followers, got after me at once. "You don't show much sense, Reed," said
he. "You fellows here are breaking your necks to get things moving, and
when this strike's over, if our boys ask for your discharge, they'll get
it. This road can't run without our engineers. We're going to beat you.
If you dare try to move this silk, we'll have your scalp when it's over.
You'll never get your silk to Zanesville, I'll promise you that. And if
you ditch it and make a million-dollar loss, you'll get let out anyway,
my buck."
"I'm here to obey orders, Stewart," said I. What was the use of more? I
felt uncomfortable; but we had determined to move the silk; there was no
more to be said.
When I went over to the round-house and told Neighbor the decision, he
said never a word; but he looked a great deal. Neighbor's task was to
supply the motive power. All that we had, uncrippled, was in the
passenger service, because passengers should be taken care of first of
all. In order to win a strike, you must have public opinion on your
side.
"Nevertheless, Neighbor," said I, after we had talked awhile, "we must
move the silk also."
Neighbor studied; then he roared at his foreman. "Send Bartholomew
Mullen here." He spoke with a decision that made me think the business
was done. I had never happened, it is true, to hear of Bartholomew
Mullen in the department of motive power; but the impression the name
gave me was of a monstrous fellow, big as Neighbor, or old man Sankey,
or Dad Hamilton. "I'll put Bartholomew ahead of it," said Neighbor
tightly.
I saw a boy walk into the office. "Mr. Garten said you wanted me, sir,"
said he, addressing the Master Mechanic.
"I do, Bartholomew," responded Neighbor.
The figure in my mind's eye shrunk in a twinkling. Then it occurred to
me that it must be this boy's father who was wanted.
"You have been begging for a chance to take out an engine, Bartholomew,"
began Neighbor coldly; and I knew it was on.
"Yes, sir."
"You want to get killed, Bartholomew."
Bartholomew smiled as if the idea was not altogether displeasing.
"How would you like to go pilot to-morrow for McCurdy? You to take the
44 and run as first Seventy-eight. McCurdy will run as second
Seventy-eight."
"I know I could run an engine all right," ventured Bartholomew, as if
Neighbor were the only one taking the chances in giving him an engine.
"I know the track from here to Zanesville. I helped McNeff fire one
week."
"Then go home, and go to bed; and be over here at six o'clock to-morrow
morning. And sleep sound, for it may be your last chance."
It was plain that the Master Mechanic hated to do it; it was simply
sheer necessity. "He's a wiper," mused Neighbor, as Bartholomew walked
springily away. "I took him in here sweeping two years ago. He ought to
be firing now, but the union held him back; that's why he don't like
them. He knows more about an engine now than half the lodge. They'd
better have let him in," said the Master Mechanic grimly. "He may be the
means of breaking their backs yet. If I give him an engine and he runs
it, I'll never take him off, union or no union, strike or no strike."
"How old is that boy?" I asked.
"Eighteen; and never a kith or a kin that I know of. Bartholomew
Mullen," mused Neighbor, as the slight figure moved across the flat,
"big name--small boy. Well, Bartholomew, you'll know something more by
to-morrow night about running an engine, or a whole lot less: that's as
it happens. If he gets killed, it's your fault, Reed."
He meant that I was calling on him for men when he couldn't supply them.
"I heard once," he went on, "about a fellow named Bartholomew being
mixed up in a massacre. But I take it he must have been an older man
than our Bartholomew--nor his other name wasn't Mullen, neither. I
disremember just what it was; but it wasn't Mullen."
"Well, don't say I want to get the boy killed, Neighbor," I protested.
"I've got plenty to answer for. I'm here to run trains--when there are
any to run; that's murder enough for me. You needn't send Bartholomew
out on my account."
"Give him a slow schedule, and I'll give him orders to jump early;
that's all we can do. If the strikers don't ditch him, he'll get through
somehow."
It stuck in my crop--the idea of putting that boy on a pilot engine to
take all the dangers ahead of that particular train; but I had a good
deal else to think of besides. From the minute the silk got into the
McCloud yards, we posted double guards around. About twelve o'clock that
night we held a council of war, which ended in our running the train
into the out freight-house. The result was that by morning we had a new
train made up. It consisted of fourteen refrigerator cars loaded with
oranges which had come in mysteriously the night before. It was
announced that the silk would be held for the present and the oranges
rushed through at once. Bright and early the refrigerator train was run
down to the icehouses, and twenty men were put to work icing the
oranges. At seven o'clock, McCurdy pulled in the local passenger with
engine 105. Our plan was to cancel the load and run him right out with
the oranges. When he got in, he reported that the 105 had sprung a tire;
this threw us out entirely. There was a hurried conference in the
round-house.
"What can you do?" asked the Superintendent in desperation.
"There's only one thing I can do. Put Bartholomew Mullen on it with the
44, and put McCurdy to bed for Number Two to-night," responded Neighbor.
It was eight o'clock. I looked into the locomotive stalls. The
first--the only--man in sight was Bartholomew Mullen. He was very busy
polishing the 44. He had good steam on her, and the old tub was wheezing
away as if she had the asthma. The 44 was old; she was homely; she was
rickety; but Bartholomew Mullen wiped her battered nose as deferentially
as if she had been a spick-span, spider-driver, tail-truck mail-racer.
She wasn't much--the 44. But in those days Bartholomew wasn't much:
and the 44 was Bartholomew's.
"How is she steaming, Bartholomew?" I sang out; he was right in the
middle of her. Looking up, he fingered his waste modestly and blushed
through a dab of crude-petroleum over his eye. "Hundred and thirty
pounds, sir. She's a terrible free steamer, the old 44. I'm all ready
to run her out."
"Who's marked up to fire for you, Bartholomew?"
Bartholomew Mullen looked at me fraternally. "Neighbor couldn't give me
anybody but a wiper, sir," said Bartholomew, in a sort of a
wouldn't-that-kill-you tone.
The unconscious arrogance of the boy quite knocked me: so soon had
honors changed his point of view. Last night a despised wiper; at
daybreak, an engineer; and his nose in the air at the idea of taking on
a wiper for fireman. And all so innocent.
"Would you object, Bartholomew," I suggested gently, "to a train-master
for fireman?"
"I don't--think so, sir."
"Thank you; because I am going down to Zanesville this morning myself,
and I thought I'd ride with you. Is it all right?"
"Oh, yes, sir--if Neighbor doesn't care."
I smiled: he didn't know whom Neighbor took orders from; but he thought,
evidently, not from me.
"Then run her down to the oranges, Bartholomew, and couple on, and we'll
order ourselves out. See?"
The 44 looked like a baby-carriage when we got her in front of the
refrigerators. However, after the necessary preliminaries, we gave a
very sporty toot, and pulled out. In a few minutes we were sailing down
the valley.
For fifty miles we bobbed along with our cargo of iced silk as easy as
old shoes; for I need hardly explain that we had packed the silk into
the refrigerators to confuse the strikers. The great risk was that they
would try to ditch us.
I was watching the track as a mouse would a cat, looking every minute
for trouble. We cleared the gumbo cut west of the Beaver at a pretty
good clip, in order to make the grade on the other side. The bridge
there is hidden in summer by a grove of hackberries. I had just pulled
open to cool her a bit when I noticed how high the back-water was on
each side of the track. Suddenly I felt the fill going soft under the
drivers; felt the 44 wobble and slew. Bartholomew shut off hard, and
threw the air as I sprang to the window. The peaceful little creek ahead
looked as angry as the Platte in April water, and the bottoms were a
lake.
Somewhere up the valley there had been a cloudburst, for overhead the
sun was bright. The Beaver was roaring over its banks, and the bridge
was out. Bartholomew screamed for brakes: it looked as if we were
against it--and hard. A soft track to stop on; a torrent of storm-water
ahead, and ten hundred thousand dollars' worth of silk behind, not to
mention equipment.
I yelled at Bartholomew, and motioned for him to jump; my conscience is
clear on that point. The 44 was stumbling along, trying like a drunken
man to hang to the rotten track.
"Bartholomew!" I yelled; but he was head out and looking back at his
train while he jerked frantically at the air-lever. I understood: the
air wouldn't work; it never will on those old tubs when you need it. The
sweat pushed out on me. I was thinking of how much the silk would bring
us after the bath in the Beaver. Bartholomew stuck to his levers like a
man in a signal-tower, but every second brought us closer to open water.
Watching him intent only on saving his first train--heedless of his
life--I was actually ashamed to jump. While I hesitated he somehow got
the brakes to set; the old 44 bucked like a bronco.
It wasn't too soon. She checked her train nobly at the last, but I saw
nothing could keep her from the drink. I gave Bartholomew a terrific
slap, and again I yelled; then turning to the gangway, I dropped into
the soft mud on my side: the 44 hung low, and it was easy lighting.
Bartholomew sprang from his seat a second later; but his blouse caught
in the teeth of the quadrant. He stooped quick as thought, and peeled
the thing over his head. Then he was caught fast by the wristbands, and
the ponies of the 44 tipped over the broken abutment. Pull as he would
he couldn't get free. The pilot dipped into the torrent slowly. But
losing her balance, the 44 kicked her heels into the air like
lightning, and shot with a frightened wheeze plump into the creek,
dragging her engineer with her.
The head car stopped on the brink. Running across the track, I looked
for Bartholomew. He wasn't there; I knew he must have gone down with his
engine. Throwing off my gloves, I dived, just as I stood, close to the
tender, which hung half submerged. I am a good bit of a fish under
water, but no self-respecting fish would be caught in that yellow mud. I
realized, too, the instant I struck the water, that I should have dived
on the upstream side. The current took me away whirling; when I came up
for air, I was fifty feet below the pier. I scrambled out, feeling it
was all up with Bartholomew; but to my amazement, as I shook my eyes
open the train crew were running forward, and there stood Bartholomew on
the track above me, looking at the refrigerator. When I got to him, he
explained how he was dragged under and had to tear the sleeve out of his
blouse under water to get free.
The surprise is how little fuss men make about such things when they are
busy. It took only five minutes for the conductor to hunt up a coil of
wire and a sounder for me, and by the time he got forward with it,
Bartholomew was half-way up a telegraph pole to help me cut in on a live
wire. Fast as I could, I rigged a pony, and began calling the McCloud
despatcher. It was rocky sending, but after no end of pounding, I got
him and gave orders for the wrecking gang, and for one more of
Neighbor's rapidly decreasing supply of locomotives.
Bartholomew, sitting on a strip of fence which still rose above water,
looked forlorn. To lose in the Beaver the first engine he ever handled
was tough, and he was evidently speculating on his chances of ever
getting another. If there weren't tears in his eyes, there was
storm-water certainly. But after the relief engine had pulled what was
left of us back six miles to a siding, I made it my first business to
explain to Neighbor, who was nearly beside himself, that Bartholomew not
only was not at fault, but that by his nerve he had actually saved the
train.
"I'll tell you, Neighbor," I suggested, when we got straightened
around. "Give us the 109 to go ahead as pilot, and run her around the
river division with Foley and the 216."
"What'll you do with Number Six?" growled Neighbor. Six was the local
passenger west.
"Annul it west of McCloud," said I instantly. "We've got this silk on
our hands now, and I'd move it if it tied up every passenger train on
the division. If we can get the stuff through, it will practically beat
the strike. If we fail, it will beat the company."
By the time we had backed to Newhall Junction, Neighbor had made up his
mind my way. Mullen and I climbed into the 109, and Foley, with the 216,
and none too good a grace, coupled on to the silk, and flying red
signals, we started again for Zanesville over the river division.
Foley was always full of mischief. He had a better engine than ours, and
he took great satisfaction the rest of the afternoon in crowding us.
Every mile of the way he was on our heels. I was throwing the coal, and
have reason to remember. It was after dark when we reached the Beverly
Hill, and we took it at a lively pace. The strikers were not on our
minds then; it was Foley who bothered.
When the long parallel steel lines of the upper yards spread before us,
flashing under the arc lights, we were away above yard speed. Running a
locomotive into one of those big yards is like shooting a rapid in a
canoe. There is a bewildering maze of tracks, lighted by red and green
lamps, which must be watched the closest to keep out of trouble. The
hazards are multiplied the minute you pass the throat, and a yard wreck
is a dreadful tangle; it makes everybody from road-master to flagman
furious, and not even Bartholomew wanted to face an inquiry on a yard
wreck. On the other hand, he couldn't afford to be caught by Foley, who
was chasing him out of pure caprice.
I saw the boy holding the throttle at a half and fingering the air
anxiously as we jumped over the frogs; but the roughest riding on track
so far beats the ties as a cushion, that when the 109 suddenly stuck her
paws through an open switch we bounced against the roof of the cab like
footballs. I grabbed a brace with one hand, and with the other reached
instinctively across to Bartholomew's side to seize the throttle. But as
I tried to shut him off, he jerked it wide open in spite of me, and
turned with lightning in his eye. "No!" he cried, and his voice rang
hard. The 109 took the tremendous shove at her back, and leaped like a
frightened horse. Away we went across the yard, through the cinders, and
over the ties; my teeth have never been the same since. I don't belong
on an engine, anyway, and since then I have kept off. At the moment, I
was convinced that the strain had been too much, that Bartholomew was
stark crazy. He sat clinging like a lobster to his levers and bouncing
clear to the roof.
But his strategy was dawning on me; in fact, he was pounding it into me.
Even the shock and scare of leaving the track and tearing up the yard
had not driven from Bartholomew's noddle the most important feature of
our situation, which was, above everything, to _keep out of the way of
the silk train_.
I felt every moment more mortified at my attempt to shut him off. I had
done the trick of the woman who grabs the reins. It was even better to
tear up the yard than to stop for Foley to smash into and scatter the
silk over the coal chutes. Bartholomew's decision was one of the traits
which make the runner: instant perception coupled to instant resolve.
The ordinary dub thinks what he should have done to avoid disaster after
it is all over; Bartholomew thought before.
On we bumped, across frogs, through switches, over splits, and into
target rods, when--and this is the miracle of it all--the 109 got her
forefeet on a split switch, made a contact, and after a slew or two,
like a bogged horse, she swung up sweet on the rails again, tender and
all. Bartholomew shut off with an under cut that brought us up
stuttering, and nailed her feet with the air right where she stood. We
had left the track and plowed a hundred feet across the yards and jumped
on to another track. It is the only time I ever heard of its happening
anywhere, but I was on the engine with Bartholomew Mullen when it was
done.
Foley choked his train the instant he saw our hind lights bobbing. We
climbed down, and ran back. He had stopped just where we should have
stood if I had shut off.
Bartholomew ran to the switch to examine it. The contact light (green)
still burned like a false beacon; and lucky it did, for it showed that
the switch had been tampered with and exonerated Bartholomew Mullen
completely. The attempt of the strikers to spill the silk in the yards
had only made the reputation of a new engineer. Thirty minutes later,
the million-dollar train was turned over to the East End to wrestle
with, and we breathed, all of us, a good bit easier.
Bartholomew Mullen, now a passenger runner who ranks with Kennedy and
Jack Moore and Foley and George Sinclair himself, got a personal letter
from the General Manager complimenting him on his pretty wit; and he was
good enough to say nothing whatever about mine.
We registered that night and went to supper together: Foley, Jackson,
Bartholomew, and I. Afterward we dropped into the despatcher's office.
Something was coming from McCloud, but the operator to save his life
couldn't catch it. I listened a minute; it was Neighbor. Now, Neighbor
isn't great on despatching trains. He can make himself understood over
the poles, but his sending is like a boy's sawing wood--sort of uneven.
However, though I am not much on running yards, I claim to be able to
take the wildest ball that ever was thrown along the wire, and the chair
was tendered me at once to catch Neighbor's extraordinary passes at the
McCloud key. They came something like this:
"To Opr. Tell Massacree"--that was the word that stuck them all, and I
could perceive that Neighbor was talking emphatically. He had apparently
forgotten Bartholomew's last name, and was trying to connect with the
one he had "disremembered" the night before. "Tell Massacree," repeated
Neighbor, "that he is al-l-l right. Tell hi-m I give him double mileage
for to-day all the way through. And to-morrow he gets the 109 to
keep.--NEIGHB-B-OR."
I
THE BULLDOG BREED
A Story of the Russo-Japanese War
By AMBROSE PRATT
"WHAT do you make of her, Maclean?" asked Captain Brandon anxiously.
First mate Hugh Maclean did not reply at once. Embracing a stanchion of
the S.S. _Saigon's_ bridge in order to steady himself against the
vessel's pitching, he was peering with strained eyes through the
captain's binoculars at two small brown needle-points, set very close
together, that stabbed the northeastern horizon.
At length, however, he lowered the glass, and resumed the perpendicular.
"You were right, sir," he declared. "She has altered her course, and our
paths now converge."
"Which proves that she is one of those d----d Russian volunteer
pirates."
"Or else a Japanese cruiser, sir."
"Nonsense! The Jap cruisers have only one mast."
"So they have, sir. I was forgetting that."
"What to do!" growled the captain, and he fell to frowning and cracking
his long fingers--his habit when perplexed. He was a short, thick-set
man, with a round, red face, keen blue eyes, and strong, square jaws: a
typical specimen of the old-time British sailor. Hugh Maclean, on the
other hand, was a lean and lank Australian, of evident Scottish
ancestry. His long, aquiline nose and high cheek-bones were tightly
covered with a parchment-like skin, bronzed almost to the hue of
leather. He wore a close-cropped, pointed beard, and the deep-set gray
eyes that looked out from under the peak of his seaman's cap twinkled
with good health and humor.
"We might alter our course, too, sir," he suggested.
"Ay!" snapped the other, "and get pushed for our pains on to the
Teraghlind Reef. We are skirting those rocks more closely than I like
already."
"You know best, sir, of course. But I meant that we might slip back
toward Manila, and try the other channel after we have given that fellow
the go-by."
"What!" snorted the captain, his blue eyes flashing fire, "run from the
Russian! I'll be ---- first. We haven't a stitch of contraband aboard,"
he added more calmly a moment later. "He daren't do more than stop and
search us."
But Maclean shook his head. "One of them took and sunk the _Acandaga_
last month, sir, and she carried no contraband either."
"Russia will have to foot the bill for that."
"May be, sir. But Captain Tollis--as fine a chap as ever breathed,
sir--has lost his ship, and the Lord knows if he'll ever get another."
"Are you trying to frighten me, Maclean?" asked Captain Brandon,
stormily.
The mate shrugged his shoulders. "No, sir; but I am interested in this
venture, and if the _Saigon_ gets back all right to Liverpool I'm due to
splice Mr. Keppel's niece, and the old gentleman, as you know, has
promised me a ship."
"And hasn't it entered your thick skull that to return as you suggest
would cost fifty pounds' worth of coal? How do you suppose old Kep would
like that?"
"Better burn a few tons of coal than risk losing the _Saigon_, sir, and
mark time till God knows when in a Russian prison."
Captain Brandon shut his mouth with a snap, and muttered something about
Scottish caution that was distinctly uncomplimentary to the Caledonian
race. Then, to signify the end of the argument, he strode to the ladder,
and prepared to descend. Maclean, however, was of an equally stubborn
character. "About the course, sir?" he demanded, touching his cap with
ironical deference.
"Carry on!" snarled the captain, and he forthwith disappeared.
Two hours afterward Hugh Maclean knocked at the door of the captain's
cabin, and was hoarsely bidden enter. Captain Brandon was seated before
a bottle of whisky, which was scarce half full.
"Have a nip?" he hospitably inquired.
Maclean nodded, and half filled a glass.
"Thank you, sir. Queer thing's happened," he observed, as he wiped his
lips. "The Russian----"
"I know," interrupted the captain. "I've been watching her through the
port. She's the _Saigon's_ twin-sister ship, that was the _Saragossa_
which old Kep sold to Baron Dabchowski six months ago. Much good it
would have done us to run. She has the heels of us. Old Kep had just put
new triple-expansion engines into her before she changed hands. But
they've killed the look of her, converting her into a cruiser. She's
nothing but a floating scrap-heap now."
"But she has six guns," observed Maclean. "Don't you think you'd better
come up, sir? She is almost near enough to signal."
"Well, well," said the captain, and putting away the whisky bottle, he
led the way to the bridge.
Some half-dozen miles away, steaming at an angle to meet the _Saigon_ at
a destined point, there plowed through the sea a large iron steamer of
about three thousand tons' burden. She exactly resembled the _Saigon_ in
all main points of build, and except for the fact that two guns were
mounted fore and aft on her main deck above the line of steel bulwarks,
and that her masts were fitted with small fighting tops, she might very
well have passed for an ordinary merchantman.
For twenty minutes or thereabouts the two officers watched her in
silence, taking turn about with the binoculars; then, quite suddenly,
the vessel, now less than two miles distant, luffed and fell slightly
away from her course.
"She is going to speak," said Captain Brandon, who held the glasses.
"Look out!"
Maclean smiled at the caution; but next instant a bright flash quivered
from the other vessel's side, and involuntarily he ducked his head, for
something flew dipping and shrieking over the _Saigon_. In the following
second there was heard the clap of the distant cannon and the splash of
a shell striking the sea close at hand. Invisible hands unfolded and
shook out three balls of bunting at the truck of the war-ship's signal
boom. They fluttered for awhile, and then spread out to the breeze. The
arms of Russia surmounted two lines of symbolic letters.
"Quartermaster!" shouted Captain Brandon.
"Ay, ay, sir!" rang out a sailor's voice, and the _Saigon's_ number
raced a Union Jack to the mast-head.
"Well, Mac?" cried the captain, with his hand on the engine-room
signal-bell.
Maclean looked up from the book. "His Imperial Majesty of Russia, by the
commander of the converted cruiser _Nevski_, orders us to stop."
Captain Brandon pressed the lever, and before ten might be counted the
shuddering of the _Saigon's_ screw had ceased.