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.”
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