In the pineries (Illinois), where there was shooting, a man got lost,
they are twelve miles through timber, ridges, and sloughs covered with
green moss that closes over you if you don't mind your ways. This man
luckily came across a solitary railroad track and as he had been out
a good while and was seven miles from home he sat down to smoke and
think about things. Then the handcar came along, three men; so the
shootster, who knew many of the men, got on and worked his passage
leaving his spaniel, Dash, to run. We came along, talking and singing,
till we came to the quarter mile long trestle bridge over the Calumet
and swamps. Here an express turned up behind us and we started to
work; oh, yes; we worked with that beast of a train getting closer. We
could not stop to get off the track, but we got to the little station
and a man at the switch had time to let us off while the express
thundered by. Whether they saw us or not we never knew; if they did it
was a cruel game to play and when we got in we sat on a woodpile and
felt queer. My dog turned up half an hour later; the pace was too good
for him at first. The undergrowth is so thick in those woods that you
cannot see any distance. It was here two brothers, shooting forward,
and whistling to know where each other was came to the edge of the
tall trees. A woodcock got up and shot off through the brush down this
edge. One man shot it and, looking beyond as he loaded, saw something
he could not make out. It turned out to be his brother's head.
"What are you waiting for?" said No. 1.
"The rest of the charge," said he, "you've shot me."
[Illustration: Express Charges--Pittsburg & Fort Wayne R. R.]
[Illustration: F. P. Long Stop.]
"Oh, shot your grandmother," said No. 1. But all the same there was
one little spot of blood on his left cheekbone and I could feel the
shot which he never would take out though I wanted to; it was my shot
anyway.