WHAT DELAYED EXTRA WEST
"Well, how're ye goin' t' like it?" asked Jack Welsh at supper, that
evening, noticing how thoughtfully the boy was eating.
"Oh, I shall like it," answered Allan, confidently, looking up with a
strange light in his eyes. "A position like that gives one such a sense
of power and of responsibility. It's worth doing."
Jack nodded.
"That's it!" he said. "That's th' spirit! Buck up to it, an' it ain't
half so hard to do. That's th' way with everything in this world. Th'
feller who's afeerd he's goin' t' git licked, most ginerally does."
"Well, I may get licked," said Allan, "but if I do, it'll be because I'm
not strong enough, not because I'm afraid."
"I've seen little men lick big ones by mere force o' will," said Jack.
"Th' big man was whipped afore he started in. I believe that most o' th'
people who make a failure in this world, do it because they don't keep on
fightin' as long as they've got any wind left, but sort o' give up an'
turn tail an' try t' run away--an' th' fust thing they know they git a
clip on th' jaw that puts 'em down an' out."
In the days that followed, Allan certainly felt no inclination to
run away. He applied his whole mind to acquiring a full knowledge of
the dispatcher's work. He studied diligently the various forms of
train-order, and picked up such information as he could concerning the
capacity of the various engines and the character of engineers and
conductors. At the end of the week, he felt that he had the office
work of the dispatcher pretty well learned. Another week was spent in
"learning the road"--a week during which every daylight hour was spent
in travelling over the road on freight and passenger, learning the
location and length of sidings, the position of switches, water-tanks,
and signals. Whenever he could he rode on the engine, for though that
method of travel had long since lost its novelty, its fascination for
the boy had increased rather than diminished. Besides, there was always
a great deal of information to be picked up from the engineer, as well
as no little entertainment. For the engineer, especially if he was an
old one, was sure to possess a rich store of tales of the road--tales
humourous or tragic, as the case might be--tales of practical jokes, of
ghosts, of strange happenings, or of accidents and duty done at any cost,
of fearless looking in the face of death.
He had taken a trip over the entire east end, on the last day of the
week, and decided to make the return trip on an extra freight, which was
to leave Belpre, the eastern terminus of the freight business, about the
middle of the afternoon. So he got a lunch at the depot restaurant at
Parkersburg, and then walked across the big bridge which spans the Ohio
there, reaching the yards at Belpre just as the freight was getting ready
to pull out. He was pleased to find that the engineer was Bill Michaels,
an old friend, who at once suggested that there was a place in the cab at
Allan's disposal, if he cared to occupy it.
Allan thanked him and clambered up right willingly, taking his place on
the forward end of the long seat which ran along the left side of the
cab--the fireman's side. He watched the engineer "oil round"--that is,
walk slowly around the engine, a long-spouted oil-can in his hand, and
make sure that all the bearings were properly lubricated and all the
oil-cups full. The fireman meanwhile devoted his energies to feeding
his fire and getting up steam, and Allan perceived, from a certain
awkwardness with which he handled the shovel and opened and shut the
heavy door of the fire-box, that he was new to the business. But even a
green fireman can get up steam when his engine is standing still, so the
needle of the indicator climbed steadily round the dial, until at last,
the pressure threw up the safety-valve and the engine "popped off."
The fireman leaned wearily upon his shovel and scraped the sweat from his
forehead with bent forefinger.
"Hot work, isn't it?" said Allan, smiling.
"'Tain't near so bad as 'twill be," returned the fireman, whose name was
Pinckney Jones, and who was known by his intimates as Pink, or Pinkey,
a nickname which he had tried in vain to live down. "It'll be a reg'lar
wrastle t' keep 'er goin'. Something's got int' th' cantankerous old
beast, an' she won't steam t' save ye."
He bent again to his task, raking and shaking up the fire, and throwing
two or three more shovelfuls of coal into the blazing fire-box. Then the
engineer clambered up, followed by the front brakeman, and took his seat
on the other side of the cab. He stuck his head out the window, to watch
for the conductor's signal. Presently it came, he opened the throttle
gently, and the train, slowly gathering headway, rattled over the
switches, out of the yards, and straightened out for the journey westward.
"You want to be mighty careful this trip, Bill," remarked the brakeman.
"We've got two car-loads of wild animals back there. If we have a
smash-up, there'll be lions and tigers and Lord knows what all runnin'
loose about the country."
"That _would_ create considerable disturbance," agreed Bill. "Well, I'll
try to keep her on the track. Where're they billed to?"
"They're goin' to the Zoological Garden at Cincinnati. There's a whackin'
big elephant in the first car and a miscellaneous lot of lions, tigers,
snakes, and other vermin in the second. Yes, sir, there _would_ be lively
times if they got loose."
"Ain't there nobody with 'em?"
"Oh, yes; there's a couple of fellers to feed 'em; but these ain't the
broken-to-harness, drawing-room kind of wild animals. They're right
from the jungle, and are totally unacquainted with the amenities of
civilization."
And then, well pleased with his own facility of diction, he got out a
plug of tobacco, bit off a piece, and offered the plug to Bill. Bill
accepted the offer, took a tremendous chew, and returned the remnant to
its owner.
"And now, Pinkey," he remarked, to the perspiring fireman, "if you'll
kindly git up a few more pounds of steam, we'll be joggin' along. Mebbe
_you_ don't object to stayin' here all night, but _I'd_ like t' git home
t' see my wife an' children."
"I'm a-doin' my best," responded Pinkey, desperately, "th' ole brute jest
_won't_ steam, an' that's all they is to it."
"Yes," said the engineer, with irony, but keeping one eye on the track
ahead, "I've heerd firemen say th' same thing lots o' times. You've got
to nuss her along, boy--don't smother th' fire that a-way. An' keep th'
door shet."
"How'm I a-goin' t' git th' coal int' th' fire-box if I don't open th'
door?" demanded Pinkey.
"Jim, swing it fer him," said the engineer to the brakeman, and the
latter, who had assisted at the breaking-in of many a green fireman,
demonstrated to Pinkey how the door of the fire-box must be swung open
and shut between each shovelful of coal. To fire an engine properly is
an art which requires more than one lesson to acquire, but Pinkey made
a little progress, and after awhile had the satisfaction of seeing the
indicator-needle swing slowly up toward the point desired.
Just then, Michaels, glancing at his water-gauge, saw that it was getting
rather low, and opened the throttle of the injector in order to fill the
boiler; but instead of the water flowing smoothly through from the tank,
there was a spurt of steam which filled the cab. He tried again, and with
the same result.
"You blame fool!" he snorted, turning an irate face upon the unfortunate
fireman, "didn't you know enough t' see that th' tank was full afore we
left Belpre? What 'd you think we'd steam on--air?"
"It _was_ full," quavered Pinkey. "I helped th' hostler fill it."
"Oh, come!" protested the engineer. "Mebbe you'll tell me it's full now!"
Without replying, Pinkey stooped and opened a little cock on the front
of the tank, near the bottom. Not a drop of water came out of it.
"Dry as a bone!" cried the engineer, his face purple. "Mebbe you'll say
I used it--mebbe you'll say th' engine drunk up a whole tankful inside
o' ten mile. Th' only question is," he added, with another glance at his
gauge, "kin we git to Little Hocking?"
Little Hocking, the nearest station, was about four miles away, and
it looked for a time as though the water in the boiler would not be
sufficient to carry the train so far, and the fireman would be compelled
to draw his fire, while the brakeman tramped to the next station for
help. Such an accident would have made both engineer and fireman the
laughing-stock of the road, besides leading to an investigation by the
trainmaster, and a session "on the carpet." So Bill, although boiling
mad, nursed the engine along as carefully as he could, making every pound
of steam count, and finally drew up in triumph beside the water-tank at
Little Hocking.
"There, you lobster," he said to Pinkey, wiping off the perspiration,
"now fill her up."
Pinkey lowered the spout of the water-tank, opened the gate and let the
water rush down into the tank of the engine. It would hold seven thousand
gallons, and the fireman waited until the water brimmed over the top and
splashed down along the sides before he turned it off.
"Now," he said, defiantly, to Michaels, "you see fer yourself she's full.
Th' way she's steamin', I bet that won't carry us to Stewart."
The engineer grunted contemptuously.
"Remarkable, ain't it, how much these green firemen know?" he remarked to
the front brakeman, as he gently opened the throttle.
"You'll see," said Pinkey, doggedly, and fell to work "ladling in the
lampblack."
Michaels watched him for a few moments in silence.
"What's the matter?" he inquired, at length. "Got a hole in the fire-box?"
"No; why?" asked Pinkey, pausing between two shovelfuls.
"Somebody buried back there, an' you're tryin' to dig him out?" pursued
the engineer, with a gesture toward the pile of coal in the tender.
"What you talkin' about, anyway?" demanded Pinkey, staring at him in
amazement.
"Say, Jim," said the engineer to the brakeman, "take that scoop away from
that idiot, will ye? Pinkey, git up there on your box an' set down or
I'll report ye fer wastin' th' company's fuel."
"She won't steam without coal," protested Pinkey.
"No; nor she won't steam with a bellyful like that, either," retorted the
engineer, throwing on the draft. "Now I've got t' blow about half of it
out the smoke-stack."
He watched grimly as the black smoke swirled upward from the stack and
blew away to the left toward a little farmhouse.
"That feller'll think he's livin' in Pittsburg," remarked the brakeman,
as the smoke closed down over the house and shut it from view for an
instant.
Michaels snorted with laughter. Then he opened the injector again--and
again the steam spurted out into the cab.
Without waiting for an order, Pinkey bent and opened the tank-cock. A
thin little trickle told that the water in the tank was almost exhausted.
"Great Jehoshaphat!" cried Michaels, and stared in perplexity at the
brakeman. "Th' tank's sprung a leak," he said, at last, with conviction.
"I ain't pumped a hundred gallon into her since we left Little Hocking."
"They ain't no leak," asserted Pinkey. "I went all around th' tank,
an' it ain't leakin' a drop. I don't believe it'll carry us further 'n
Coolville," he added, triumphantly.
Michaels turned back to his engine without trusting himself to reply;
but it was only by the most careful nursing that those six miles were
covered and the water-plug at Coolville reached. There the engineer made
a personal inspection of the tank while Pinkey filled it, and he found,
as the fireman had said, that it was perfectly tight. Allan, who was as
deeply puzzled as any one, also examined the tank, and with the same
result.
The conductor sauntered forward while the tank was being filled, and
watched the operation with considerable curiosity.
"Say," he asked, at last, "what 're you fellers up to, anyway? Tryin' t'
create a water famine?"
"Oh, go back to your dog-house an' go to sleep," retorted Michaels, whose
temper was beginning to give way under the strain.
"I can't sleep more'n eight hours at a stretch. Think we'll be to Athens
by then?"
The engineer picked up a lump of coal, and the conductor hastily
retreated.
"Say," he sung out over his shoulder, "don't fergit there's a pen-stock
at Stewart. Don't pass it--it might feel slighted," and he dodged the
lump of coal, as it whizzed past his head.
"Blamed fool!" muttered Michaels, and settled into his seat.
But the four men in the cab were strangely silent as the train started
westward again. There was something mysterious and alarming about all
this--something positively supernatural in the disappearance of fourteen
thousand gallons of water within an hour. The engineer tried his injector
nervously from time to time, but for half an hour or so it worked
properly, and squirted the water into the boiler as required. Then,
suddenly, came the spurt of steam which told that there was no more water
to squirt.
"Well," said the engineer, in an awed voice, "that beats me. Even
with th' injector open all th' time, no engine could drink water that
way--why, it 'd flood her an' flow out of her cupolo! Besides, her boiler
ain't more 'n half-full!"
Pinkey mechanically tried the cock again, and with the same result--the
tank was nearly empty. Then, in a sort of trance, he turned to shovel in
some more coal, but finding there was none lying loose within easy reach,
took his rake, and climbed up the pile at the back of the tender, like
a man walking in his sleep, and started to pull some coal down into the
gangway.
An instant later, his companions heard a shriek of utter horror, audible
even above the rattle of the engine, and the fireman rolled in a limp
heap down the pile of coal, his face white as death, his eyes fairly
starting from his head. If any man ever looked as though he had seen a
ghost, Pinkey Jones was that man, and his terror was communicated in some
degree to his companions.
"For God's sake!" cried the brakeman, at last, seizing Pinkey by the
collar and pulling him to an upright position. "What's the matter?"
Instead of answering, Pinkey, his teeth chattering, tried to jump off the
engine. The fireman grabbed him and pulled him back by main force.
"Come!" he said, shaking him fiercely. "Brace up! Be a man! What's the
matter?"
"Th--there's a snake up there," stuttered Pinkey. "Let me go!"
"A snake!"
"Big as my leg," added Pinkey. "Black, with a red mouth! Let me go!"
The brakeman slammed him down on the seat and picked up the rake, while
Allan armed himself with the bar of iron used for stirring up the fire.
"What was he doing?" asked the brakeman, when these preparations had been
made.
"He--he had his head in the tank," said Pinkey. "When he heard me comin',
he lifted it up an' squirted water all over me!"
"Squirted water!" repeated Michaels, incredulously. "A snake? Oh, come!"
"Well, look at me," said Pinkey. And indeed, they saw now that he was
completely soaked.
"Why, he must 'a' sent a stream like a fire-hose!" said the brakeman.
"He did," agreed Pinkey. "It hit me so hard it knocked me backward down
that pile o' coal," and he rubbed his head ruefully.
The three men in the cab stared at each other in amazement. A snake that
could knock a man down with a stream of water!
"Well," said Bill Michaels, grimly, at last, "all I kin say is that if
they ever puts that snake on exhibition th' biggest circus tent on earth
won't hold th' crowds."
"I'm goin' up t' take a look at him," announced the brakeman, grasping
the rake.
"I'll go with you," said Allan, reflecting that, after all, a snake
which did nothing more than deluge its assailants with water was not so
very dangerous, and he followed the brakeman up the pile of coal.
The latter reached the top and peered cautiously over. The next instant,
his cap flew from his head, carried away by a stream of water which
whistled past him and fell upon Allan. The brakeman ducked, and the two
crouched for a moment staring into each other's eyes.
"Well, I'll be blamed!" said the brakeman, hoarsely.
"Did you see anything?" asked Allan.
"Nothin' but a thing that looked like a nozzle squirtin' water at me!"
and he wiped the water from his eyes. "Well, I'm as wet now as I kin git.
I'm a-goin' to see what it is," and again he elevated his head cautiously
over the top of the pile of coal.
Allan saw a stream of water strike him violently in the face; but he held
his place and shook it off, and the next instant, roaring with laughter,
fairly rolled down the coal into the cab, carrying the boy with him.
"What is it?" asked Pinkey with bated breath.
Allan shook his head and pointed to the brakeman, who sat on the floor
of the cab, rocking to and fro, holding his sides, with tears and water
running down his cheeks.
"He's gone crazy!" cried Pinkey. "He's seen it an' 's gone crazy!"
"Ho! ho!" roared the brakeman. "If you'd 'a' seen his eye! If you'd only
seen his eye!"
Michaels, who had managed to keep his lookout ahead only in the most
intermittent fashion, closed the throttle and applied the brakes.
"I'm a-goin' t' see what this is," he said, savagely, "if we never move
another foot! What was it you seen, Jim? Whose eye?"
"If you'd 'a' seen his little wicked eye!" yelled the brakeman. "Oh! I
must go up an' look at it agin!"
But the train creaked to a stop, and the engineer jumped down from his
seat and seized Jim fiercely.
"Here, you," he cried. "What is it? Speak out, or by George--"
"It's th' elephant!" gasped Jim. "Oh, if you'd 'a' seen his eye
a-twinklin'!"
Michaels dropped the brakeman and jumped to the ground, the others
following. And there, sure enough, with his trunk sticking out of a
little window in the front end of the car just back of the tender was the
elephant. Even as they looked, the trunk stretched forward, and the end
of it disappeared through the manhole in the top of the tank.
"What's up?" inquired the conductor, running up from the rear of the
train. "What you stoppin' out here for, Bill? They's no plug here!"
A stream of water caught him squarely on the side of the face, and left
him dazed and speechless. The engineer, fireman, and brakeman danced
around, yelling and slapping their knees.
The conductor jumped out of range, wiped away the water, and regarded
them disgustedly.
"Well, of all the blame fools!" he said. "It don't take much to amuse
some people."
"What's the joke?" asked the rear brakeman, coming up at that moment.
The elephant saw him, took deadly aim, and fired. The brakeman, with a
yell of dismay, clapped his hands to his face. When he had cleared the
water from his eyes, he saw four men dancing spasmodically up and down,
fairly howling with mirth.
The brakeman gazed at them for a moment without comment, then turned on
his heel and walked back to the caboose, waving his arms in the air in a
very ecstasy of rage.
"Look at his eye," gasped the front brakeman, when he could get his
breath, and indeed the elephant's right optic, which was the only one
visible through the little window, was shining with unholy glee. He was
having the time of his life.
The trainmen finally calmed down sufficiently to call one of the animal
attendants, and an investigation followed. It was found that the elephant
had managed to open the shutter which closed the little window by pulling
out the catch. He had put his trunk through the window, and after some
exploration, had found the opening through which the tank was filled. The
cool water within had attracted him, he had drank his fill, had given
himself and the other occupants of the car a shower-bath and had then
devoted himself to sprinkling the right of way until the water in the
tank got too low for him to reach. Then he had retired within his car to
meditate; but afterwards, finding the tank full again, had repeated the
performance, and doubtless would have kept on doing so all the way to
Cincinnati if he had not been discovered.
The shutter was closed and nailed shut, and the train finally proceeded
on its way. At the next station, the conductor filed a message for
headquarters, which the operator dutifully sent in.
"Extra west, Engine 1438, delayed twenty minutes by elephant. Stewart."
The dispatcher who received the message requested that the word before
the signature be repeated.
"E-l-e-p-h-a-n-t," repeated the operator.
"What do you mean by elephant?" queried the dispatcher.
The operator happened to have a little pocket dictionary at hand, for he
was not always sure of his spelling. He referred to it now.
"Elephant," he answered, "a five-toed proboscian mammal."
And what the dispatcher said in reply cannot be repeated here.