The Argosy, June 1904 — page 70: what you’re looking at

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

506 “We'll make it if iron holds to- gether,” I said, and I snapped the train out of Harriman’s to a tune that must have made the passengers sit up and take notice. Bill Carney, the conductor, came to the front of the baggage car and shook his fist at me while we descended the Freshwater grade. Gee, it was a wonder I didn’t drop a car on one of those curves! And the Freshwater valley, after you’ve dropped down the grade into it, isn’t free of corners, either. Take it altogether, the old branch made pretty near a crescent in crossing the valley— a sort of a grapevine twister that looked pretty on the way-map, but killed time terribly. Up on the north was a mining coun- try—Ellis Creek, Noman’s Lode, the Creeper Bonanza, and all those second- class holes in the ground. The miners had banked up Ellis Creek into a big reservoir so as to have water over the dry season, and that puddle was full. T’d been afraid of it for several days; and when I saw that I was flagged at Becham’s Crossing, just after we got down into the valley, and sighted the operator standing on the platform wav- ing a paper, I bet with myself what it was. Hither the reservoir had already given way and swept the bridge at Ellis from the foundations, or she was likely to go any minute. . The last guess was right, and I owed myself a bag of fine-cut. “Danger of reservoir dam bursting. Run half time to Ellis Creek.” That was the order I got. slowed down to get the despatch; I wouldn’t stop and sign for it, and the General Custer was forging ahead again. I thought of young Jed sitting back © there in the parlor car and what de- pended on his getting into Helena with that “Nipper” stock, and I just let the wire drop out of the window of my cab. There might be a chance of our get- ting across the creek in time if the fireman still shoveled the coal into her and I coaxed the machine along at the best lick possible; but if we slowed PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG Eonnic Doo We'd only THE ARGOSY. down to Ellis Creek—twenty miles it was—there’d not be the ghost of a show for voung Jed to meet his engagement. Taking chances? Well, I suppose so. Every railroad engineer takes them— and pretty nearly every time he goes out on his run, too. Jed had taken chances in his business, and it was a narrow squeak if he pulled through; I was taking a chance to help him. And he was watching things pretty close, for there he came crawling over the tender when we were not more than five miles out of Becham’s, and dropped down behind me in the gangway. “What’s the matter?” he asked. “ Reservoir is likely to burst at El- lis,’ says L. “ We gotter get there first before the bridge sails off. The Gen- eral Custer’s a good engine, but it can’t jump a forty foot erick.” “What were your orders?” he asked, eyelng me narrowly. He knew how sharp his old man was after a fellow who disobeyed. “No orders at all,” I said kinder elibly. “ But you leave me alone, and well git ahead of that freshet.” “Well, if we don’t,” said he, “I’m a gone coon. But don’t you forgit your duty, Danny. There’s two hundred passengers, beside me, aboard.” Like his cheek! Me, that had been driving an engine when he was in pina- fores. “You hustle them passengers into the forward coaches,” says I. “If there’s any chance of our getting over Kis Creek ahead of the deluge, we'll do it.” IIe saw my point and nodded. Then he went back and tackled Carney, and although Bill was the pig-headedest chap that ever wore brass buttons, he knuckled under to the president’s son. They drove the passengers like sheep into the smoker and parlor car, while the old General was eating the way along that grapevine curve across the valley. Five miles below the crossing I got a glimpse of the dai in the foot- hills. By that time the mist had risen and it looked to me as though somebody had whitewashed the whole front of that dam. I knew what it meant; the water was flooding over it, and it was only a S CO@ ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED