The night winds moaned among the empty freight cars. The arc lamps
hummed and sputtered, making the flying frost look like diamond dust
dropping from the grinding stars. Out of a shadowy alley a bent man
crept, crouching under the snow-hung eaves. Far down the track, at a
crossing, the man saw the flash of a helmet and the glint of brass
buttons, and dodged among the cars. The man had committed no crime
against the law, but he was willing to, and so avoided the silent
guardian of the peace, pacing his beat. Beyond the track he came to the
street door of a two-story building, struck a match, read the number on
the transom, and entered the hall. At the top of the first flight of
stairs a door stood open. Beneath a gas jet in the open room Dan Moran
sat reading a book. He had heard the unsteady footsteps on the stair,
but had not allowed them to disturb him. Now the prowler paused,
steadied himself against the door-jamb, coughed, hiccoughed, hello'd in
a whisper, and Moran looked up.
"Well, Greene," said Dan, "what brings you abroad on a night like this?"
"Business!" was the half-whispered reply, "Business, ol' man."
Now the rum-crazed rambler left the door, put a trembling hand on the
table in the centre of the room, glanced back toward the stairs, and
peered into the face of the old engineer. "We are betrayed!" he
whispered, leaning heavily upon the stand. His wrist shook violently,
causing the table to quiver. The smoking outfit upon the table made a
low, rumbling noise. "What's that?" he asked, glaring about.
Having satisfied himself that all was right he put both hands upon the
table, and gazing again into the face of Moran, repeated: "We are
betrayed. Cowels is goin' out with Blackwings on the Denver Limited
to-morrow night. The plumber told the foreman an hour ago--I heard 'im.
Least they think he's goin', but he ain't. He's goin' to--"
"Oh, Greene, you're drunk. Go home and have a good sleep."
"Home! Did you say home? I ain't got no home. Drunk? Yes, I been drunk
lots o' times, but I ain't drunk now. Honest, I ain't teched a drop
to-day. Got a bot about you, ol' man? Say, if you have, fur th' love o'
life gimme a drop--half a drop--Dan, I'm all afire inside."
It was an awful picture that Moran looked upon now. The bloated face,
the sunken, blood-shot eyes, the blazing, hideous nose, burning in the
iron-gray stubble, all topped by a shock of tousled, unkempt hair, made
a picture horrible in the extreme.
"Say!" Greene began again, glancing toward the door, "meet me at seven
thirty to-morrow night, on the 'rep' track near the round-house, an'
I'll show you a trick."
"What sort of trick will you show me?"
With another look over his shoulder at the door the drunkard leaned
over the table and whispered. When the old engineer had gathered what
the man had said he got to his feet, took his midnight caller by the
collar and lead him to the top of the stairs. Greene was opposed to
leaving the cheerful room, so Moran was obliged to go with him to the
street door. Having put the wreck out into the frosty night the engineer
went back to his book. But he could not read. That awful face into which
he had looked, and the black soul that he had seen as well, haunted him.
He sat with his feet upon the table and smoked pipe after pipe, in a
vain effort to drive the frightful picture from his mind. The news that
Greene had brought disturbed him also. His fireman was going to desert
the Brotherhood, and take their old engine out.
Blackwings! How he loved that locomotive, and how absurd it seemed now
for a man to become so attached to a mere machine! But she was not
inanimate. She lived, moved, breathed. How often, as they swept beneath
the stars of an autumn night, had he felt her hot breath upon his face,
heard the steel singing beneath her feet and felt her tremble,
responsive to his lightest touch. How wild and free and glad she had
seemed, let loose in the moonlight with the Limited behind her. How
gracefully, easily, she lifted the huge, vestibuled train from swale to
swell. How she always passed station after station on the tick of the
clock, keeping to the time-card, unvarying as the sun. Proud and
queenly, yet gentle, she always answered the signals of the less
fortunate locomotives that stood panting on the side tracks, with their
heavy loads. Even the Meteor, the engine that wore white flags and
pulled the president's private car, always took the siding and saluted
Blackwings as she swept by majestically with the Limited.
More than once Moran had refused promotion that would take him from his
engine--from the open fields and free, wide world in which they lived
and moved together--to the cares and anxieties of a stuffy office. He
had been contented and happy with Blackwings, his books and his
briar-root pipe. He did not share the troubles of his less fortunate
brothers, who hugged and exaggerated their grievances until they became,
to them, unbearable. But when they quit he climbed down, took off his
overclothes, folded them carefully and carried them away with him. He
had nothing to gain by the strike, but he had much to lose by remaining
at his post--the confidence and respect of his fellow-toilers. Besides
he, in common with the rest, regarded the classification of engineers as
unfair to the men and to the travelling public. If a man were competent
to handle a passenger train, said the strikers, he ought to have
first-class pay. If he were incompetent he ought to be taken off, for
thousands of lives were in the hands of the engineer during the three
years through which, at reduced pay, he was becoming competent. These
were the arguments advanced by the men. This business upon the one hand,
and a deep longing upon the part of the management to learn just how far
the men could go in the way of dictating to the officials, in fixing the
load for a locomotive, and the pay of employees, caused the company,
after years of sparing, to undertake the chastisement of the Brotherhood
of Locomotive Engineers.[3]
[3] _The Burlington officials claim that, by resolutions in the lodge
room at Lincoln, the engineers fixed the load for certain classes of
engines, together with the penalty for pulling more. They argue that if
allowed to do this the men would want to make the time-cards and fix
freight rates. They certainly had as much right to do the one as the
other._
It is to be presumed that the generals, colonels and captains in the two
armies fought for what they considered right. At all events they were
loyal and obedient to their superiors. But each had found a foe vastly
more formidable than had been expected. They had not dreamed that the
fight could become so bitter. Life-long friends became enemies. Family
ties were severed, homes were ruined, men's lives were wrecked, women's
hearts were broken, and out of the shadow of the awful strife came men
fit for murder. It was these things that had kept Dan Moran awake far
into the morning.
Presently he heard a whistle, opened his eyes, looked at his watch and
then undressed and went to bed, while other workmen, more happily
situated, passed under his window on the way to work.