Adventure, January 20, 1922 — page 124: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

122 pull of the ‘‘maybe-you-get-there-and-may- be-you-don’t” kind, for there are many deep gravel fills, and under the softening breath of a Chinook wind the track grows treacherous in Winter. A drag of cars is in danger of slipping sidewise into a canon three hundred feet deep. It has happened more than once. And the climb, steep as it is, never could be negotiated by a single Mallet with a decent drag of cars. Always there was one engine pulling, and another pushing. But that was before the day of the “juice hog,” the two hundred and eighty-six ton electric engines which the Transcontinental put on these grades. Current or “‘juice’’ forfour hundred miles of the system was brought from two: big hydro-electric plants. The result was that the huge ‘juice hogs,” with thirty-four- hundred-horse-power motors—one motor coupled to each of the eight driving wheels— would snake thirteen standard steel cars of nine hundred and sixty tons up the Saddle Mountain grade unassisted. Their traction power was marvelous. They looked good to Danny Malone, who had been pulling freight up Saddle Moun- tain for ten years. ‘There was something more human about a big Mallet, but the electric engine was so superior to its steam rival in matter of pulling power that he declared himself in favor of the juice hog. And with ten years of service to his credit he got the 10,027 or, as she was known, the “twenty-seven.” “Some day I'll couple her to Saddle Mountain and pull the peak out by the roots,’ was the way he fondly boasted of his engine’s power. And, to one who would run his eye over the bulky monster, so long that she had to be jointed like a snake in order to take the sharp curves, Danny’s statement seemed less of an exaggeration than it sounded. When the twenty-seven got her tail tied to something, and settled down to pull, that “something” was almost certain to come along too, roots and all. Danny didn’t need to worry about the careless firemen burning out crown sheets, or about leaking tubes, or water-tanks. He simply moved the controller handle and invoked the mighty power of a plunging mountain torrent hundreds of miles distant. Because the twenty-seven was easily the best-pulling hog of the lot, and because Adventure Malone was just what he was, a genial, kindly Irishman with a heart built on the same large scale as his engine, the two were sworn by on the high line division. If some minor railroader, perhaps a humble car ‘tink,’ got into trouble, he needed but to tell Danny of his worry in order to command everything the juice hog’s master possessed. And because this was so, the men of the high line never could understand why big Tom Burke, who! pulled the Transcon- tinental’s crack flyer, seemed to dislike Danny Malone for no reason at all; a hatred that, instead of cooling with the years, grew hotter. Burke, burly, black- browed and blustering, seldom mentioned it except when he was in his cups and then he got away with it solely because of his size, for it rankled them to hear Danny maligned. The flyer’s engineer, as is true in most such cases, never spoke slightingly in Danny’s presence; the two talked as little as possible with each other. Malone, stockily. built, a kindly twinkle ever in his blue eyes, was at first nonplused and worried by Burke’s attitude; then he put it down as something that could not be helped; so, while never avoiding Burke, he maintained aloofness. When word came to him of the things Burke had said, he never replied in kind—he was no backbiter—but merely smiled his queer, quizzical smile and shifted the topic. The truth was that Burke was jealous; jealous of Danny’s popularity. He wanted to bind men to him as did Danny Malone. He was senior engineer of the division, a position won by years of service, and he felt that he was being cheated of his due, never sensing that what he sought could not be attained except in the unassuming way which was natural to Danny, and which welled up from the springs of a kindly ‘heart. And so the honors, such as they were, went to the freight engineer instead of the passenger pilot. But while Danny never admitted the existence of the thing, the train crews, per- haps grouped about a coal stove in some lonely way-station while waiting for a “meet,” often spoke of it and predicted that the time would come when there would be settlement between the two. The pas- senger pilot could fight, that they knew; and you had but to take one look at the blocky form of Danny Malone and his eyes COmiclboooks (C@