the swaying of the engine. “Right through the middle of a white-hot comet,” he added, scraping the sweat from his forehead. “It surely is a hot day.”

Then he bent again to his task. Every thirty-five seconds he threw three scoops-full of coal into the fire-box, then closed the door for the same length of time. And always he kept his eye on the indicator, to see that the pressure never fell below the “popping-off” point. It may be that, for this occasion, Michaels had hung a little extra weight on the lever of his safety-valve. At any rate, no steam was wasted through it.

There was a block system as far as Loveland, but beyond that, they had to trust to the observance of orders issued from division headquarters. On and on sped the train, the speed creeping up to sixty-five miles an hour, and once to seventy-four on a long down-grade. The whistle seemed to shriek its warning almost continuously; stations seemed to crumble to pieces with a crash as the train leaped past them; farm houses fluttered by or wheeled in stately procession across the landscape. And always Michaels sat, his hand on the throttle, his eyes on the track ahead, swaying to the motion of the engine, as a rider sways to his steed; only moving from time to time to glance at his watch or at the steam and water gauge, to blow the whistle and open the injector which shot the water from the tank to the boiler of the engine. The track ahead seemed to be rushing toward them only to be swallowed up; the nearer landscape was merely a gray blur; the telegraph poles flashed by “like the teeth of a fine-tooth comb,” as the fireman remarked; and always there was the roar of the great machine, the crash and rumble as the engine hurled itself along the rails. It was a marvel that it kept them, or seemed so—a marvel that it did not hurtle away cross-country at its own sweet will.

At New Vienna they paused for water. Michaels, with the skill of a magician, brought his engine to a stop with the tank-opening exactly underneath the penstock beside the track. The fireman lowered it with a clang and the water rushed and foamed down into the almost empty tank. Then, as the penstock swung up into place, Michaels opened the throttle and they were off again.

Allan, glancing across at the engineer, saw how the sweat was pouring down his face; how his face had aged and lined under the strain; how the lips had tightened. It was a hot day, unusually hot for so late in the year, and the atmosphere was close with threatened storm—but it was not the heat alone which brought out the sweat upon the engineer, nor the discomfort which lined and aged his face. Yet he sat erect as ever, his eyes glancing from the track ahead to the gauges, and back again. Once he stooped from his seat to shout a warning word to the fireman, when the needle for an instant dropped a notch. Allan, glancing back, saw that the rear car was lost in a whirl of dust. It seemed as insignificant as a tail—a mere appendage to be whipped hither and thither as the engine willed. He had ridden in cabs before—many times—but never under such conditions as these. He knew the track—he knew the rattle of every target as they flashed past it, the roar of every bridge as they rushed through it; and suddenly he remembered the sharp curve just beyond Greenfield, and wondered if Michaels would slow up for it.

The huddle of roofs that marked the town flashed into sight ahead, grew and grew, was upon them. The rattle of switches told that they were in the yards, but yard-limit speed had no bearing upon this case. He caught a glimpse of the signal before the station, and saw with relief that it was set at safety. Everything was working well, then, as he had planned it. Twenty miles more and they would be at Wadsworth, with the first leg of the journey covered. There was no need that he should go further with the train—he had tested its capabilities—he would know how to provide for it. Then the curve was upon them, and he braced himself for the jar he knew must come as the engine struck it. Michaels, his face drawn and tense, sat staring ahead, but made no move toward closing the throttle, even a hair’s-breadth.

There was a mighty jolt, and the engine seemed to climb over the rails. Allan could feel it lift perceptibly, but the wheels held. A moment more—

And then, as they cleared the curve and caught a glimpse of the straight track beyond, he saw steaming toward them, under full headway, not a hundred yards away, another engine. Only for an instant he saw it; then, as Michaels closed the throttle and jerked on the brakes, he closed his eyes involuntarily, for he knew that no power on earth could stop the train in time.

CHAPTER III
THE MIRACLE AT GREENFIELD

Meanwhile, back in his private car, the great man, as was his custom in any circumstance, had made himself as comfortable as might be. It was a luxurious car, eighty feet in length, with bath, kitchen, lounging-room, bedrooms, dining-room—in fact, everything that a modern home could have, on a small and compact scale. Travel in this car was as luxurious as travel could be. And even at the wild rate of speed at which it was jerked forward, it maintained a long, steady roll, much like that of a ship on a calm sea. Only when one glanced out the windows at the blurred landscape was the speed apparent, unless, indeed, one kept one’s eyes on the needle, which flickered ceaselessly up and down on the speed-indicator.

Both of these things the great man studiously refrained from doing, but turning his back alike to the windows and to the indicator, he devoted his time to going through his correspondence, dictating to his secretary, and meditating ways and means for holding New York in the column of the “safe and sane.”

He sat up late into the night, as the train whirled across the Illinois prairies, smoking meditatively, a wrinkle of perplexed anxiety between his brows, for the path to the White House was proving more thorny than he had thought possible. Not the least of his unexpected tribulations was this record-breaking trip half across the continent. He was naturally a nervous man, and this hurtling through space distressed him acutely. He felt that he was being offered as a sacrifice upon the altar of his country, and the sensation was anything but pleasant. His only consolation was that his meteoric trip was being featured by the papers, both friendly and unfriendly, and would prove an excellent advertisement—more especially since the friendly papers were taking care to point out how lightly the great man considered his own comfort—nay, even his life—when his country called him! He smiled grimly to himself as he thought of those headlines, for he was thoroughly conscious that he was not in the least heroic, but merely an ordinary man with a faculty of making friends, a power of keeping his mouth shut when it was wise to do so, and a gift for rounded periods when rounded periods were demanded.

He went to bed, at last, long after midnight, and it was not until Cincinnati had been left far behind that he arose. He took his bath, dressed himself leisurely, and finally sat down to breakfast. Sitting thus, with his side to the window, he could not escape the vision of the landscape, which was rushing madly past. Involuntarily his eyes rested for an instant on the speed-indicator, and he started as he saw that the needle showed an hourly speed of seventy-two miles. He closed his lips firmly together and with a hand not altogether steady started to attack his grapefruit.

Then suddenly the car lurched heavily and the next instant it seemed to stand on end and buckle in the middle. The great man was thrown forward across the table, which overturned with a crash; a negro waiter, who was just entering with a tray of dishes, was hurled through a glass partition and disappeared with a yell of terror. Every movable thing in the car leaped toward the front end; what was breakable broke and the orderly interior was transformed in an instant to an appalling chaos.

Of what happened in the next minute or two, the great man never had any very definite recollection. He staggered to his feet at last and looked dazedly around. Had there been a wreck? Was he badly injured?

Then he realized that the car was moving, that the landscape was slipping past as rapidly as ever. His eyes fell again upon the needle of the indicator. It stood at sixty-eight. He glared at it for a moment, unable to believe his senses, then collapsed into a chair and buried his head in his hands.

And it was in that position that his secretary found him.

Bill Higgins, the engineer, always claimed it was because the agent at Roxabel had held him up for an hour waiting for a box-car to be loaded. The car was for a friend of the agent’s, Bill explained, or he never would have held the train. It wasn’t perishable goods, either—just some household stuff, which the friend was having moved in from Roxabel to Loveland.

Jim Burns, the conductor, said it was the heat—a really remarkable and enervating heat for October, presaging a great storm brewing somewhere. What the fireman said and the brakemen is immaterial, because when their superiors went to sleep, it was to be expected that they would do likewise. All of which came out when Train Master Plumfield had them “on the carpet” for the investigation which followed. What happened was really this:

Local freight west had started out from Wadsworth early in the morning, to make the trip in to Cincinnati, picking up such cars as were waiting for it along the way, and delivering others to the several stations. The day was hot—there was no question of that—and the work was heavy, for there was an unusual number of cars to deliver and pick up. Besides which, came the delay at Roxabel, where the agent did hold the train for a while, until the work of loading a car could be finished. The agent swore, however, that the delay on this account did not amount to more than fifteen minutes. At Lyndon, came an order for the freight to proceed to the gravel-pit siding east of Greenfield, and run in there and await the passage of a special.

“Don’t say how long we’ll have to wait,” said Burns, as he and the engineer compared notes. “Jest wait—time ain’t no object to nobody. We’ll be mighty lucky if we get into Cincinnati before midnight.”

“Them dispatchers don’t know their business, an’ never did!” protested Higgins, wiping the perspiration from his red face. “It’s an outrage to keep a train on the road the way they’re keepin’ us. The government ort t’ hear about it.”

“It sure ort,” agreed the conductor. “Well, I guess we’re ready,” and as the train rattled slowly out of the siding, he swung himself aboard the caboose, looked back to see that a yard-man closed the switch, and then, having made up his report as far as he could, calmly laid himself down in a berth and went to sleep.

The train rumbled on under the hot sun. The engineer, looking ahead, could see the waves of heat rising from the rails and the pitch oozing from the ties. Beside him, the fire beneath the boiler spat and roared; the sun beat down upon the great locomotive, until Higgins almost fancied it was turning red-hot before his eyes. The fireman, stripped to the waist, swung the fire-box door open and shut as he ladled in the coal, stopping now and then to dash the sweat from before his eyes or to spray himself with water from the tank. For they were travelling with the wind, not against it, and so lost the effect of any cooling breeze.

“Blamed if you’d think she’d need so much coal,” remarked the front brakeman, who was riding in the cab. “You’d think this heat would purty nigh git up steam without any help.”

“You don’t know this blamed old hog,” said the fireman, referring to the engine. “She eats up coal like a trans-Atlantic liner. I’ve thought sometimes they wasn’t no front end to her fire-box, an’ that I was jest shovellin’ coal out into creation. She’s a caution, she is!”

“Oh, she ain’t so bad,” put in Higgins, who like all engineers, loved his engine in spite of her faults. “You’re jest a-talkin’, Pinkey.”

“Huh!” grunted Pinkey. “You trade jobs with me awhile an’ see.”

But to this absurd proposal the engineer returned no answer. Instead, he tooted the whistle for a crossing, and, his hand on the throttle, watched a nervous farmer whip a team of horses across the track.

“Blamed fool!” he muttered. “Couldn’t wait till we got past! Well, there’s the sidin’,” he added, and stopped until the brakeman had run ahead and thrown the switch. Then he ran slowly in.

The brakeman closed the switch, and swung himself up into the caboose. He found the conductor and rear brakemen peacefully sleeping, and without disturbing them, clambered up into the cupola, intending to keep a lookout for the special, and open the switch after it had passed, so that the freight could pass out again upon the main track and proceed upon its way. For a few minutes, his eyes remained fixed upon the track ahead; then his lids gradually drooped, his head nodded, and finally fell forward upon his arms.

Forward in the engine, the engineer and fireman settled themselves upon their respective boxes.

“How long do we have t’ wait?” inquired the latter, after a few moments.

“Blamed if I know,” answered the engineer. “That fool dispatcher didn’t say. But it can’t be more’n ten minutes. If it had been, he’d have let us go on to Greenfield.”

The minutes passed; and, finally, lulled by the quiet breathing of the engine, the purr of insects, and the distant rattle of a mowing machine, both engineer and fireman nodded off.

Twenty minutes later, the engineer awoke with a start, just in time, as he thought, to hear the roar of a train fade away in the distance. He glanced at his watch, then got down from his seat, and shook the fireman with no gentle hand.

“Goin’ t’ stay here all day, Pinkey?” he asked. “An’ what’s the matter with them blame fools back there?” he added, savagely, and seizing the whistle cord, blew three shrill blasts. A moment later, the front brakeman, who had started awake at the first blast, came running forward over the train and clambered down into the cab.

“Why don’t some o’ you ijits open that there switch back there,” demanded Higgins, “so’s I kin back out? Or do you want t’ stay here the rest o’ your natural lives?”

“Why don’t you pull straight out?” asked the brakeman. “What’s th’ use o’ backin’ up?”

“Why, that there switch has been out o’ fix fer three months,” answered Higgins, savagely. “I’ve reported it a dozen times, but much good it does. Burns knows it. He knows we’ve got t’ back out. Why don’t he wake up? Is he deef?” and he jerked the whistle fiercely again.

Conductor and brakeman in the caboose were having a discussion of much the same tenor. Then Burns remembered about the broken switch.

“We’ve got t’ back out,” he said. “Higgins ’s right. Git her open,” and as the brakeman threw the switch, he signalled the engineer to back up.

The front brakeman, meanwhile, being of an inquiring disposition, had dropped off the engine and walked forward to the other switch, to see just what the matter was with it. To his surprise, he found it in perfect working order, for the section gang had repaired it the afternoon before. Chuckling to himself, he opened and closed it two or three times, thinking what a good joke he had on Burns and Higgins. Then, looking back, he saw that his train had passed out upon the main track and was steaming toward him.

“THE NEXT INSTANT IT FLASHED INTO VIEW AROUND THE CURVE.”

He closed the switch and was just about to lock it, when he heard another sound that made his heart stand still—the roar of a train approaching from the west. The next instant it flashed into view around the curve, running, as the brakeman afterwards expressed it, about three hundred miles a minute.

Without conscious thought, but seizing the one chance in a thousand to avoid a terrible accident, he threw the switch open again and then sprang aside as the special swept in upon the siding. He heard the screaming of the brakes and saw the train fairly buckling upon itself in an almost human effort to stop. But stop it could not, and out upon the main track again it swept, through the switch at the farther end of the siding, which the brakeman there had sense enough to open, and on toward Wadsworth.

Staring after it, they saw it pick up speed again, and disappear.

And it was a mighty solemn train crew that took that local freight in to Greenfield.

CHAPTER IV
AFTERMATH

Should Allan West live for a hundred years, he will never forget that instant in which he closed his eyes and braced himself for the terrific shock he knew must come. There was no time to think, no time even for the sensation of fear to make itself felt; only a sort of dim realization that the end was at hand.

Then he felt the engine give a mighty lurch, which almost tore it from the rails; a roar sounded in his ears, there was another lurch, and opening his eyes, at last, he saw only the straight track ahead of him, and felt the engine gradually gaining speed as Michaels released the brakes and slowly opened the throttle.

He sat erect with a gasp of amazement, and wiped the sweat from his forehead with shaking hand. He looked down at the fireman, who had phlegmatically resumed his duties; then over at the engineer, who was gazing straight ahead of him, his face set and gray.

“What happened?” he shouted, as the fireman closed the fire-box and stood resting for a moment.

“Blamed if I know,” the latter answered. “I was shovellin’ in coal, when Bill clapped on the brakes and purty nigh throwed me into the fire-box. Then we passed a freight an’ Bill let her out again. He must ’a’ thought she was on the same track.”

“She was on the same track,” said Allan.

“Well, we passed her, anyway,” retorted the fireman, philosophically, and returned to his duties.

Then Allan remembered the switch and understood dimly what had happened. But it was not until the investigation was held that he knew all the details.

The crew of the freight were, of course, hauled up “on the carpet.” The two brakemen who had opened the switches at the proper instant and shunted the special past were commended for their prompt action, and exonerated from blame, as the train was, of course, in charge of the conductor and engineer. The two latter worthies were suspended indefinitely without pay.

It was by no means the first time in the history of the road that a freight crew had gone to sleep on a siding and waked up to find that they no longer knew what their rights were. The proper thing to have done, of course, was either to have flagged in to the next station, or to have hunted up the nearest telephone and found out from the dispatchers’ office just what their rights were.

“That front brakeman will make a good railroad man,” remarked Mr. Plumfield, when the inquiry into the incident was over, taking a little red, leather-bound book from a drawer of his desk. “He’s quick-witted—no man ever lasted very long with a railroad who wasn’t.”

He ran down the index at the front of the book, turned to the names of the four men who had just been on the carpet, and wrote a short sentence after each of them. That record would stand to commend or condemn them so long as they were connected with the road. The record of every man was there, with all his merits and demerits. Train masters might forget—might be promoted or discharged—but that record always remained.

“Yes,” went on the train master, restoring the book to its drawer, “if a railroad man’s wits aren’t hung on hair-triggers and quicker than greased lightning in action, he’s usually knocked into Kingdom Come before he has a chance to realize he never was cut out for the work.”

And Mr. Plumfield was right. A railroad man must learn to act without stopping to think—he seldom has time to think. Perhaps if he had, he wouldn’t be so ready to risk his life as he is—for he risks his life a thousand times to a soldier’s once—but he always does it in a hurry. There is no long waiting under fire until the welcome order comes to charge—if there were, the railroad man would probably run away, and so would the soldier, but for the iron discipline that binds him. That’s what discipline is for—to hold men firm in the face of realized and long-continued danger—for there is nothing on earth more difficult than to make men stand still and be shot at. The railroad man never has to stand still—he has to jump, and jump quick. All men aren’t heroes, but their first impulse is usually to do the brave and necessary thing. Railroad men always act on that first impulse—and think about it and shiver over it and wonder at themselves afterwards.

Despite the misadventure, the special swept into Wadsworth on time, having covered ninety miles in ninety minutes—a record which has never been equalled, or even, for that matter, very nearly approached. For never since has a train been sent over the road under such orders.

A crowd had gathered at the Wadsworth station to receive the great man, confident that he would, at least, favour them with one of those scintillating three-minute talks for which he was so famous. So they gathered about the rear platform of his car yelling “Speech! speech!” For a time there was no response, then, finally, the door opened, but it was not the great man who appeared. It was his secretary, looking very white and shaky. He apologized for the great man in a thin and tremulous voice; the trip had been a very trying one, and the great man was suffering from the strain incident to the vigorous campaign he had been waging. He was lying down, endeavouring to get some much-needed rest, recognizing the necessity of saving himself for the final struggle which was to bring New York safe into line and assure an administration whose first effort it would be, etc., etc.

The crowd gave a few subdued cheers and melted away. Then the secretary leaped down the steps of the car and rushed up to Allan, who was watching the process of changing engines.

“Are you in charge here?” asked the secretary.

“I’m putting this special through, if that’s what you mean,” answered Allan.

“Well,” said the secretary, “you’re wanted in the private car at once.”

“Very well,” said Allan, and sprang up the steps behind him.

The great man was half-sitting, half-lying in a large chair. His face was gray and sunken and his eyes strangely bloodshot.

“This is the man in charge,” said the secretary, bringing Allan to a halt before the chair.

“I just want to tell you one thing,” said the great man, hoarsely, lifting a trembling finger, “and that is that if you’re all crazy out here I’m not! The man who brought us over that last stretch of road ought to be in an asylum.”

“We made the ninety miles in ninety minutes,” said Allan, with some pride.

“Well, I won’t stand for anything more of that sort. Give me your word not to exceed fifty miles an hour at any time, or I’ll get off the train.”

“Very well, sir,” answered Allan. “Will you put it in writing?”

“In writing? What for?”

“My orders are to push the engines for all they’re worth.”

The great man swore a mighty oath.

“Jim, give me a sheet of paper,” he said to his secretary. And a moment later the order was written, in a sprawly scribble:

“October 15, 19—

“This special will hereafter at no time exceed a speed of fifty (50) miles per hour.

“Signed, ————”

And Allan still has that order, neatly framed, hanging over his desk.

He hurried away and modified the train-orders, so that Clem Johnson, the engineer who was to take the special from Wadsworth to Parkersburg, suddenly lost all interest in life and climbed into his cab in a towering rage.

“Lost his nerve,” he said to his fireman, with a jerk of his head toward the private car. “An’ I don’t suppose they’ll be any runnin’ on the same road with Michaels no more—he’ll have the swell-head so bad. It’s tough luck—that’s what I call it—mighty tough luck.”

“Them fellers never do have any sand,” observed the fireman, contemptuously. “We’d ’a’ beat Michaels’s time easy.”

“O’ course we would!” growled the engineer. “An’ now we’ve got t’ crawl along like a funeral percession. I’ll show him!” and he pulled the throttle open viciously, so that the train started with a jerk that caused the great man to jump with alarm.

The engineer observed his orders not to exceed fifty miles an hour, but the trip was not a pleasant one, for all that; for he took a savage delight in banging and jerking the train, so that even the great private car felt the uneven motion, and swayed and groaned and jumped in a manner which reduced its distinguished occupant to the verge of prostration. Finally he called the conductor.

“What’s the matter with this track, anyway?” he demanded. “I feel like I was riding over a corduroy road. Has there been an earthquake, or what?”

“No, sir,” answered the conductor, who understood what the engineer was doing and was delighted thereat. “There ain’t been no earthquake. The track is perfectly smooth, sir. I don’t think the engine’s working just right—a little uneven.”

“Uneven!” repeated the great man. “Is that the best word you can find for it? It reminds me of a bucking broncho! Heavens!” and he buried his face in his hands again.

“Huh!” grunted the conductor to himself, as he withdrew. “Lost his nerve!”

It was true. The great man had lost his nerve. Not for weeks did he regain his usual tone. The leaders in New York were greatly disappointed by his lack of “ginger;” his speeches did not have that telling quality they had possessed of old—in a word, he lost New York State and the Presidency—and all, perhaps, because a freight crew went to sleep on a siding out in Ohio. An incident, surely, to rank with the spider that saved Mahomet or the whinny which made Darius King of Persia.

CHAPTER V
THE NEW TIME-CARD

So, day by day, the work at the dispatchers’ office went on in its accustomed routine. Always there was the clatter of the keys, always the trains pulling in and out of the yards, always the coming and going of men like a mighty and well-disciplined army. They were servants of the mightiest industrial force in the world, the thing which had done most for the development of commerce, the advancement of trade—the thing without which, in a word, the world of to-day would not be possible. Few people realize the tremendous business done by the railroads of the world. In the United States alone, in a single year, besides the eight hundred million passengers carried, a billion and a half tons of freight are moved, the total passenger and freight mileage reaching the inconceivable total of two hundred and forty-two billion, for which the roads received nearly two and a half billion dollars, or more than twice the amount of the national debt. Figures like that, of course, make no impression on the mind—they are too vast, too grandiose for human comprehension.

And the gigantic task of moving this freight and these passengers goes on from day to day, from hour to hour, in the usual course of things, just as the sun rises and sets, almost as though operated by a law of nature and not by man’s exertion, by the law of gravitation and not in defiance of it. And just as people grow accustomed to the miracle of sunrise and cease to wonder at it, so they grow accustomed to the miracle of steam. Only those who, day by day, do battle to keep the great machine in operation realize fully what a desperate battle it is. Allan West was soon to have a personal experience with a vital part of the mechanism with which he had never before come in contact.

“Allan,” Superintendent Schofield said one morning, stopping beside his desk, “we’ve got our new time-card about ready, and I wish you’d arrange to-morrow so you can come and help us string the chart.”

“String the chart?” repeated Allan.

“Yes. It’ll interest you—besides, it’s something you ought to know. We’re going to throw Number Two half an hour later, and make one or two other changes.”

Allan knew that the “time-card meeting” had been held at Cincinnati a few days before. Indeed, Mr. Schofield had talked over with him the projected changes, and the reasons for them.

For it must be understood that railroads everywhere are striving ceaselessly to arrange their time-cards to meet the needs of the public and to secure the greatest possible economy of operation. It is foolish for a road to run two trains when one will do, but while the number of trains is cut to a minimum, they must be run at such hours as will be convenient to the public which they serve, otherwise they won’t get the traffic. A certain number of people, of course, have to travel every day, whether the trains run at convenient hours or not; but with a much greater number travel is a matter of pleasure, of choice, and with them convenience has great weight—much greater than one would suppose.

Thus, in the vicinity of a great city, there must be locals going in in the morning and coming out in the afternoon, so that “commuters” may get back and forth to work, and shoppers may be accommodated. These trains must be sufficient in number to meet the demand, and must be run at such hours as will suit the different classes of people they serve. If the train-service is bad, the “commuters” will move, if they can, to a place where it is better—where they can get to and from work more cheaply and easily. Rents will go down in the district which is badly served, real estate will decrease in value, an undesirable class of people will move into it, and the traffic from it will drop away to little or nothing. So the road, by carelessness at the beginning, brings its own punishment surely at the end.

Further, it is immaterial as to the time that the through trains pass these points, since they gather practically no traffic from them. A through train considers only its terminals—when is the best time for it to leave New York and arrive at Cincinnati. Can such a train be arranged to leave New York after business hours and arrive at Pittsburgh before them? Two great roads are at the present time running trains between New York and Chicago with the boast that one can go from one city to the other without losing an hour of the business day.

So with through trains, the most important object is to shorten the running time as much as possible. The “locals” can take care of the short-haul traffic, and their hours can be accommodated to it; but the through trains must get from terminus to terminus, with regard only to the time of leaving and arriving.

In consequence, time-cards are constantly changing. Perhaps a curve has been straightened, or a tunnel completed that saves a long detour; perhaps a grade has been lowered, an old bridge replaced with a new one—such changes as these every road is constantly making. And time-cards change with them.

Or perhaps faster and heavier engines are purchased, and a complete change of time-card is at once rendered necessary. For every through train runs as fast as it can run with safety. And as a road grows older, and time-card after time-card is made out, the running time of the trains is made more and more perfect, until there are long stretches where the engineer does not have to touch his throttle, so exactly does the running time of the train correspond with the best the engine can do. The passenger who remarks to a companion upon the smoothness of the running, and who glances with approbation at his watch as the train pulls into its destination exactly on time, does not know what patient and long experimenting it took to achieve that result.

“Ya-as,” drawled old Bill Williams, sarcastically, when I read the above paragraph to him. “Ya-as, that’s all very pretty in theory—but how about the practice, my boy?”

I had to confess that I was weak in practice. But I knew that Bill was strong, for he had served over forty years at the throttle before an affection of the eyes had caused him to retire from active service and to open a railroad boarding-house, by means of which he still managed to keep in touch with the life of the road.

“Wa-al,” he went on, taking a deliberate chew of tobacco, and putting his feet up on the railing of the veranda which ran across the front of the Williams House, “theory an’ practice air two mighty different things. Time-cards is usually built on theory, an’ it’s up to the engineer t’ maintain ’em in practice. The trouble is that time-cards is made out fer engines in puffect condition, which not one in ten is. So the engineer has to make up fer the faults of his engine—a good deal like a good rider’ll lift his hoss over a five-barred gate, where a bad one’ll come a cropper every time. So when y’ see a train that’s come a thousand mile, pull in on time to the minute, don’t you go an’ make the mistake o’ thinkin’ it was the engine, or the time-card, or even the dispatchers what did it, ’cause it wasn’t. It was the crews what brought thet there train through in spite o’ wind an’ weather an’ other folkses mistakes.”

Nevertheless, even Bill would admit, I think, the necessity of carefully and intelligently prepared time-cards, and certainly there was no one item in the operation of the road to which the officials gave such close and continued attention. Two or three meetings were held at the general offices at Cincinnati, at which all of the officials of the transportation department, as well as the general officials, were present. Here, with data carefully collected, it was decided how many passenger and freight trains were to be run, what changes of time were desirable, and at what hour and minute each train was to leave and arrive at the termini of the division. It now remained to provide the meeting-points for these trains, and this task was left to the division officials at Wadsworth. It was this ceremony, known as “stringing the chart,” at which Allan had been invited to assist.

The chart itself was a large map about five feet high by eight wide, covered with numberless parallel lines. Across the top and bottom of the board, at equal distances, were twenty-four numbers, representing the twenty-four hours. They began at twelve midnight, ran up to twelve noon, and then to twelve midnight again. From top to bottom of the board, connecting these numbers, perpendicular lines were drawn. The space between the numbers was then divided into twelve equal parts, and lighter lines drawn connecting them. The space between every two of these lines therefore represented five minutes, and there were 288 of them running across the board from top to bottom.

On each side of the board at the top, and on a line with the top row of numbers, the word “Cincinnati” was printed. At the bottom of the board, on either side, and in line with the numbers there, was the word “Parkersburg.” These are the termini of the division, and they are 195.3 miles apart. Then along each side of the board the names of all the stations of the line were printed, the distances between them and the termini being carefully figured out so that the distances on the board should be exactly proportionate to the real distances. Horizontal lines were then drawn across the board, connecting the names of the same station, and the time-chart was complete.

Usually it was stored in a back room, out of the way, carefully covered so that it would be kept clean. On the morning in question, however, it was uncovered, carefully wiped off, and then wheeled into the superintendent’s office, where the ceremony of stringing it was to be performed. Mr. Schofield was there, and the train master, and Allan, eager to see the process. On the superintendent’s desk lay two balls of string, one white and one red, and a note-book in which had been jotted down the time assigned to each train.

“Well, I guess we’re ready to begin,” said Mr. Schofield, picking up the white ball and stepping before the chart. “We’ll string the east-bound trains first,” he added.

Let it be said here that east-bound trains are always indicated by even numbers and west-bound trains by odd ones. Thus, on any road, “Number Four,” for instance, will always be an east-bound train, and “Number Three” will always be a west-bound one. In addition to which, it should be remembered that east-bound trains always have right of way over west-bound trains of the same class. That is to say, when an east-bound and west-bound first-class passenger train meet, it is the west-bound train which runs in on a siding and waits until the other sweeps by on the main track.

“Now,” continued Mr. Schofield, “we’ll begin with Number Four, which has rights over everything. Look at those notes, Allan, and tell me at what time it is to leave Cincinnati.”

“At 12.15 P. M.,” said Allan, picking up the note-book.

“Correct. Now this line running up and down across the centre of the board is for twelve o’clock noon. This third line after it is for 12.15, five minutes for each line. This line across the top of the board is for Cincinnati, so I drive a pin there and loop the end of this cord around it, so,” and he suited the action to the word. “Now, at what time does Number Four reach Wadsworth?”

“At 3.05,” answered Allan, looking at the notes.

“Well—see, here is the 3.05 line, and here, running across the board, about midway down, is the Wadsworth line. I drive another pin at the intersection of these two lines, draw the cord tight and loop it about this second pin. And now what?”

“The train stops at Wadsworth five minutes to change engines,” said Allan.

“So I drive a third pin right out along this Wadsworth line at the intersection of it and the 3.10 o’clock line. Now, what time does it reach Parkersburg?”

“At 5.50 P. M.”

“Well, here’s the 5.50 line, and here, at the bottom of the board, is the Parkersburg line. I drive a fourth pin there, draw the cord tight and tie it. Then I cut it off, and tie at the end this little tag marked ‘Number Four.’ Now what does that cord indicate?”

Allan, looking at the board, saw a line that ran roughly like this:

(For complete time-table, see diagram facing [page 60])

“Why,” he answered, after a moment, his eyes shining, “the cord indicates the exact time that the train passes every station along the line.”

“Exactly,” assented Mr. Schofield. “Now, just by way of illustration, we’ll put on a west-bound train next,” and he picked up the red ball. “We’ll take Number Three. At what time does it leave Parkersburg?”

“At 11.40 A. M.”

“So I drive the pin here. When does it reach Wadsworth?”

“At 2.20 P. M.”

“So the pin goes here. It stays there five minutes, doesn’t it?”

“Yes—just like Number Four.”

“So another pin goes here. When does it reach Cincinnati?”

“At 5.35 P. M.”

“And here’s the fourth pin—and there’s your red string across the board, indicating Number Three. Now look at them.”

Here is what Allan saw:

Time-Table

“You notice the two strings cross at the 2.45 line,” continued Mr. Schofield, “between Musselman and Roxabel. What does that mean?”

“It means the trains will meet there.”

“But they can’t meet out there on a single track. They’ve got to meet at a station where there’s a siding. So we’ve got to hold Number Three at Musselman three minutes until Number Four can get past—in other words, we’ve got to change the red string a little, like this,” and he drove another pin on the 2.42 line at Musselman, and tied the red string to it. “That provides a meeting place for those two trains. Now let’s go ahead with the others.”

White strings representing all the east-bound passenger trains were put on the board in the same way. All of them ran more or less parallel with each other, the faster trains inclining more toward the perpendicular and the slower trains more toward the horizontal. To each string was attached a little tag bearing the number of the train, and that being done, the superintendent declared it was time to adjourn for lunch.

An hour later, the work of stringing the west-bound passenger trains was taken up, the red cord being used to represent them. As they necessarily ran in the opposite direction, these strings crossed the strings representing the east-bound trains, and each of these crossings indicated a meeting-point. When the strings were first put on the board, it was found that many of them, as had been the case with those representing trains Three and Four, crossed between stations, and as it is against the rules of all railroading to permit two trains going in opposite directions to meet on the same track, the running time of the trains had to be so altered that the meetings occurred at a station, or at least at a place where there was a siding, so that one train could pull in out of the way of the other. The through passenger trains, which are given preference, were so timed that they could run from end to end of the division without getting out of the way of anything; the accommodations usually had two or three short waits, but so carefully were these timed that their passengers would never notice it. In fact, wherever it was possible, the running time of the train was extended a few minutes, so that the delay would be only a minute or two.

After all the passenger trains had been placed on the board and the meeting-points provided for, the freight trains were added. Meeting-points with the freight trains had also to be arranged, but this was comparatively easy, as it was simply a question of the freight heading in at the last siding it could reach in advance of the passenger, and then waiting for the passenger to go by.

When every train had been placed on the board and every meeting-point provided for, the time at which every train arrived at and left every station was carefully noted down.

“And that’s done,” said Mr. Schofield, with a sigh of satisfaction. “It’s a big job, and I’m mighty glad we won’t have to do it soon again. What do you think of it?”

“It’s great,” Allan answered. “Who thought it out?”

“I don’t know. It’s been in use for a long time—practically all roads ‘string the chart,’ just as we have done. It’s the safest system that has ever been devised.”

On this chart only the more important trains are shown. Dotted lines
have been used to represent white cords, or east-bound trains, and solid
lines to represent red cords, or west-bound trains.
(Click on image to see a larger version.)

“I don’t see how any could be safer,” said Allan. “And I’m awfully glad you showed me how it works.”

“Oh, I’d do that, of course,” laughed the superintendent. “I want you to know everything there is to know about railroading. It will all come in handy some day. Now, I’ll turn these notes over to the printer, and we’ll have another bout when we get the proofs.”

In a few days, the first proof of the new time-card was returned to Mr. Schofield, and he and Allan went over it carefully, comparing it with the chart to make certain that there was no error in figures and that every meeting-point was provided for. With the chart to go by, it was impossible that any meeting-point could be overlooked. A second proof was treated in the same way, and finally O.K’d. Then the time-cards were printed—not at all in the form with which the public is acquainted with them, but as large oblong pamphlets of twenty-four pages,—distributed to the road’s employees, and at twelve o’clock midnight on December 21st, the new card went into effect. All the public knew of it was a few lines in the newspapers announcing that this train or the other would arrive a few minutes later or earlier than it had been doing, and most people wondered, if they thought about it at all, why it had been necessary to get out a new time-card at all for changes so unimportant.

CHAPTER VI
THE LITTLE CLOUD

The installing of a new time-card is not so simple a thing as one might imagine. For that one night, every engineer and conductor has to bear in mind two schedules, the old one and the new one. For, though the new one goes into effect, technically, at midnight, it is, of course, impossible that it should do so in reality. A train, for instance, which started under the old schedule at 10.50 P. M. and which, under the new one, would start fifteen or twenty minutes earlier, could not, once it was out on the road, make up that time, so it was compelled to run by the old schedule until it had finished its trip, even though that carried it over the time after which the new schedule went into effect. In other words, every train which was on the road at midnight, must continue under the old schedule until it reached its destination.

So that night was always one of anxiety. Trainmen, who often get mixed on a single schedule, are only too likely to do so on a double one!

It so happened, however, that the exciting events of that night were not due to forgetfulness, but to a danger which no one could foresee or guard against, and which is, in consequence, one most feared by railroad men. And it developed the latent heroism in two men in a way which is still talked of on the rail, where these tales are passed on from mouth to mouth wherever trainmen congregate.

The night was a cold and windy one, with a swirl of snow now and then, just sufficient to obscure the slippery track ahead, and yet not dense enough to cause the engineer to abandon in despair the task of trying to see what he was driving into. As a consequence, Engineer Jim Adams, pulling first section of through freight No. 98, had strained his eyes until they ached, in the effort to descry track and signals. More than once his hand had trembled on the throttle, as he fancied he saw another headlight gleaming through the mist ahead, but which, at the last instant, resolved itself into a reflection of his own. So when an unmistakable red glow did appear there, he waited an instant and batted his eyes savagely once or twice before he threw on the brakes.

“It’s the Jones Run bridge!” yelled the front brakeman, who, perched on the fireman’s seat, had seen the glare at the same instant. “Git out o’ here!” And jumping to the floor of the cab, he balanced himself an instant in the gangway and then sprang out into the darkness.

The fireman took one look at the swirling flames ahead and followed him. Then the engineer, having set the brakes and closed the throttle, also leaped out into the darkness. But even as he leaped, he suddenly realized that the train had just impetus enough to carry it to the bridge. It would stop there, be consumed, and the loss to the company would be thousands and thousands of dollars.

By a supreme effort, he landed on his feet, and then, running a step or two, managed to catch the hand-hold on the first freight car, as it passed him. In a minute, he had clambered up the ladder, over the coal in the tender and down into the cab again, where he released the brakes, opened the throttle wide, and started on a wild run for the bridge. In an instant, the flames were around him and he felt the bridge shake and sway, but it held, and the train crossed in safety.

Meanwhile, back in the caboose, a strange scene was enacting. The brakeman and conductor, who had been cosily sleeping in their bunks, were suddenly thrown out to the floor by a terrific impact, and every loose object seemed to be hurling itself toward the front end of the car. It took a minute for them to disentangle themselves and get to their feet again. Then they made a simultaneous rush for the door, just as the brakes were released and the train jerked forward again. The conductor opened the door and started to put his head out to see what was the matter, when he suddenly found himself surrounded by a swirl of flame.

“Gosh all whittaker!” he yelled, and slammed the door shut again. Then he jumped for the box of fusees which every caboose carries.

The brakeman, who was green, was too frightened even to be interested. Otherwise he would have seen the conductor jerk out two fusees, and then, opening the door again, drop off the train just as it cleared the bridge. He scrambled down the bank, and, holding the fusees high over his head, plunged into the icy water without an instant’s hesitation, and then, stopping only to light one of the fusees at a glowing ember, raced wildly away down the track, waving it above his head. For he had remembered the second section following close behind; he knew that the bridge would be so weakened that another train could not cross it; feared that, in the swirling snow, the engineer might not see the flames until too late; and instantly took the only effective means to stop the oncoming train.

Stop it he did, of course, and after making sure the bridge could not be saved, both trains flagged their way to the nearest stations to give word of the disaster. Ten hours later, a temporary bridge replaced the old one, and traffic was running as usual.

An investigation of the cause of the fire followed a few days later, but nothing definite concerning it could be discovered. It might have started, as so many do, from ashes dropped from the fire-box of a passing train; or it might have been set on fire by tramps, either by accident or design. Orders were at once sent in for an iron bridge to replace the wooden one, so that a repetition of the accident would be impossible.

One thing, however, resulted from the investigation—the indication of possible carelessness on the part of another engineer. Half an hour before the first section of ninety-eight had passed, the evening accommodation had crossed the bridge. It seemed impossible that the fire should have got such a headway in that time, and the presumption strongly was that the bridge was on fire when the passenger train crossed it, and that the engineer was not attending to his duties, or he would have seen it. The fireman, engaged in shovelling coal into the fire-box, and blinded by the glare of the flames, would probably not have noticed it, and on a passenger train no brakeman rides in the cab; but it could not have escaped the eyes of the engineer if he had been watching the tracks. It was, of course, possible that he had seen it, but had not stopped his train or given warning through some motive of hate or personal revenge; and inquiry, indeed, developed the fact that there was a bitter quarrel of long standing between him and Jim Adams, the engineer of first ninety-eight—but this may have been merely a coincidence.

At any rate, Mr. Plumfield hesitated to think that any man would have passed the fire from such a motive, and preferred to believe that the engineer of the accommodation had merely been remiss. The engineer, a burly fellow named Rafe Bassett, stoutly denied that this was the case, and declared that he had noticed the bridge especially and that it was all right.

Something in his demeanour, however, aroused Mr. Plumfield’s suspicions. Bassett was perhaps a trifle too emphatic in his denials. At any rate, he was suspended without pay.

The day after this happened, Mr. Schofield paused beside the train master’s desk.

“What was the trouble with Bassett, George?” he asked.

“Well, I can’t say, exactly,” answered Mr. Plumfield. “But he struck me as being not altogether on the square. You know he’s been in trouble before,” and he brought out the little red book.

Mr. Schofield nodded.

“Yes, I know,” he said. “I’m afraid this is going to make trouble,” he added, after a moment. “You know Bassett is a great brotherhood man, and is one of those big-mouthed agitators who are always talking about the wrongs of labour. His lodge is calling a special meeting to-night to consider his case.”

“Is it?” asked Mr. Plumfield, grimly. “Well, I suppose there’ll be a grievance committee to wait on me in the morning.”

And there was. Scarcely had he seated himself at his desk next day, when three engineers, cap in hand, appeared at the door and requested an audience.

“All right, boys; come in,” said the train master. “What’s the trouble?”

“It’s about Bassett,” explained the spokesman. “He’s laid off, I hear.”

“Yes,” said the train master. “Laid off till further notice.”

“What for?” asked the spokesman.

Mr. Plumfield hesitated. It was rather difficult to formulate the charge against Bassett.

“For knowing more about the burning of the Jones Run bridge the other night than he’s willing to tell.”

“Do you mean he set it on fire?” inquired one of the men, incredulously.

“Oh, no; but I think he ran past it after it was on fire and didn’t stop to put it out, as he should have done.”

“Does Bassett admit it?”

“No, of course not.”

“Why should he run past the fire?”

“Maybe he was asleep and didn’t see it.”

“And have you any evidence?”

“None but his manner,” answered Mr. Plumfield frankly.

“Well,” said the spokesman, twirling his cap in his hands, “all I can say is that that’s mighty poor evidence, it seems to me. We had a meetin’ at the lodge last night, and we was appointed a committee to see you and demand that Bassett be reinstated at once.”

“All right,” said Mr. Plumfield, “I’ll consider it.”

“And when can we have our answer?”

“This afternoon at three o’clock,” answered the train master sharply.

“All right, sir,” said the spokesman of the committee, and the three men filed out.

Mr. Plumfield looked over at Allan, after a moment, with a little laugh.

“I’m afraid those fellows have got me,” he said. “I’m morally convinced that Bassett’s crooked, but there’s no way to prove it. I’m afraid I’ll have to back down. I made a mistake in suspending him in the first place, but the man’s manner irritated me.”

And so, that afternoon, when the committee reappeared, it was informed that Bassett had been reinstated as requested.

They filed out with ill-concealed triumph on their faces, and Mr. Plumfield felt uncomfortably that his mistake had been a serious one. In gaining a victory, Bassett had enthroned himself more firmly than ever in the confidence of his associates.

Three hours later, in the dusk of the early winter evening, Mr. Plumfield left his office and started toward his home. As he crossed the tracks, and came opposite a saloon which occupied the corner nearest the station, the door suddenly swung open and two or three men stumbled out. They were talking loudly, and as they came under the glare of the street lamps, Mr. Plumfield saw that one of them was Bassett. The engineer saw him at the same moment.

“Why, here’s the train master,” he cried, lurching forward. “Well, so ye had t’ crawfish, didn’t ye, me bird? An’ well fer ye ye did!”

“Bassett,” said Mr. Plumfield, quietly, “you’re drunk. Take care, or you’ll get a dose a good deal worse than the last one.”

“Oh, I will, will I?” cried Bassett, coming closer. “Well, you jest try it! You jest try it!”

“All right,” said Mr. Plumfield. “You don’t need to report any more. You’re not in the employ of the P. & O. any longer.”

“Ain’t I?” cried Bassett. “Well, we’ll see what the boys say to that! You heerd this, boys—”

But without waiting to hear more, Mr. Plumfield went on his way. This time, he felt, he would have to stick to his decision, no matter what happened. And he felt, too, that he was right.

CHAPTER VII
A THREAT FROM MR. NIXON

The storm was not long in bursting. Again there was a special meeting of the lodge; again a grievance committee waited on Mr. Plumfield, but it met a very different reception from that which had been given the former one.

“I have just one thing to tell you,” he said, when he had listened to their complaint, “and that is that Rafe Bassett will never be given a job on this road while I’m train master. He was drunk the other night, and you know it.”

“He denies it,” said the chairman of the committee. “He admits he’d had a glass or two of beer, but that ain’t a penitentiary offence.”

“Especially when a man ain’t on duty,” chimed in another.

“And he says he thought he was still suspended,” chimed in a third, “and he supposed he could do as he pleased.”

“He didn’t think anything of the sort,” said Mr. Plumfield, sharply. “The first words he said to me were that I’d had to crawfish. So he knew he’d been reinstated. But he’ll never be reinstated again.”

“Are them your last words, Mr. Plumfield?” inquired one of his auditors, ominously.

“Yes, they’re my last words,” retorted the train master, and turned to his work, while the committee filed out.

He foresaw, of course, what would happen, but he felt that to reinstate Bassett would for ever destroy discipline among the men under him. He stated the case to Mr. Schofield, and that official agreed with him that Bassett could never be reinstated, but that the matter must be fought out to a finish.

Hostilities were not long in commencing. The local lodge made a report—more or less biased—of the occurrence to the general officials of the order, and one of the latter came posthaste to the scene. A day or two later, Mr. Schofield received the following letter:

“Wadsworth, Ohio, January 16, 190-

“Mr. R. E. Schofield,

“Superintendent Ohio Division,

“P. & O. Railway.

“Dear Sir:—As a representative of the Grand Lodge of the Independent Order of Railway Engineers, I ask a conference with you at the earliest possible moment.

“Yours truly,

“H. F. Nixon,

“Special Delegate.”

Mr. Schofield answered at once, setting the conference for next day and asking both Mr. Plumfield and Allan to be present. For he desired some witnesses of the interview.

Nixon showed up promptly at the appointed time. He was a heavy-set man with a red face and big black moustache. He wore a sweeping fur overcoat, and, when he drew off his gloves, a big seal-ring with diamond settings was visible upon the little finger of his right hand. Mr. Schofield greeted him courteously, invited him to take off his overcoat and sit down, and then stepped to the door.

“Bob,” he called to his office boy, “ask Mr. Plumfield and Mr. West to step this way at once, will you?”

Nixon, who had thrown his overcoat across a chair and got out a big black cigar, paused with it halfway to his lips.

“Not calling the company for me, are you?” he asked.

“Why, yes,” said the superintendent, quietly. “You’ve come about the Bassett business, haven’t you?”

Nixon nodded.

“Well, Mr. Plumfield is the one with whom Bassett had the trouble. I thought you’d like to hear his story.”

“Oh, all right,” said Nixon, sitting down and lighting his cigar. “Only I know the story already.”

“Maybe you’ve only heard one side of it,” suggested Mr. Schofield, smiling.

“Well, maybe I have,” assented Nixon, and when Mr. Plumfield and Allan entered, he greeted them with a fair degree of cordiality.

“And now, Mr. Plumfield,” said the superintendent, when the introductions were over, “I wish you would tell Mr. Nixon exactly what happened between you and Bassett.”

So the train master told the story of his encounter with the drunken engineer, while Nixon sat back in his chair puffing his cigar meditatively, and nodding from time to time.

“You know, of course,” he said, when Mr. Plumfield had finished, “that Bassett denies he was drunk, and so do the boys who were with him. He admits that he’d had a glass or two of beer, but there’s nothing against that, is there, when a man’s off duty?”

“There’s a rule against the use of intoxicants,” replied the superintendent, slowly, “and against a man’s being impudent on duty or off.”

“And there’s no prospect of your taking Bassett back?” asked Nixon.

“Not the slightest,” answered Mr. Schofield.

“I suppose you know what that means?” inquired Nixon, blowing out a puff of smoke and gazing at it with half-closed eyes, as it floated slowly upwards.

“What does it mean?”

“It means a strike.”

“Is the brotherhood as foolish as all that?”

“The brotherhood is bound to protect the interests of all its members.”

“Even those who don’t deserve it?”

“The brotherhood must decide who’s worthy and who’s not. It can’t let outsiders do it.”

“Well, all right,” said Mr. Schofield. “It’s up to you. I guess we can get some more engineers.”

“Oh, you’ll need more than engineers,” said Nixon, easily. “You’ll need firemen and brakemen and conductors and switchmen—the whole force, in fact.”

The superintendent sat staring at his visitor, his brows knitted.

“You mean they’ll strike in sympathy?” he asked, at last.

“Exactly,” and Nixon smiled blandly.

“What kind of fools are railroad men anyhow?”

“I’ll tell you how it is,” said Nixon. “Railroad men realize that they’ve got to stand together. You remember those spell-binders who used to go around hollering ‘My country, right or wrong!’ Well, that’s our principle. Besides, the time’s ripe for a strike.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I mean there hasn’t been a real strike for some time an’ the boys are ready for a little excitement. You see, we’ve found a better way than strikin’, but not half so interestin’.”

“I think I know what you mean,” said Mr. Schofield, slowly.

“Yes—I guess you do. We’ve found out that we can get legislatures to pass most any law we want. It’s different from the old days, when the railroads carried the legislatures in their pockets. The pendulum’s swung the other way. Now it’s as much as a man’s life’s worth to vote for a railroad measure or against one that railroad employees ask for. So things come our way easy. Besides, that anti-pass law has hurt you bad.”

“Yes, it has,” Mr. Schofield agreed, with a grim smile.

“It was a mighty cheap and convenient way of buyin’ influence,” continued Nixon. “For a thousand or two miles of mileage, you got seven-eighths of the legislatures without further expense. They didn’t consider it takin’ a bribe. Now even money won’t do the trick. You’re up a tree.”

“Yes, we are,” agreed the superintendent, “until the pendulum swings back again. You fellows are too eager. You’re killing the goose.”

“Well, I guess we’ll get our share of the eggs,” grinned Nixon. “Have you heard of the latest?”

“The latest?”

“The caboose bill?”

“No,” said Mr. Schofield. “What’s that?”

“Well,” said Nixon, chuckling to himself, “the railroads, as you know, never waste a thought on the comfort or safety of their employees—”

“No, of course not,” agreed Mr. Schofield, ironically.

“All they think of is earnings an’ big salaries for the officers. One of the most inhuman afflictions which freight conductors and brakemen have to put up with in modern times is the caboose. Have you ever ridden in a caboose?”

“Hundreds of times!”

“Oh, I forgot,” said Nixon, grinning, “I thought I was addressin’ the legislature. I was goin’ to paint for them the torture of ridin’ in a caboose, the impossibility of sleepin’ there; how a few years of it wrecks a man’s health, and so forth.”

“I see you’re a good hand at fancy pictures,” said the superintendent, drily.

“A man has to be to hold my job,” said Nixon, with a broad grin. “But, cuttin’ all that out, the bill compels the railroads to use no caboose less’n forty feet in length. The berths must be comfortable an’ sanitary, with the sheets changed every trip. There must be all the toilet conveniences—”

“Why not compel us to hitch a Pullman to every freight train, with porter and everything complete?” inquired the superintendent.

“Oh, no,” protested Nixon, waving his hand. “We’re reasonable. We don’t want anything but our rights.”

Mr. Schofield’s face was flushed and he opened his lips for an angry retort, but thought better of it and closed them again. Then he laughed.

“All right,” he said. “Go ahead. Kill the goose. But were you serious about that strike?”

“Never more serious in my life.”

“When will it be called?”

“When I give the word,” said Nixon, “not before.”

And he cast at the superintendent a glance full of meaning.

The latter stared at him, then down at his desk, drumming with absent fingers.

“Well,” he said, at last, looking up, “don’t call it for a couple of days. I’ll have to ask instructions from headquarters.”

“All right,” agreed Nixon, rising and slipping into his coat. “Let me see—this is Wednesday. I’ll come in Friday morning at this time for your answer. How’ll that suit?”

Mr. Schofield nodded curtly, and with a bland wave of the hand to the others, Nixon went to the door and let himself out.

The superintendent gazed moodily at the closed door for a moment, then he rose and walked to the window and stared down over the yards.

“Well,” he said at last, turning back to the others, “there are three courses open.”

“Three?” repeated Mr. Plumfield, in evident surprise.

“Yes, three. In the first place, we can back down and reinstate Bassett.”

“Yes.”

“In the second place, we can refuse to do it and fight it out.”

“Yes.”

“And in the third place we can avoid either.”

“How?”

“By bribing Nixon.”

“Bribing Nixon?”

“Yes. You heard him say that there wouldn’t be any strike until he called it?”

“Yes.”

“But you didn’t see how he looked at me when he said it. If ever a man invited a bribe, without putting the invitation in so many words, he did. A thousand dollars would do it.”

“But you won’t offer it!” cried Allan eagerly. “You won’t do that!”

“No,” said Mr. Schofield, smiling as he looked at the flushed face. “I won’t do it. I’m going to advise a fight. But the decision doesn’t rest with me. I’ll have to go to Cincinnati in the morning and take it up with the general manager.”

“But to give a bribe—” Allan began.

“Sounds bad, doesn’t it? And yet I don’t think the general manager will waste much time thinking about the moral side of it. That’s not what he’s there for. He’s there to work for the best interests of the road. A strike is sure to cost us a good many times a thousand dollars—how many times nobody can tell till it’s over. Which is best for the road?”

Allan’s head was whirling. After all, there was truth in what Mr. Schofield said. The only question for the general manager to consider was just that—what was best for the road.

Mr. Schofield turned from the window and looked at him again.

“I tell you what,” he said, suddenly, “I’d like to have you go along. Will you?”

“Go along?”

“And hear the other side of it. It’ll do you good, and maybe it’ll do us good to have you,” he added.

“I’ll be glad to,” answered Allan, his face flushing suddenly, and hastened back to his desk to get things in shape so that he could be absent on the morrow.

CHAPTER VIII
MR. ROUND’S DECISION

And so it happened that Allan arose next morning about two hours earlier than usual, in order to catch the five o’clock train for Cincinnati. It reminded him of the far-off days when he was taking his trick of track-walking in the early morning. As he came down the stairs, he saw a yellow band of light under the kitchen door, and he heard somebody clattering about within. He opened the door to find Mary already busy with the kitchen stove.

“Why, Allan,” she said, “what’re ye doin’ up so early?”

“I’ve got to go to Cincinnati on Number One,” he answered. “I’ll be back on Two to-night.”

“Why didn’t ye tell me last night?” she demanded. “I’d ’a’ had your breakfast ready.”

“I know you would,” Allan answered, looking at the patient, kindly face. “That’s the reason I didn’t say anything. I’ll get breakfast on the diner. Good-bye,” and snatching up hat and overcoat, he was off.

He reached the station just as the train was pulling in and found Mr. Schofield awaiting him. Together they clambered into the Pullman and took their seats in the smoking compartment.

It was still quite dark, but a faint band of gray over the hills to the east told that the dawn was not far distant. The train rolled out of the yards, through the deserted streets, along the embankment by the dark river, past the twin bridges spanning canal and highway at the city limits, up the long grade that led to the slate cut, through the cut, over the bridge spanning the deep ravine beyond, and so on toward Cincinnati. For some time, neither Allan nor Mr. Schofield spoke, but sat silently staring out of the window, for every foot of the way had some association for them. It was that embankment which they had laboured so hard to save in time of flood, when the mighty current of the river was slowly seeping over it; it was in that cut that Allan had encountered Reddy Magraw, half crazed, one wild night; it was from the bridge beyond that a gang of wreckers had attempted to hurl the pay-car. How familiar it all was—how near, and yet how far-away, those days seemed!

Then, as the dawn lightened, a tousle-headed man came in, coat, collar and shoes in hand, and made a hasty toilet.

“Couldn’t sleep a wink last night,” he said, when he had got his hands and face washed, his collar on and his tie tied. “This road certainly has got ’em all beat for curves.”

“It does wind a little as it comes through the mountains,” agreed Mr. Schofield, smiling.

“Wind!” exclaimed the stranger. “It corkscrews!”

“You see, it has to follow the streams,” explained the superintendent.

“Well, the streams must ’a’ been drunk when they struck out their path, then. Well, well,” he added, glancing through the window at the frost-whitened fields, “that’s the first time I’ve seen any frost for two years.”

“Where’ve you been?” inquired Mr. Schofield.

“Down at Panama. I run an engine on the Isthmus railroad.”

“Do you?” and Mr. Schofield looked at him with interest. “How are things getting along down there?”

“The dirt is certainly flying some. But it’s an almighty big job we’ve tackled.”

“Oh, by the way,” Mr. Schofield added, “there used to be a brakeman on this road named Guy Kirk, who went to Panama about a year and a half ago. Did you ever hear of him?”

“Hear of him? I guess I did. He’s a conductor, now, freight, and everybody thinks a whole lot of him. And he gets around mighty lively considerin’ what he went through.”

“Went through? How do you mean?”

“Well, sir,” said the stranger, getting out a darkly-coloured brier and filling it from a red-leather pouch, “it was this way. There’s a mighty mean grade going down into Ancon—mighty mean. It’s steep and it’s got a sharp curve at the bottom. It’s pretty ticklish getting down sometimes, especially when the rails are slippery and the road-bed squashy after one of them heavy tropical rains. One night a heavy freight, on which Kirk was front brakeman, started down that grade. The engineer threw on his air, but there wasn’t any, and the first thing he knowed they were scootin’ down that grade at forty miles an hour. The engineer whistled five or six times to warn the crew in the caboose and then he and his fireman jumped.”

“And what did Kirk do?” asked Mr. Schofield, deeply interested.

“Well, sir,” answered the narrator, slowly exhaling a long puff, “Kirk didn’t jump. Instead o’ that, he hustled out on that train an’ began to set the hand-brakes. The first eight or ten cars were full of nut coal. Kirk only got about two brakes set, when the train hit the curve. The rails spread, o’ course; Kirk hit the ground first an’ the ten cars o’ nut coal piled up on top of him. Nobody ever expected to see him alive again, but when they dug the coal off, blamed if there he didn’t set in a kind o’ little hut the cars had made over him as they fell. Only both his legs was caught below the knee an’ broke so bad that they never did get quite straight again. But it wasn’t long after that he got his promotion.”

Other occupants of the sleeper had come in while the story was in progress, and a few minutes later came the first call to breakfast. Allan, at least, was ready for it, and he and Mr. Schofield lost no time in seeking the diner.

Perhaps no other one improvement in railway service has added as much to the comfort and convenience of the travelling public as has this, which enables the passengers on any first-class train to eat their meals at leisure, when they want them, and to procure well-cooked and appetizing food, temptingly served amid pleasant surroundings. It is not so many years since the passenger was dependent for his food either on such supplies as he had brought with him, or upon hasty lunches in dirty depot dining-rooms, where the cold and unpleasant food was bolted in fear and trembling lest the train puffing outside pull away. Not that the proprietors of the dining-rooms themselves were wholly to blame for this condition, for they never knew how many customers they were going to have, trains were often late, fifteen or twenty minutes was the utmost time allowed for a meal by the management of any road, and not more than half of that was available for actual eating, while to keep free from soot and smoke and cinders a dining-room in a depot building was a task beyond human ingenuity.

After the meal, Mr. Schofield led the way to the rear of the diner, where, from the platform, they could watch the track spinning backwards from under them.

“Notice the absence of dust,” he said, and, indeed, as the train swept onward, there was practically no dust behind it. “We’ve accomplished that by washing the gravel before we use it as ballast, instead of dumping it in just as it comes from the gravel-pit, as we used to do. It only costs about half a cent a yard to wash it, and it makes it as clean as crushed stone.”

“It certainly makes it a lot cleaner back here,” remarked the man in charge of the dining-car. “We can keep the back door open now. The only time we have to shut it,” he added, suiting the action to the word, “is when we pass the stock-yards. Nobody can enjoy a meal with that scent blowing in upon them.”

The stock-yards consisted of long rows of flimsy frame buildings, lining either side of the tracks for perhaps half a mile just outside of Cincinnati. Here the thousands and thousands of steers, hogs, and sheep shipped in from the west were loaded and unloaded. Narrow runways led from the pens up to the level of the freight-car doors, and up and down these, incoming or outgoing stock was constantly ascending or descending, urged by prods in the hands of the stock-yard men. It was not a pleasant sight, and our two friends contemplated it silently as the train sped past.

“Man has a good deal to answer for in this world,” remarked Mr. Schofield, “and I sometimes think he’ll be called to account pretty severely for the suffering of those poor steers. They are bred out on the prairies, you know, are left absolutely shelterless in winter and freeze or starve to death by thousands. Those that manage to survive, are crowded into the stock-cars and shipped east. There’s a law requiring that they be fed and watered every so often, and that they be taken out of the cars after so long a time. But there’s nobody to enforce the law, and it’s pretty generally disregarded. It’s always been a wonder to me that the stock reaches the eastern markets at all.”

“What can be done about it?” asked Allan, soberly.

“The railroads can’t do anything. But the government could compel all stockmen to furnish adequate shelter and food for their stock in winter, and the torture of this long-distance shipping could be avoided if the big slaughter-houses were out in the stock-raising district, so that only the meat need be shipped. Do you remember,” he added, after a moment, “in Bellamy’s ‘Looking Backward,’ how incomprehensible and repulsive the thought of flesh-eating had become? Well, I believe Bellamy was right. Already there is a rapidly growing feeling against meat-eating, and the day is not so very far distant when it will be practically abolished. And a good thing, too.”

The train had run under the great train-shed, as they were talking, and five minutes later, Mr. Schofield and Allan were shown into the office of General Manager Round. It was a plainly-furnished, business-like room, typical of the man who occupied it—a man who had risen from the ranks and who had endeared himself to every man under him by justice, kindness and square-dealing.

“How are you, boys?” he said, shaking hands with both of them heartily. “Glad to see you. Sit down. Now, Ed, what’s this I hear about a strike?”

“Well,” said Mr. Schofield, “it looks a good deal like we were going to have one.”

“Let’s have the story,” said Mr. Round, settling back in his chair, and he listened with half-closed eyes while Mr. Schofield told the story of the trouble with Bassett and the interview with Nixon.

“And you really think there’ll be a strike?” he asked, when Mr. Schofield had finished.

“Of course Nixon may have been bluffing,” answered the latter slowly, “but I don’t believe it. I think there’ll be a strike, unless—”

“Unless what?” asked Mr. Round, as the superintendent paused.

“Well, we can reinstate Bassett.”

“No, we can’t,” said Mr. Round. “We can’t reinstate Bassett and preserve any discipline on this division. So count that out.”

“I agree with you, of course,” said Mr. Schofield. “There’s a second course open.”

“What is it?”

“We can bribe Nixon.”

“You think he’s bribable?”

“I know he is.”

“And what’s his price?”

“I don’t know that exactly. But I should say about a thousand dollars. Of course, a general strike would cost us a great deal more than that.”

Mr. Round nodded. Then he happened to glance at Allan West’s burning face.

“What do you think about it, Allan?” he asked.

“I wouldn’t bribe a man if it kept the road from being tied up for a year,” answered Allan, impetuously. “Besides, you’re not really helping matters—the thing will have to be fought out sooner or later. Let’s fight it out now. We’ll get out trains through in spite of them. We’ll have the law back of us.”

“The law isn’t much of a protection,” remarked Mr. Round. “It doesn’t so much prevent crime, as punish it. And it isn’t much of a compensation to a railroad, after it has had two or three hundred thousand dollars’ worth of property destroyed, to have the fellows who did it sent to jail. Besides, what’s the use of being so horror-stricken at the idea of bribery? We’re always giving or taking bribes. When you tipped the waiter in the diner this morning, you bribed him to give you better service than he gave the other people he was serving.”

“I didn’t tip him,” said Allan, smiling, “and that was just the reason. I agree with you that tipping is petty bribery, and diminishes the self-respect of both the giver and receiver.”

“You’ve hit it,” approved Mr. Round. “To give a bribe diminishes one’s self-respect. But has a corporation like a railroad any self-respect?”

“It ought to have.”

“Most people seem to think it hasn’t even common honesty, because it has had to fight with such weapons as came to hand. Good Lord! does anybody suppose the railroads wanted to give passes and contribute to campaign funds, and maintain a lobby, and pay bribes? But they couldn’t get what they wanted any other way!”

Allan smiled.

“Sometimes they wanted things they hadn’t any business with,” he said, “and they’re suffering for it now. But I guess they’ll pull through. The public will see after a while that they’re not so black as they’re painted. And right here’s a chance to keep this one clean.”

Again Mr. Round nodded. Then he wheeled his chair around and for some moments sat staring thoughtfully out of the window. Then he wheeled sharply back.

“Schofield,” he said, “you tell Nixon to go ahead and call a strike, if he wants to.”

CHAPTER IX
A BUBBLE BURSTS

Allan was on his feet, his eyes shining.

“That’s great!” he said. “That’s great.”

Mr. Round motioned him to sit down again.

“It isn’t altogether on high moral grounds I’m deciding this way,” he said. “It’s because I don’t think a strike, starting from such a fool cause, will hurt us. I think it will help us. We need public sympathy and public confidence. The public has been weaned away from us by a lot of muck-rakers. Here’s a chance to get it back. And now, Ed,” he added, “you’ve got to make a grand-stand play.”

“All right,” agreed Mr. Schofield. “What is it?”

“You’ve got to bribe Nixon.”

“Bribe Nixon?”

“And show him up.”

A light broke over Mr. Schofield’s face.

“Oh!” he said. “I see.”

“You and I will talk it over,” said Mr. Round. “But it’s lunch time,” he added, looking at his watch. “Of course you’re coming with me.”

So the three went out to lunch together, and for a time forgot the cares of railroading. Only once was the road referred to.

“I’ve got to see Mr. Heywood before I go back,” Mr. Schofield remarked. “There’s one or two little matters I want to take up with him.”

Mr. Round’s face darkened.

“You won’t see him to-day,” he said.

“Why not?” questioned Mr. Schofield.

“The fact of the matter is,” said Mr. Round, after a moment’s hesitation, “Heywood hasn’t been at his office for three days.”

“Hum!” said Mr. Schofield, his face darkening too. “Has it got that bad? I’d heard stories, of course, but I’d hoped they were exaggerated.”

“He’s been getting worse and worse, and I don’t believe he’ll hold his job much longer. He may be let down easy, because he’s been a good man—and he’d be a good man yet if he could let drink alone. But it’s getting more and more hold on him all the time. He knows it and is ashamed of it, but he don’t seem to have strength enough to break away from it. It’s too bad.”

“Yes, it is,” agreed Mr. Schofield. “What I hate about it most is the humiliation his daughter must suffer. I don’t know whether you knew her or not—Betty Heywood—but she was a mighty nice girl.”

“No, I didn’t know her,” said Mr. Round. “But she seems to have saved herself. I heard the other day that she was going to get married.”

Allan’s heart bounded suddenly, and his face reddened, but neither of his companions noticed his agitation.

“That’s a good thing,” said Mr. Schofield. “Who’s the man?”

“I don’t remember his name,” answered Mr. Round. “I heard some of the boys talking about it the other day—of course there may be nothing in it.”

“Well, I hope it’s so,” remarked the other. “It would solve a mighty unpleasant situation. Now, I’m going to turn you loose for the afternoon, Allan,” he added. “Meet me in time to catch Number Two and we’ll have dinner together on the diner.”

“Very well, sir,” said Allan, welcoming the opportunity to be alone with his thoughts. “I’ll be there.”

He walked slowly up the street, seeing nothing of the busy life about him, turning over and over in his mind the bit of gossip which Mr. Round had repeated. Could it be true, he wondered. Suppose it were, what would it mean to him? It had been years since he had seen Betty Heywood; it was very probable that the girl whose image lived in his heart was very different from the reality. At any rate, it was absurd to suppose that she would have anything more than the faintest of remembrances of the boy she had befriended in years gone by.

Shaking such thoughts away, at last, he considered for a moment where he should spend the afternoon. He decided in favour of the Art Museum, and boarding a car, started on the long, beautiful ride to Eden Park. The route carried him up one of the long inclines, which are a unique feature of Cincinnati’s street railway system. The city proper is built in the valley along the river, and is surrounded by hills two or three hundred feet in height, where the most exclusive residence sections are. These are reached by inclines, where the cars are hoisted and lowered by means of massive wire cables.

As the car rose slowly up the incline, Cincinnati lay spread below him, a charming city, marred only by the haze of coal smoke which a too-indulgent city government made little effort to suppress. Half an hour later, he was at his destination and entered the museum, whose collection of paintings, statuary and other works of art is one of the most famous in the middle west. He spent a most enjoyable hour wandering from room to room, and was about ready to go, when, in one of the far galleries, he noticed a woman at work before an easel, and, strolling nearer, saw that she was making a copy of one of the larger paintings. He was about to turn away, fearing that he was intruding, when she glanced up and saw him.

“Why, Allan West,” she cried, and started up, hand outstretched, and he saw that it was Betty

Heywood. “It is Allan West, isn’t it?” she asked, as he stood for an instant chained to the spot.

“It certainly is,” he answered, clasping the welcoming hand. “But I didn’t expect to see you here.”

“Nor I to see you,” she broke in. “What has a train dispatcher to do with picture galleries?”

“Mighty little, I’m sorry to say. I didn’t know you were an artist!”

“I’m not,” she said, laughing merrily. “I’m only a copyist. What do you think of it?” she added, with a gesture toward the picture on the easel.

Allan gazed at it with unfeigned admiration, though to a more critical eye, its shortcomings would have been evident enough.

“It’s fine,” he said. “It’s splendid! Where did you learn how?”

Again she laughed, though her cheeks flushed a little at his praise.

“I’ve been working at it for a long time,” she said. “But don’t deceive yourself—it isn’t a work of art—it’s merely a pot-boiler.”

“A what?”

“A pot-boiler—designed, in other words, not for fame, but to furnish food and raiment. But, come,” she added, “I’ve worked enough for one day and I need some fresh air. Will you come along?”

“I certainly will!” he said, his face lighting, and he watched her while she stowed her paints away in a box, giving them, together with the easel and the unfinished painting, into the care of one of the attendants.

“Now wait till I get my hat and coat,” she said, “and off we go.”

She was back in a few moments, her piquant face set off by a most becoming toque, and her painting apron replaced by a long wrap.

“All right,” she said, and a moment later they were walking down the steps together.

Not till then did he have an opportunity to look at her, and he was struck with a sudden sense of strangeness. This was not the Betty Heywood he had known, but a woman brighter, more dashing, more self-assured. He was surprised, in a way, to find that there was no shadow of her father’s failure on her. He had expected to find her labouring with that sorrow, or at least showing visible traces of it, and he wondered how she had escaped so completely.

She glanced at him once or twice, as they turned together along one of the paths of the park, and opened her lips to speak, but closed them again, as though hesitating how to begin.

“You’re still at Wadsworth?” she asked, at last.

“Oh, yes.”

“In the dispatchers’ office?”

“Chief dispatcher now,” he said.

“Are you?” she said. “Isn’t that fine! But I knew you’d work your way right up. Do you know, you’ve developed into just the sort of man that you were a boy.”

“Doesn’t everybody?”

“Oh, no indeed. Very few people do. Most of us grow crooked—there’s always something in the path that throws us out of line. Sometimes it throws us up and sometimes it throws us down, but you’ve grown right straight ahead. Now I can tell by the way you look at me that I’m not at all the kind of woman you expected I would be.”

He was a little disconcerted at this frankness.

“No,” he said, at last, “you’re right there. I can’t quite make you out.”

“I’ve had obstacles, you see,” she said, her face clouding for an instant. “I’ve grown crooked.”

“I heard of your mother’s death,” he said, gently. “I shall never forget her, though I met her only once.”

“Yes—dear mother. She thought a great deal of you. So did father.”

“Your father was very kind to me,” he said.

She looked quickly into his face.

“Things have not been well with us,” she said, with a little catch in her voice. “I had to go to work. I found I had some little artistic talent, and I turned it to account. And I’ve made a lot of good friends here.”

She looked at him again.

“You’ve heard that I’m going to be married?” she asked, suddenly.

“Yes,” he answered, as evenly as he could. “Mr. Round said something about it to-day.”

“It’s going to be next month. His name’s Knowlton—Robert Underwood Knowlton—he’s a lawyer, and the dearest fellow that ever was. I wish you could meet him. I know you’d like him,” she went on, rapidly. Then she stopped suddenly and looked at him.

“See here, Allan,” she said, her hand on his arm. “Don’t look like that. It’s not I you’re in love with—you’re not in love with anybody. You never have been with me. You happened to meet me when you were lonely, and you gave me a little niche in your heart. But you don’t love me—that’s not what love is. I’m not at all the kind of woman you imagined—you’ve seen that already. Now you mustn’t be foolish—shake hands, like a brother.”

He looked down into her face, and suddenly it seemed as though a veil were swept away, and he saw that she was right. It wasn’t love he felt for her—it was only affection. Her eyes, watching him anxiously, brightened as she saw the change in his face.

“You’re the dearest girl that ever was,” he said, clasping her hand, “and the bravest. I’m not sure that I’m not falling in love with you now.”

“No, you’re not!” she cried, patting him on the arm. “I knew I was right!” she added, her face beaming. “You’ve made me so happy—for I couldn’t help worrying a little, sometimes. Will you come to the wedding, if I ask you?”

“Ask me and see,” he retorted, laughing.

“Miss Elizabeth Heywood requests the favour of Mr. Allan West’s attendance at her wedding, February 16th, at two o’clock P. M. R. S. V. P.”

“Mr. Allan West acknowledges the receipt of Miss Heywood’s kind invitation and accepts with pleasure.”

“Good!” she cried, clapping her hands. “Then you’ll meet Bob and you’ll see what a lucky girl I am.”

“I think I’ll be more apt to see what a lucky fellow he is.”

“Well, we’re both lucky, and we’re going to be very, very happy.”

“I hope you will,” he said, heartily.

“Thank you, Allan; I know you do. And now here comes my car. Stop it for me. Good-bye,” she added, as the car came to a stop opposite them. “And I can’t tell you how glad I am I met you this afternoon. Good-bye!”

She waved her hand to him from the platform, and was gone.

He stood for a moment, watching the car, then turned slowly back toward the museum. He, also, was glad that he had met Betty Heywood—glad that she had been brave enough and clear-sighted enough to set him right with her and with the world.

And yet he realized dimly that there was suddenly a place vacant in his heart.

CHAPTER X
IN THE SWITCH TOWER

Without pausing at the museum, Allan boarded a car back to the city. After all, he reflected, Betty Heywood was right—train-dispatching had little to do with art and artists. He realized that he had looked at the paintings and the statuary from the outside, as it were; he had been interested in them, it is true, as he would have been interested in a play or a novel. They had entertained him, they had helped him to pass a pleasant hour, and that was all. He did not feel that they were vital to him—vital in the sense that a thorough knowledge of railroading was.

In a word, he was narrowing into a specialist, as every man who really accomplishes anything in the world must do. His work had become the only really necessary and vital thing to him. He had found his groove, and while he still possessed the power to climb out of his groove occasionally and to look about the world and find amusement in it, it was in his groove that he felt most at home, that he was strongest and most efficient and most contented.

For his efficiency—the knowledge that he was really doing something in the world—rejoiced him and moved him to stronger effort.

So his feet naturally led him back to the great depot which formed the Union terminal for all the lines of railroad entering Cincinnati. It was a place which might well be interesting to any one, so crowded was it with life and well-directed skill. To any one looking at it understandingly it was more than interesting. It was engrossing. Nowhere else did the life-blood of traffic pulse quite so strongly; nowhere else was there quite such an opportunity to study human nature; and nowhere else was perfection of organization in railroading so necessary and so evident.

It was this latter point which interested Allan most of all, and so, with merely a fleeting glance at the crowds hurrying past him, he bent his steps along one of the narrow cement platforms which ran out under the train-shed like long, gray fingers. In the midst of the tangle of tracks just beyond the train-shed, stood a tall, box-like structure, its upper story entirely enclosed in glass. Dodging an outgoing train, Allan hastened toward this queer tower, climbed the narrow stair which led to its upper story, opened the door and looked in.

“Hello, Jim,” he said, to a man in shirt-sleeves who stood looking down upon the busy yards. “May I come in?”

The man turned quickly and held out his hand.

“Sure, Mr. West,” he said. “Come in and sit down,” and he motioned toward a chair.

Just then a bell overhead rang sharply.

“That’s the Pennsylvania limited,” he said. “Give her track number twelve, Sam.”

There were two other shirt-sleeved men in the little room, standing before a long board from which projected what appeared to be a series of little handles like those one sees on water-cocks. At the words, one of the men turned one of these little handles.

Again the bell rang.

“Number seventeen for the accommodation,” said the man Allan had addressed as Jim, and another little handle was turned, while still a third, which had been turned, sprang back to its original position.

“There goes that school-teachers’ special from eleven,” added Jim. “Fix her, Nick,” and the third man turned a handle at his end of the board.

Allan, meanwhile, had taken a seat, and gazed down over the network of tracks. Trains were arriving and departing almost every minute. Busy little yard-engines were hustling strings of coaches about, pulling them out from under the great train-shed or backing them up into it. Down the long cement walks beneath the shed, arriving and departing passengers were hurrying to and fro; trucks piled high with luggage or groaning under a load of mail-sacks or express matter were being propelled back and forth with almost superhuman skill; engineers were “oiling round,” blue-coated conductors were reading their orders, hostlers with flaring torches were taking a last look at wheels and connections—in a word, the busy life of a great terminal was at full blast.

And above it all, controlling it, as it were, by a movement of a finger, stood Jim—James Anderson Davis, if you care for his full name—gazing down upon it nonchalantly, and giving a terse order now and then. For Jim is the chief towerman, than whom, in his sphere, no autocrat is more autocratic and no czar more absolute.

It is a fearful and wonderful thing, this controlling the trains that arrive at and depart from a great terminal—almost too fearful and wonderful to be put upon paper. But at least we will make the effort.

Most modern terminals resemble each other in general plan. Railroads have found it not only convenient for the public but economical for themselves to build “union stations” in the larger cities, wherever possible. That is, a suitable site is selected, as near the business centre of the city as it is possible to get, and the roads join together in providing the money necessary to purchase it and erect the station building, the cost being pro-rated in proportion to the amount of traffic which each road gets from the station.

“CONTROLLING IT, AS IT WERE, BY A MOVEMENT OF FINGER, STOOD JIM.”

The side fronting upon the street is usually handsomely embellished, for it is this side which the public sees as it approaches, and all railroads know that to make a good impression is to do good advertising. So with the main waiting-room, which always lies directly behind the street doors. Here marble, mosaic and gilding are always in evidence and no opportunity is lost to impress the travelling public with the wealth and magnificence of the road which it is using. On either side of the main waiting-room are smaller waiting- and retiring-rooms, there is a row of ticket-booths, a news-stand, telephone booths, baggage-rooms, a dining- and lunch-room and, of course, inevitably, the long rows of seats, back to back, where the waiting public spends so many weary minutes.

In the stories overhead are the executive offices of the various roads—as many of them as there is room for—but to these the general public seldom penetrates.

Beyond the swinging doors along the side of the waiting-room opposite the entrance is the main platform or concourse, and from it, stretching down between the tracks like long fingers, are the narrow cement platforms upon which the passengers alight or from which they mount to their trains. The tracks are laid in pairs, and a platform extends between every pair, each platform thus serving two tracks, one on either side. Overhead is the great echoing vault of the train-shed with its mighty ribs of steel, stretching in one enormous arc across the tracks beneath—a marvel of engineering skill, if not of architectural beauty.

This is what is known as the head-house plan, and is the ideal one for the passenger, since it permits him to go to and from his train without crossing any tracks or climbing to any overhead bridges. It is, however, expensive for the railroads since, of course, all through trains must be backed out and switched around until they are headed on their way again—a process which requires no little expenditure of time and energy, as well as money. However, in a great city, a right of way which would enable the through trains to continue straight onward toward their destination is frequently so expensive that it is cheaper to back them out the way they came in, and send them by a detour around the city.

And upon no one is this backing-out process more wearing than on the towerman, for the trains must be handled twice over the same track, and of course the track must be kept clear until the train is out again and safely on its way. Now there is never any surplusage of tracks in a terminal. Indeed, as one sees the tracks narrow and narrow as the terminal is approached, until they are merged into those which plunge beneath the train-shed, one is apt to think they are all too few. Yet their number has been calculated with the greatest care; there is not one more than is needed by the nicest economy of operation—nor one less. The number is just right for the station’s needs—so long as the towerman knows his business and keeps his head.

And now to return to the glass-enclosed perch where, for eight hours of every day, Jim Davis and his two assistants send the trains in and out over the network of tracks. That long row of little handles is the last word in switch-control. Time was—and is, in all but the most important stations—when the towerman opened or closed the yard-switches by means of great levers. To throw one of these levers was no small athletic feat, especially if the switch it controlled was at some distance, and to keep at it eight hours at a time reduced the strongest man to mental and physical exhaustion. When the towerman left his work at the end of his trick, he was, in the expressive parlance of the day, “all in.” Now when men are “all in,” they are very apt to make mistakes, hence in a busy terminal under the old system, accidents more or less serious were of almost every-day occurrence. Besides which, the number of levers which one man was physically able to operate was comparatively small, so that there must be many men and a consequent divided responsibility and opportunity for confusion.

The tower itself had been an evolution, for, at first, these yard-switches had been controlled by a brigade of switchmen, each of whom had two or three under his supervision, which he turned by hand whenever he saw a train coming his way. Then the hand switchmen were supplanted by a cluster of levers in a tower, operated by a single man. The tower was so located that its occupant had a general view of the yards, and the levers were connected by steel rods with the switches and signals which protected them. For every switch must have its signal—that is, a device by which the engineer of the approaching train may see whether the switch is properly set—the old standards showing yellow when the switch was open and red when it was closed—and since replaced by arms, or semaphores, which hang down when the train may pass and bar the way when it must stop.

This grouping of the levers in the tower simplified the control of the yard and placed the responsibility upon a more intelligent and more highly paid man than the average switchman, and consequently broadened the margin of safety. But terminals grew and yards grew and switches increased in number, until even this system was unable to meet the demands made upon it.

It was at a time when this state of affairs seemed seriously to threaten the safety of operation of great terminals that some genius invented the pneumatic control. Instead of a row of great levers requiring the strongest muscles, the towerman found himself confronting a battery of tiny ones, operated by the touch of a finger. And that finger-touch against the slender lever is instantly magnified to the pull of a giant arm against a switch half a mile or more away.

How? By a bewildering intricacy of cogs and valves, by the aid of the electric current and of compressed air, for, in order to perfect this mechanism, man has harnessed the whirlwind and the lightning. That finger-touch brings instantly an electric touch; the electric touch raises a valve which releases the compressed air from a cylinder into which it has been pumped; and the air thus withdrawn from the cylinder in the tower basement is also in the same instant withdrawn from a cylinder opposite the switch-point, by means of a slender pipe which connects the two; and a plunger in the cylinder at the switch moves the switch-point and the signals which protect it.

That seems enough for any mere machine to do—but it does much more. For, by a series of interlocking devices, the switches are so controlled by each other that no signal for a train to proceed can be given until all the other switches over which the train will pass have been properly set and locked, nor can any switch be moved as long as any signal is displayed which gives right of way over it. Thus was the margin of safety further broadened, and the control of a great terminal brought down to three men on each eight hour trick, representing the very cream of their profession.

Approaching trains announce their coming by ringing an electric gong, the chief towerman, of course, knowing just which train is due at that particular instant—knowing, too, if any train is late, and how late and with what other trains it conflicts. He must know the precise second of departure of each train from the shed, and every train must glide smoothly in and out without let or hindrance. He must know; he mustn’t merely think he knows, for this is one of the positions in which a man never has a chance to make two mistakes. For, while the tower machinery is wonderfully adapted to its purpose, it is, after all, the mind of the chief towerman which controls and directs it.

It was not by any means the first time that Allan West had sat watching this fascinating scene, but it had never grown uninteresting and he had never ceased to wonder at it.

“I used to think train-dispatching was a pretty nerve-racking business,” he remarked, after a while, “but it’s child’s play compared with this.”

“Well, I don’t know,” said Jim, his eyes on a through train threading its way cautiously out of the terminal and over the network of switches. “We don’t have to worry about big accidents up here—the interlocking takes care of that. We can’t have a head-end collision, for instance—at least, not while the signals are working properly. What we’ve got to look out for is tangles. If we have to hold one train two or three minutes, that means that two or three other trains will be held up, and before you know it, you’ve got a block ten miles long. Then’s when somebody up here has to do some tall thinking and do it quick. The only way to keep things straight is to keep ’em moving. Sixteen,” he added to his assistants, as the overhead bell rang.

They watched the train as it rolled in, saw it disgorge its load of passengers, saw the baggage and express and mail matter hustled off, saw the yard-engine back up and couple on to the rear coach, and slowly drag the train out from under the train-shed.

“I never watch that done,” added Jim, as the train disappeared down the yards, “but what my heart gets right up in my throat. You don’t know what a way those pesky little yard-engines have of jumping switches. Open sixteen, Sam,” he added, as the big engine which had brought the train in rolled sedately down the yards on the way to the round-house, to be washed out and raked down and coaled up. “Ring off thirteen, Nick,” he said, and Nick touches one of the little handles, a blade on a signal bridge opposite the end of the train-shed drops, there is a sharp puff, puff, of a locomotive, and another train starts slowly from the train-shed on its journey east or west, north or south, as the case may be.

Meanwhile, the little switch-engine has set its train of coaches in upon one of the innumerable sidings away down the yards where passenger cars are stored—and one would scarcely believe how many miles of such storage track every great terminal requires—has uncoupled and started back toward the train-shed for another load—her movements, by the way, as well-known to and thoroughly understood by the chief towerman as are those of the most glittering through train. Already the train of coaches is in the hands of the cleaners and stockers, for it will start out again presently upon another trip. Modern passenger cars represent too much money to be allowed to repose on a siding a minute longer than necessary.

The cleaners swarm into the coaches, dusty and dirty and foul after the long journey, dragging behind them long lines of hose. The hose carries compressed air, and in half an hour those cars are sucked clean of dirt and are as fresh and sweet as when they first came from the shops. Other cleaners are washing the windows and polishing the metal fittings. Trucks pull up loaded with ice, with clean linen, and the stockers see that every car is supplied. Farther along is the diner, and to it come the butcher’s cart, the baker’s cart, the grocer’s cart; dozens and dozens of napkins and table-cloths are taken aboard, and already the chef is making out the menu for the dinner which will be served in an hour or two somewhere out on the road. It is all wonderful—fearful and wonderful, when one stops to think of it—impossible to set on paper except in broad suggestive splashes, as an impressionist paints a sunset.

“Are you going back on Two?” asked Jim.

“Yes,” said Allan, glancing at the tower clock.

“Well, there she comes,” said Jim, and motioned toward a cut of coaches being backed into the train-shed by one of the ever-present switch-engines.

“All right,” said Allan. “I’ll go down and hunt up Mr. Schofield. He’s going back with me. This is a great place, Jim.”

“Come again,” said Jim heartily. “You’re always welcome. He’s a fine young fellow,” he continued, as Allan went down the stairs. “He’ll have his office up yonder one of these days,” and he motioned toward the towering stories of the terminal building. “Number eight, Sam,” he added, as the bell rang. “There comes the St. Louis express.”

CHAPTER XI
ALLAN’S EYES ARE OPENED

The return trip to Wadsworth was accomplished without incident, and, bidding Mr. Schofield good-bye, Allan ran up to his office to assure himself that everything was all right, and then, after writing a necessary order or two, turned his steps homeward. The night was still and clear and it seemed to him that his steps rang on the pavement more loudly than usual. Certainly, as they turned in at the gate, they must have been heard within the Welsh home, for a moment later, the front door was opened and Mamie stood there, light in hand, to welcome him.

Allan looked at her smiling down at him, with a strange little stirring of the heart. She had grown up almost without his noticing it; he had been so absorbed in his work that he had not seen the change from girlhood into young maidenhood. He knew, of course, that she had progressed through the graded schools and at last, triumphantly, through the High school; he knew, when he stopped to think of it, that she would soon be seventeen; but she had continued, to all intents and purposes, the child he had snatched from death in the first days of their meeting. Now, somehow, all that was changed, and he gazed up into her face, seeing clearly, for the first time, what a winsome face it was.

“So you’re back!” she cried, standing aside that he might enter. “But I heard Number Two whistle in half an hour ago.”

“Yes,” said Allan. “I had a little work to do before I could come home. Do you know, Mamie,” he added, pausing beside her in the little hall, and looking down at her, “I’d never noticed before what a pretty young woman you’ve been growing into.”

The colour in Mamie’s cheeks deepened a little, but the blue eyes lifted to his did not waver, nor was there a trace of self-consciousness in her laugh.

“Look at these freckles,” she cried, her finger on them.

“Beauty spots!”

“And this pug nose.”

“A love of a nose!”

“And this big mouth.”

“I should like to kiss it,” he said, and then stopped with a sudden burning consciousness that the words should not have been uttered. “Forgive me, Mamie,” he said, quickly. “I didn’t mean that—or, rather, I did mean it, but I shouldn’t have said it.”

“Why shouldn’t you have said it?” she inquired, seriously, looking up at him with a little pucker of perplexity in her forehead. “Why shouldn’t you kiss me, if you like?”

He trembled a little before this trusting innocence, and searched around in his mind somewhat miserably for a reply.

“I don’t quite know,” he answered, at last. “I’ll think it over. But you’ll freeze to death here, with no wrap on,” and without looking at her, he led the way into the sitting room beyond.

Mamie followed him, and, placing the lamp upon a table, sat down thoughtfully before the fire.

“So you’re back, Allan?” said Jack, laying aside the local evening paper, which he had been reading aloud to Mary.

“And hungry, too,” added Mary, hastily rolling her knitting into a ball. “I’ll have ye a snack in a minute, Allan.”

“No you won’t,” retorted Allan, placing his hands on her shoulders and holding her in her chair as she started to rise. “I had dinner in the diner with Mr. Schofield, and really ate more than I should. I’m not the least hungry.”

And feeling Mary subside under his hands, he released her and sat down.

“What’s the news?” he added, turning to Jack.

“Oh, nothin’ much,” replied the latter. “I’ve heard a good deal of talk to-day about that court decision on the employers’ liability act. One section-man dropped a heavy tie on another section-man—an’ the feller that was hurt sued the railroad under the law. Now the court holds that the law don’t apply, and some of the boys are sayin’ that nothin’ that helps the labourin’ man ever does apply when it gits up to the supreme court.”

“Yes—I’ve heard of the case,” said Allan. “But look here, Jack—do you think the road ought to be made to pay, because one of its men injures another through carelessness? It wasn’t the road injured him. Suppose you hired two men to build a chimney and one of them let a brick fall on the other and killed him. Would you think you were to blame, or that you ought to pay damages?”

“No,” said Jack. “Sure not. But somehow a case against a corporation looks different to most people.”

“I know it does,” agreed Allan. “And there are a lot of people who wouldn’t steal from an individual who don’t hesitate to steal from a corporation. It’s a queer state of public morals. But who was doing the talking?”

“Well,” said Jack, “most of it was done by a big fellow with a black moustache named Nixon. Somebody said he’d come on to make the road take Rafe Bassett back.”

The disgust in his voice told how unfavourably he considered such a proposition.

“Well, don’t you be afraid,” said Allan, “the road won’t take him back.”

“I’m glad to hear it. I know Rafe Bassett—he’s low down trash—he’s always got a hammer out fer somebody. I never did understand how he got the pull he’s got with his lodge.”

“Well, he’ll need a pull before he gets through this,” said Allan, “but let’s talk about something else, Jack. Oh,” he added, suddenly, “who do you think I saw in Cincinnati to-day? I had the afternoon to myself and I went out to the Art Museum—and there, painting a picture, sat Betty Heywood.”

A sudden wave of colour flooded Mamie’s face, but no one saw it.

“Paintin’ a picture?” repeated Mrs. Welsh. “Is she a painter?”

“Yes, and a mighty good one, so far as I was able to judge, though she laughed at me and said she wasn’t. She seemed glad to see me and we took a little walk together.”

He paused a moment, for there was an unaccountable difficulty, somehow, in telling what he had to tell. Mamie’s eyes were on his face, and she was deadly pale.

“She told me about her work,” he went on. “She said she’d had to do something for a living, and had done well with her paintings. I should think she would.”

“Had to do something for a livin’?” echoed Mrs. Welsh. “Where’s her father?”

“He’s going down grade,” answered Allan, soberly, and told what he had heard of Mr. Heywood’s dissipation.

“I’m mighty sorry t’ hear that,” remarked Jack, when Allan had finished. “Mr. Heywood was a good man an’ a square man. I’ve seen better superintendents—we’ve got a better one now—but, all the same, I liked Mr. Heywood.”

“So did I,” said Allan. “I wish something could be done.”

Jack shook his head.

“When drink gits its grip on a man as old as him,” he said, “they ain’t much hope.”

“Thank goodness his wife’s dead,” added Mrs. Welsh. “It’s the wife that it’s allers the hardest on.”

“It’s hard enough on the daughter,” broke in Mamie, softly.

“Well, she won’t have to stand it much longer,” said Allan, seizing the opening Mamie’s remark gave him. “She’s going to be married next month.”

Mamie gave a quick gasp, which she tried to change into a cough, and bent again toward the fire, hiding her throbbing face in her hands.

Mary was staring at Allan, as though scarcely able to believe her ears.

“Married?” she repeated. “Who to? Allan, do you mean—”

“She’s going to marry a young lawyer named Knowlton,” broke in Allan, evenly. “It’s to be on the sixteenth, and she asked me to come.”

Mary bent again to her knitting, with a sort of hiss that sounded suspiciously like “the hussy.”

“She seems to be very happy over it,” Allan went on, anxious that these dear friends should understand, and yet fearing to say too much. “She’s a splendid girl, and beautiful as ever; but she’s changed, too. She’s not the same girl I used to know.” Mamie was looking at him now, with intense eyes. So was Mrs. Welsh. “She saw it in my face, somehow, and we laughed over it.”

“Well,” said Jack, heavily, “I used t’ think you was kind o’ sweet on her yerself, Allan.”

“I thought so, too,” answered Allan, smiling. “But I guess it was just girls in general—you know she was about the only one I ever met. I’m mighty glad she’s going to be happy. I’m going to the wedding. Why, where’s Mamie?” he added, looking around at the sound of a softly closed door. “She not going to bed already?”

“Already!” echoed Mrs. Welsh. “Do you know it’s after eleven o’clock? Time everyone of us was a-bed. Come, now, off wid ye!”

Allan laughed and arose, stretching himself lazily.

“I hadn’t any idea it was so late,” he said. “Good-night,” and he mounted to his room.

He went immediately to bed—but not to sleep. The events of the day had been many and interesting. He closed his eyes, and called up again the minutes he had passed with Betty Heywood—he heard her voice, he saw her face—but somehow another face kept slipping in between—a face with a freckled, tip-tilted nose, and tender, sympathetic mouth. Something within him seemed to warm and gladden, and he dropped off to sleep, at last, with a smile upon his lips.

CHAPTER XII
THE INTERVIEW WITH NIXON

Superintendent Schofield was at his desk bright and early next morning, for the purpose of getting out of the way the thirty-six hours’ accumulation of routine business, before the approaching momentous interview with Nixon. Only one familiar with the executive offices of a railroad has any idea of the immense amount of correspondence,—reports, complaints, requests for information and instructions—which that stretch of time can accumulate, but the superintendent waded into the pile of letters and telegrams with a rapidity born of long practice, and when he finally leaned back in his chair, with a sigh of relief, it wanted still some minutes of nine o’clock.

“That’s all, Joe,” he said, to the stenographer, and that young man gathered up the letters, closed his note-book, and left the room.

Mr. Schofield swung around in his chair and stared down over the yards, his forehead wrinkled thoughtfully.

He and Mr. Round had, the afternoon before, gone over carefully every detail of the approaching interview, and yet it was very possible that some trivial incident might spoil it all. Most unpleasant of all loomed the possibility that he had been mistaken in his estimate of Nixon. Perhaps the man would not take a bribe—perhaps he was honest. Should that prove to be the case, any such attempt as Mr. Schofield was about to undertake could not but result most unpleasantly to himself and to the railroad. He could already see the newspaper headlines which would announce it—for the press of the country had, as a rule, followed the crowd and joined in the yelp at the heels of the “conscienceless corporations.”

ATTEMPT TO BRIBE!

Schofield, of the P. & O., Gives Convincing

Evidence of Corporation Methods

Offers Special Delegate Nixon a Thousand

Dollars to Betray His

Trust

Believes All Men May be Bought, but

Is Shown that Labour Is Unpurchasable—

Grand Jury to

Investigate

He realized that he must feel his way with the utmost caution, and yet as he recalled Nixon’s words, and the significant glance which accompanied them, he could not believe that he had been mistaken. But the man was adroit and suspicious—a single false movement and he would be on his guard.

A tap at the door interrupted his thoughts.

“Come in,” he called, and an instant later, the door opened and Nixon entered the room.

“On time, I see,” said Mr. Schofield, pleasantly, and motioned his visitor to a chair.

“Yes,” said Nixon, taking off his luxurious overcoat and sitting down, “I make it a point to be on time for little conferences like this. The boys were inclined to get mad,” he went on, “because I gave you two days to make up your mind. But I told them there wasn’t nothing to gain by hurryin’ a thing like this. I told them I wanted to give you a fair show. That’s me. I allers give everybody a fair show.”

Nixon was, at bottom, coarse and uneducated, and this coarseness and ignorance would crop up in his talk at times, in spite of his efforts to suppress them. Since his promotion to a high place in the brotherhood, he had studied incessantly how best to make himself a “gentleman.” Unfortunately, his conception of the meaning of that word was modelled upon the demeanour of barbers, bar-tenders and hotel-clerks. He believed a diamond scarf-pin and a seal-ring to be indispensable portions of a gentleman’s attire, together with a shirt striped in loud colours, glazed shoes, a fancy waistcoat, and a trace of perfume. He also believed that a gentleman invariably wore his hat cocked over one eye, to prove himself a knowing fellow and man of the world. He had laboured with the utmost diligence to form himself upon this model and was entirely satisfied with the result. That he was not a gentleman, and that anyone who met him would not so consider him, never for an instant entered his mind.

“Yes,” he repeated, “I insisted that you be given a fair show, and finally they saw that I was right. I don’t believe in no snap judgments. I heard that you was down to Cinci yesterday and saw Round.”

It may be added that another point in Nixon’s conception of gentlemanly conduct was that he should call men in exalted positions by their last names to show his sense of equality, or by their first names to prove his easy familiarity with them.

“Yes,” said Mr. Schofield, “Mr. Round and I had a conference about the matter.”

“Well,” demanded Nixon, gazing at him from under lowered lids, “what’s the answer?”

“We won’t reinstate Bassett,” answered Mr. Schofield, quietly.

“Then, by God, it’s fight!” cried Nixon, his face turning purple, and he brought his fist down on the desk with a crash. “Do you realize what all this is going to cost you?”

“Tell me,” suggested Mr. Schofield. “And don’t hit my desk again like that. Some of my men might think there was a fight, and come in. We don’t want any intruders.”

“No,” agreed Nixon, “we don’t,” and he glanced sharply about the room. Then he hitched his chair closer to the desk and leaned forward in his earnestness. “This thing’ll cost you a hundred thousand dollars before you’ve done with it, and no end of trouble. I’ve been lookin’ over the field, and I know. First, I’ll call off the engineers.”

“We’ll replace them,” said Mr. Schofield, promptly.

“You’ll try to,” corrected Nixon, “but it won’t be so easy as you think. Good engineers ain’t knockin’ around the country lookin’ fer scab jobs—you know that as well as I do. The good men are all in the brotherhood. All you’ll find is a few dubs who can run an engine after a fashion and who don’t belong to the brotherhood or have been kicked out—they’ll soon play hob with your engines.”

“No doubt they’re pretty bad if they’ve been kicked out,” observed Mr. Schofield.

“But,” continued Nixon, impressively, paying no heed to the interruption, “the minute this scab engineer climbs up into the cab, that same minute the fireman will climb down. More than that, no union conductor or brakeman will help run a train which a scab engineer is driving, no union switchman will throw a target for it, and no union operator will give it orders. So there you are—fire Bassett, and you’ll need mighty soon not only a new outfit of engineers, but of firemen, conductors, brakemen, switchmen and operators. Maybe you think it’ll be easy to find new men to take their places, but I don’t.”

“I don’t either,” agreed Mr. Schofield; “but just the same we won’t give up the fight before it begins.”

“Well, your lines are bound to be tied up more or less, even at the best,” said Nixon, “and right in the busy season, too. That will mean considerable of a loss.”

“Yes,” nodded Mr. Schofield, “it will.”

“And some of the loss will be permanent. When traffic is turned aside that way, if only for a short time, some of it always stays turned aside. After you git things straightened out, you’ll have to git out and hustle for business, or your earnings will show a permanent decrease.”

“I know that too,” said Mr. Schofield.

“And there’s another thing to consider,” went on Nixon, impressively. “Union men are orderly and law-abiding. All they will do is to quit their jobs and let you run the road if you can. They won’t interfere with you—they never do.”

“So I have heard,” said Mr. Schofield, with a grim smile. “Surely it’s no use repeating that fairy tale to me.”

“It’s no fairy tale,” protested Nixon, earnestly, but there was a sardonic light in his eyes. “As I said, union men never make trouble. But there’s always a lot of sympathizers and hangers-on who try to help, and who always do make trouble, however hard the union men may try to prevent it.”

“I don’t think the union men will lose any sleep trying to stop it.”

“Yes, they will,” contradicted Nixon, “but they won’t be able to. Wind of this trouble has got about, you know; and just last night, as I was passing a saloon over here, I heard two or three fellers talkin’ and one of them remarked what a beautiful big blaze the stock-yards would make and how easy it would be to start.”

“Is this a threat?” asked Mr. Schofield, looking fixedly at his visitor.

“A threat? Oh, dear, no; I’m simply telling you what I heard—I want you to know what kind of trouble it is you’re walkin’ into. Of course, I stopped right away and told those fellers we union men wouldn’t stand for nothing like that.”

“Yes,” commented Mr. Schofield, “I’ve got a picture of you stopping. Your righteous indignation is plainly apparent.”

“Well, anyway,” said Nixon, grinning, “there’s no telling what’ll happen if you decide to let this strike go on.”

“I didn’t say that we had decided to do that,” said Mr. Schofield, quietly. “I only said that we wouldn’t reinstate Bassett,” and he looked Nixon straight in the eye.

That individual sustained the gaze for a moment, his colour deepening a little; then he arose and made a deliberate circuit of the room, assuring himself that all the doors were tightly closed, and also glancing into the closet where the superintendent hung his hat and overcoat. The inspection finished, he returned to his chair, and produced two big black cigars, handing one to his companion and lighting the other.

“Thanks,” said Mr. Schofield, taking the cigar with a little effort. He lighted it, took a puff or two, and then looked critically at its fat, black contour. “Good cigar,” he commented.

Nixon laughed complacently.

“Yes, I’m kind o’ pertick’ler about my tobacco,” he said. “These is a private stock—I get ’em from a friend of mine. I’ll send you over a couple of boxes.”

“They’re better cigars than I can afford to smoke,” remarked the superintendent. “The job of special delegate must pay pretty well.”

Nixon laughed again.

“Oh, so, so,” he said, and tilting his chair back, rammed his hands deep in his trousers’ pockets.

“How long have you held it?”

“Three years—an’ there’s never been a breath of complaint against me. If any man stands square with the brotherhood, it’s me,” and again Nixon grinned sardonically.

Mr. Schofield’s last trace of uncertainty had vanished. He knew his ground now and could advance more surely.

“No,” he went on, slowly, “we won’t reinstate Bassett, and at the same time we’re going to avoid a strike, if we can. I think you remarked the other day that there would be no strike unless you called it.”

“There won’t,” said Nixon, briefly.

“What will happen, then?”

“I’ll make a report adverse to Bassett and he’ll be kicked out of the brotherhood?”

“Won’t he make a howl?”

“Let him. What good will it do? My report goes.”

Mr. Schofield nodded, as he watched the cigar smoke float slowly upward.

“I see,” he commented, and there was a moment’s silence. “Suppose,” he went on, at last, “that you were convinced that it was your duty to make such a report, what assurance would we have that you would really make it?”

“You’d have to take my word,” said Nixon. “You could count on me making the report, all right, if I was properly convinced.”

“And I suppose,” continued Mr. Schofield, “that you would have to be—ah—convinced in advance.”

This was a new experience for him and he was considerably the more confused of the two.

“Sure thing,” answered Nixon, bluntly.

“Well, I’ll see if I can convince you. Bassett was drunk, he was insolent to his superior officer; to reinstate him would mean the end of discipline on this line. His offence falls clearly under rule forty-three, which says that no employee of the road, on duty or off, shall frequent saloons. In violating that rule, he laid himself liable to discharge and discharged he was. He also violated rule sixty-one, which says that insolence to a superior officer may be punished by dismissal, at the discretion of the train master. The train master exercised his discretion and dismissed him. When Bassett was employed by the road he was given a copy of the rules and knew that he must obey them if he wanted to hold his job. He disobeyed them, and lost it—so he’s got nobody to blame but himself. That’s our position. Don’t you think it’s a pretty strong one?”

“Yes,” agreed Nixon, slowly, “it looks pretty strong,” but he was plainly waiting for something that was still to come.

“By the way,” continued Mr. Schofield, opening a drawer of his desk. “After you left the other day, I found this package on the floor,” and he took from the drawer a little packet, carefully wrapped and sealed, and laid it on his desk. “It doesn’t belong to anyone around here, and I thought maybe you’d dropped it.”

“Let’s see it,” said Nixon, and took it with eager fingers. He ripped open the seal and drew out a little bundle of paper currency. He ran through it rapidly and found it to consist of ten one hundred dollar bills. “Yes,” he said, slipping them into an inside pocket. “It’s mine. I’d been wondering what had become of it.”

“And you’re convinced?”

“Perfectly, I’ll report against Bassett.”

“When?”

Nixon glanced at his watch and started to his feet.

“Right away,” he said. “The meeting’s called for ten-thirty. I’ll just have time to get there.”

He picked up hat and overcoat and started for the door. Mr. Schofield, his finger hovering over an electric button, watched him with a perplexed pucker of the forehead. Then his face cleared, and he took his hand away from the button.

“Well, good-bye,” he said. “I’m glad we could settle it so easily.”

“Oh, nobody never has no trouble with me,” said Nixon, “if they talk business,” and he opened the door and closed it after him.

Two men, who—so a single glance told him—were not railroad men, were standing just across the hall, looking out of a window. They glanced around, as he came out, but made no effort to molest him, and he hurried away, the packet in his inside pocket pressing against his breast with a most reassuring warmth.

And just as he disappeared down the stairs, the door of Mr. Schofield’s room opened and the two strangers were called hastily inside.

CHAPTER XIII
MR. SCHOFIELD’S BOMBSHELL

The meeting room of Scioto lodge, B. of L. E., was jammed to the doors. Every member who was off duty and who could by any possibility attend, was present. Many of them had come in from the road only a short time before, and in the ordinary course of things, would have gone home, got something to eat, and gone to bed; but the present crisis took the place of food and sleep, and its excitement robbed them of desire for either.

The meeting hall was on the third floor of a brick building only a short distance from the station. It was reached by two long flights of steep and narrow stairs, and was cold and scantily furnished and uninviting. At various points about the room, large arm chairs stood on little platforms, these being the stations for the officers of the lodge, when going through the intricacies of the ritual. Rows of smaller chairs were pushed back along the walls, there was a table or two—and that was all.

On this bright morning in late January, as has been said, the hall was crowded. A group had gathered around Bassett, who was declaiming excitedly.

“It’s our chance,” he was saying. “Now’s the time t’show the road who’s boss. You know well enough all the other orders’ll stand by us, an’ we’ll tie the division up so tight it can’t turn a wheel.”

The younger men nodded emphatically, but a few of the older ones looked grave. They had been through strikes before, and knew that they did not always turn out as the strikers anticipated.

“I don’t know,” put in one of them, hesitatingly. “I don’t believe we’ll ever be able to boss the road. It don’t look right. If you had a business, you’d want to run it, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes,” flashed Bassett. “But I’d run it square.”

“O’ course; we kin do our best to make ’em run it square.”

“Well, that’s all we’re tryin’ to do now, ain’t it?”

“Some o’ you fellers seem to be hopin’ there’ll be a strike. Mebbe they’ll reinstate Bassett.”

“Mebbe they will,” growled that worthy, “but I don’t believe it. They ain’t got manhood enough to do that.”

In his heart, he knew that he had been wrong, and did not deserve reinstatement; but this consciousness of guilt interfered in no way with the bold face he turned to the world, and the loud voice in which he proclaimed his wrongs. And a bold face and loud voice often have great weight with the unthinking, who mistake them for the earmarks of innocence.

“Well, I hope they will,” said another of the older men, wistfully. “I ain’t in no sort o’ shape to stand a strike.”

“I ain’t either,” put in one of the younger men, boldly, “but that don’t make no difference. I’d ruther starve ’n work fer a company as wouldn’t do the right thing.”

“It’s all right to starve yourself,” rejoined the older man. “I used t’ feel that way, too; but when it comes t’ starvin’ yer family, it’s a different matter—mighty different.”

“Yes,” added another, “an’ when a feller’s built a house an’ is payin’ fer it in the Buildin’ an’ Loan, a strike don’t look good, neither. If a feller can’t make his payments, he loses his house, without any ifs or ands about it.”

“Pshaw!” put in the young fellow, easily. “The brotherhood’ll take care of you. You won’t starve nor lose your house, neither.”

“Mebbe not. But if I loses my job, a lot o’ good my house’ll do me, won’t it?”

“Lose yer job? How kin you do that?”

“Easy enough. I’ve seen—”

But a sudden shout from the door interrupted him.

“Here’s Nixon! Here’s Nixon!”

And the great man was half-pushed, half-carried forward to the platform at the end of the room.

He smiled about to those on the right and left of him, and finally mounted the platform and deliberately removed overcoat and hat. A close observer might have seen that he was very nervous, but he held himself well in hand. The truth is, Nixon had not anticipated so large an outpouring nor such intense interest in the case and in consequence, found the task confronting him considerably more difficult than he had thought it would be.

He took out his handkerchief and passed it over his moist moustache, for he had stopped in the saloon on the first floor to take a single “bracer,” then he held up his hand impressively for silence. Nixon believed in doing a thing dramatically.

“Well, boys,” he announced, “I’ve seen Schofield.”

“What did he say?” shouted one of the men, impatient of Nixon’s deliberate manner.

“Now, look here,” yelled Nixon, searching the offender out with threatening forefinger, “I won’t be interrupted—I won’t! If another man does that, I leave—an’ I’ll let y’ wait a week fer a letter from headquarters. You don’t seem t’ realize what it means fer a man like me t’ come down here t’ settle your rows.”

“That’s what you’re paid fer,” murmured one of the men, in a far corner, but he lowered his voice carefully.

“Schofield an’ I went over the situation from a to izzard,” Nixon continued, when quiet was restored, satisfied that there would be no further interruptions. “He gave me the case from the road’s side, and I gave him the case from our side, and I can’t deny that he had the best of me.”

There was a little murmur at this, but Nixon stilled it instantly with raised finger.

“The fact of the matter is,” he went on, raising his voice suddenly and glowering at Bassett, who occupied a place in the front line, “this man Bassett was drunk the other night, and every mother’s son of you knows it.”

“It’s a lie!” yelled Bassett, white as death, and again there was a murmur, but again Nixon managed to still it.

“I’ll answer you,” he said, pointing to Bassett, “after this meetin’ adjourns. I ain’t here to argue. I’m here to state facts. This man was drunk an’ insulted his superior officer. The road had a right to fire him on two counts—fer bein’ drunk an’ fer insubordination.”

He paused an instant and glowered around. There had been a little movement at the door a few minutes before, and Mr. Schofield had stepped quietly inside, followed by the two men whom Nixon had seen standing in the hall outside the superintendent’s office. But so intent was everyone on what Nixon was saying that no one observed them, and they stood watching the proceedings without question or interference.

“Now, I’m going to give it to you fellers straight,” continued Nixon. “You need it. You’ve been makin’ a little tin god of this feller and he ain’t worth it. Now my advice to you is, drop him. Kick him out. At any rate, the grand lodge won’t back you up if you try to call a strike about this, and you know what that means. It means that your charter will be taken away from you and the lodge disbanded. The grand lodge will see every time that you get your rights, but it won’t back you up when you’re as clearly in the wrong as you are now. Why, to call a strike for a thing like that would be suicide. Let me tell you boys something—you’ll never win any strike unless you have the public with you. If the public’s against you, sooner or later you’ll be going back to work like whipped curs—an’ you’ll be lucky if you kin get your old jobs. An’ I guess that’s all,” he concluded, mopping his forehead with his handkerchief.

Then his eyes rested on three men who had been gradually working their way toward the stage, and he caught his breath sharply. But in an instant, by a mighty effort, he had recovered his self-control.

“Boys,” he said, “here’s Mr. Schofield himself. I’m glad he’s with us. I want to say that I’ve found him a square man.” There was a little flutter of applause at this, for most of them had themselves found him to be a square man. “We would all be glad to have Mr. Schofield address us a few words,” added Nixon, but he glanced at the superintendent apprehensively, as the latter, in response to the invitation, stepped with alacrity upon the platform.

“Yes,” said Mr. Schofield, turning and facing the expectant audience, “I want to say a few words to you. I have heard what Mr. Nixon has been saying—I have listened to him with great pleasure. For I believe that what he has told you is true—in the first place, that the road was right in discharging Bassett and in refusing to reinstate him, and in the second place that no strike can succeed unless it has the public behind it.”

Here he glanced at Nixon, who had seated himself in the president’s chair and who was nodding from time to time, as Mr. Schofield proceeded, every trace of apprehension banished from his countenance.

“But before I go further,” Mr. Schofield continued, “I ought, perhaps, to apologize for my presence here. I had intended, of course, to ask permission to enter, but there wasn’t anybody at the door, nor anybody to ask, so I just came in. I ask permission now.”

“That’s all right,” shouted one of the men, “go ahead,” and it was evident from their smiling faces that everyone present concurred in the invitation.

“Thank you,” said Mr. Schofield. “And now,” he continued, more seriously, “I have something to say to you. As I said, I was glad to hear Mr. Nixon’s sentiments and to see that, on the whole, you agreed with him. I certainly think that the road was right in the stand it took, and I believe all of you will agree with me when you think it over. You have always found the road ready to meet you half way in any reasonable demand, but we’ve got to maintain discipline or quit business. And, after all—and here I’m talking very frankly to you—it’s we who are running the road and not you. Of course, if you don’t like the job, you can quit it—we don’t quarrel with that; but, if you are really fair-minded, you will see our side, too, which is that if you break the rules, you must take the consequences. When you take employment with the road, you agree to obey the rules, and you can’t object if the road holds you to the bargain.”

The superintendent was evidently carrying the crowd with him, and he paused a moment before launching his bombshell. Should he launch it, he asked himself, or should he let well enough alone? There would be no strike, everything had been quietly smoothed over. Nixon had carried out his agreement. Was it not wiser to stop now and let affairs take their course? Then the remembrance of Allan West’s flushed and indignant face rose before him and he nerved himself to go on.

“So I was interested to hear Mr. Nixon’s opinions,” he said, slowly, “and I thought you might be interested in knowing how Mr. Nixon arrived at them.”

At the words, Nixon turned livid and half-started from his chair, but Mr. Schofield heard the movement and turned toward him sternly.

“Sit down,” he said, curtly, and the two men who had come in with him moved closer to Nixon’s chair. “This representative of yours,” he continued, impressively, “came to me this morning. I told him we had decided not to reinstate Bassett. He said that in that case, there would be a strike—a general strike—that would cost us thousands of dollars. He hinted that the stock-yards would be set afire and other damage done to the company’s property. But in the end, he agreed to report against Bassett and prevent a strike, in consideration of the payment to him of the sum of one thousand dollars.”

The room woke up at the words as though a cyclone had suddenly broken loose. Nixon was on his feet, shaking his great fist at the speaker, who was himself trembling with excitement.

“I paid him the money,” shouted Mr. Schofield, in a voice which dominated even that tumult, “and he delivered the goods!”

The words fanned the flames anew, for a moment, and then a sudden silence fell upon the crowd, as Bassett sprang to the platform.

“If this thing’s true,” he shouted, his face as white as Nixon’s, “we want proofs. I’ve stood here an’ heard myself called a drunkard an’ liar, but I don’t care. I want proof.”

“And you shall have proof,” retorted Mr. Schofield, “if you’ll be quiet a minute. That’s right—don’t let him get away,” he added, as Nixon tried to slip from the platform and was promptly collared by the two strangers.

“Who are you?” demanded the prisoner, white with rage. “Leggo me or I’ll knock you down!”

“Oh, no, you won’t, Johnny,” rejoined one of them calmly, and showed his shield.

“Detectives!” gasped Nixon.

“Exactly.”

“Let me set down,” said Nixon, faintly, and sank back into the chair from which he had arisen.

“Now,” continued the superintendent, when that little by-play was ended, “if you’ll listen a moment, I’ll give you your proof. I had intended to have Nixon arrested as he left my office, but when he told me he was coming right over here, I thought it would be more convincing to all of you if I made the disclosure here. My proof is, that in the inside pocket of Nixon’s coat there is a package of ten one hundred dollar bills. They are notes issued by the First National Bank of this city, and range from number A142320 to A142329. As a further mark of identification, each of them has a small cross in red ink just over the head of the eagle.”

Bassett sprang toward the crouching man.

“We’ll see!” he cried savagely, and ripping Nixon’s coat open plunged his hand into the inside pocket.

An instant later, he snatched it out again, and waved the packet of bills in the air over his head.

“It’s true!” he yelled. “He’s sold us!”

And he turned upon Nixon as though to rend him limb from limb, while the mob pressed forward like so many maddened beasts.

CHAPTER XIV
DECLARATION OF WAR

For a moment, it looked as though summary vengeance would be taken upon the special delegate. But the detectives were equal to the occasion. One of them snapped a pair of handcuffs on the wrists of the cowering man, while the other snatched out a revolver and faced the shrieking mob.

“Stand back!” he cried, and when Bassett pressed on, caught him by the collar and flung him away. “Let the law deal with this man. Don’t make fools of yourselves! You’ll be sorry for it afterwards!”

“He’s right!” shouted Mr. Schofield. “Keep your heads, men! Bassett, sit down!” and he caught the engineer, who was literally foaming at the mouth in a spasm of hate and anger, and flung him into a chair.

The frenzy was over in a moment; cooler heads went about among the crowd counselling patience, and, in the end, Nixon was led away between the two detectives, a very different man from the self-assured, impudent fellow who had entered the room a short time before. Mr. Schofield accompanied them, having first seen that one of the detectives secured the packet of bills from Bassett to hold for evidence. And it may be added here, in passing, since Nixon will not again appear in the pages of this story, that he was, in due course, brought to trial, convicted of blackmail and sentenced to a term of years in the penitentiary.

There was a moment’s silence after Nixon and his captors had left the hall. None of the engineers followed them, but lingered behind, looking inquiringly into each others’ faces, for they seemed to feel that there was still something to be said.

Bassett seemed to feel so, too, for as soon as Mr. Schofield and the detectives left the room, he made his way to the door, closed it carefully, and placed a man on guard beside it.

“Now you stay there,” he said. “We don’t want no more interruptions.”

That done, he strode to the other end of the hall and mounted the platform.

“Now, boys,” he said, “we’ve certainly had an eye-opener. Most of you were against me half an hour ago, but maybe you feel different now. We’ve allers known that there was some scoundrels among these special delegates, but I guess there’s goin’ t’ be one less now, an’ anyway none of ’em would dare try t’ work the same thing twice. I move that the secretary be instructed to send an account of this thing to the grand secretary, at once, an’ ask fer another delegate t’ be sent down.”

“Second the motion!” shouted some one, and it was carried with a roar.

“And now,” concluded Bassett, “I guess there ain’t nothing more to be said at present. But this thing ain’t ended yet—not by no manner o’ means.”

“No, it ain’t!” shouted one of the men. “An’ there’s another thing. After this, we’re back of Rafe Bassett—hey, boys?”

“You bet!” came the chorus.

And when Bassett stepped down from the platform, it was in the guise of a hero. Everyone wanted to shake his hand and to protest undying devotion. He was enthroned more firmly than ever in control of the lodge, and everyone was anxious, as the saying is, to get into the band-wagon.

Bassett was right in saying that the incident was not closed. Indeed, it seemed that it had scarcely begun.

Nixon’s arrest and exposure created the biggest kind of a sensation. Newspapers described it under display heads, commented upon it editorially, and battledored and shuttlecocked it around until every phase of it was exhausted. But, curiously enough, while every compliment was paid Mr. Schofield for exposing Nixon, the whole affair seemed rather to incline the public to sympathize with Bassett.

“This exposé,” as one paper expressed it, “in no way affects the merits of the case. Indeed, it rather indicates that, without a bribe, the special delegate would have reported in Bassett’s favour. While the courage of the P. & O. in undertaking to expose the scoundrel cannot but be commended, the public should not permit this grand-stand play, as it were, to obscure the main issue. Whether the road was wrong, or whether Bassett was wrong, is a question whose solution we must await with an open mind.”

The labour papers were much more outspoken. While all of them rejoiced ostentatiously in the detection and punishment of Nixon, they also took care to add that the fact that the railroad had to bribe Nixon in order to get a favourable report from him proved beyond a doubt that its case was a bad one.

“This entire occurrence,” one of them continued, and not the most rabid by any means, “moves us to inquire on how many occasions have the railroads used bribery in order to accomplish their ends? No one can doubt that the use of money for this purpose is habitual with them, and we should not forget that the bribe-giver is as guilty as the bribe-taker. No bribe is ever given to accomplish an honest purpose, and the great corporations, which know so well how to take advantage of the weaknesses of poor human nature, are more to be despised and abhorred than the pitiable victims whom they have tempted to their ruin.”

It was in Mr. Round’s office at Cincinnati that Mr. Schofield was shown this utterance, and the general manager watched him as he read it, a cynical smile upon his lips.

“You see what’s coming, don’t you?” he inquired, when Mr. Schofield looked up.

“What is coming?”

“A strike—and public sympathy is going to be on the other side.”

“You think so?”

“I know so. I’m afraid we made a mistake, Schofield, in peaching on Nixon.”

“Do you know,” said the superintendent, “I felt a sort of presentiment of that sort when I started in to give him away. I came mighty near not doing it.”

“I wish you hadn’t. Why didn’t you heed the presentiment?”

“Well,” answered Mr. Schofield, slowly, “in the first place, we had mapped out the plan to follow, and I didn’t quite feel like discarding it on my own motion. And in the second place—well—I’m almost ashamed to tell you—just as I shut my mouth and got ready to sit down, I remembered young West’s face as it looked when I spoke of bribery to him. Somehow, I just had to go on.”

“It was scarcely the time to heed a young idealist,” said Mr. Round, dryly. “But I’m not blaming you—the mistake was mine, and I take the responsibility for it. I flattered myself that I adopted the course I did from purely utilitarian motives, but I’m inclined to suspect that West’s enthusiasm had something to do with my decision. You can’t mix railroading and impractical idealism, Ed.; the railroading will suffer every time.”

“Yes,” agreed Mr. Schofield, “I’m afraid it will. It certainly has this time.”

“We’ve got to make the best of it, and do what we can to set things right again. That’s mighty little. About all we can do is to get ready for the strike, and to hope that the strikers will make some fool move early in the game that will disgust thinking people. They’re pretty sure to, and that’s what I’m counting on to help us win out.”

“And in the meantime?”

“We’ll keep our trains moving!” and Mr. Round closed his jaws with a snap. “Here’s what I’m counting on. The engineers and firemen will strike sure—the conductors and brakemen probably. The hardest to replace will be the engineers, and I’m already getting some extra ones under my hand. Within a week, I think we’ll have all we need, if we can protect them. The firemen and brakemen won’t be so hard to get—there’s always a lot hanging around who don’t belong to the union, and as for conductors—well, I’m going to put as many men from these offices and yours on the job as can be spared. Clerical work can wait a while. Our secret service is lining up a lot of dependable men to be used as special deputies, and in a week I think I’ll have everything in shape. The only thing is,” he added, sadly, “we won’t have the public with us from the start.”

“Of course, if it lasts long enough, there’ll be trouble,” observed Mr. Schofield.

“That’s what I expect—that’s what I’m hoping for—for that’s what is going to win us public sympathy. As soon as any trouble develops that our men can’t handle, we’ll call for the state troops. The governor will be with us,” he added; “that’s one mercy.”

“But I thought,” began Mr. Schofield, with a vivid remembrance of the rabid anti-corporation campaign the governor had made, “I thought he was all the other way.”

“He’s seen a light,” said Mr. Round, briefly, and while he made no further explanation, it is safe to assume that it was this same light, discovered by the governor soon after taking his seat, which led him eventually to the senate of the United States.

“At any rate,” said Mr. Schofield, glancing at his watch and rising, “I’m glad to know that you’ve got everything so well in hand. I fancy the engineers will hustle things along as fast as they can.”

And they did, for the engineers realized, as well as the railroad, the value of public opinion. Another delegate was sent from headquarters without delay, and, fully cognizant of the way the wind was blowing, announced that a strike would be called at once, if Bassett was not reinstated.

The next morning, the delegate, accompanied by a local committee, waited upon Mr. Schofield. The interview was short and to the point.

“I have gone over the case,” said the delegate, who was a very different individual from Nixon, “and I find that you exceeded your rights in discharging Bassett.”

“So there’s no use to argue the point, then,” said Mr. Schofield.

“None whatever.”

“Of course your decision was thoroughly unbiased?”

“Thoroughly so,” answered the delegate with perfect composure.

“Well?”

“We demand that Bassett be reinstated at once.”

“And we unqualifiedly refuse.”

“Very well, sir. You know, I suppose, that there is then only one course open to us?”