The Argosy, June 1904 — page 71: what you’re looking at

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

THAT RUN question of moments before the em- bankment crumpled up and let down the “ drink.” We weren’t in any danger where we were, for only half a mile out of Hillis station, where the ore was shipped, the road dipped down into the lower level of the valley. It was through this deeper cut the water would pour when it was released. I got a red flag just before the pitch into Ellis, but I ran the risk of it’s meaning something beside the expected flood, and kept on. We were then switching around curves like a woman trailing her skirts on a ball-room floor. We were smoking along now [ tell you! The tableland was grown to wood for the most part; but just before the tracks dove down into the creek gut a plain view of the hills above and the dam opened on our sight. And I tell you it was something to shake a man, *specially as the old General was steam- ing pluinb into the face of what was coming. For there was the water bursting through the dike in half a dozen places —we could see it as plain as plain! My stoker give a yell and dropped down on to the step of the gangway. I don’t blame him much for wanting to jump, but if we got across the bridge I'd need him to pitch coal into the Gen-~ eral if we were to reach Helena in time. I swung myself down off my seat and grabbed Jake by the collar. “Stay into this or Vl have your life!” says I, threatening him with his own shovel. He crumpled up and I jumped for the lever again. We were pitching down the grade, and the General swayed from side to side like a boat in a heavy sea. We made so much noise ourselves that we couldn’t hear the dam burst. But the sound must have been some- thing remarkable. It looked, as { glanced up the valley, as though the embankment had been blown up. One instant those spouts of water poured through the holes they'd found; the next breath the whole dike crumbled away and a solid front of water—white as snow it was and forty foot high—bore down the creek bed. TO HELENA. Do Of course it spread out some; but the force with which it traveled seemed to keep it in a high, solid wave. And the distance from the dam to the spiderlike bridge over the creek at Kl- lis looked a mighty little way. Down grade as it was, I let the old General have every ounce of steam there was in her. I’ve wondered since if the drivers really did keep the rails. The road-bed was especially good here; but my teeth were nigh about rattled out, we went so fast. We struck the lower level and shot on toward the bridge. There was a short” curve here, and I dared not slow down for it. I had to run the risk of snap- ping off the train’s tail. And, by Jove, we did just that! As the General Custer’s pilot overlapped the edge of the bridge I glanced back and saw the two empty day coaches doing a grand somersault turn down the embankment into the water. Afterward I learned Jed Oliver had smashed the coupling behind the smok- er and so lightened the train; but at the moment JI expected to see other cars dragged down by the weight of the day coaches. And lucky it was we lost those same two cars. As I’m a sinner, I felt the spray from that wall of water in my face as we shot across the bridge! The flood stood up there, far above our heads, and the train seemed to shoot right across its face. The smoker (the last car) was flooded with the fall- ing erest of the wave, and the last trucks had scarcely left the bridge when, glancing back, I saw the entire structure caught up by the flood and twisted into a shapeless mass of steel girders and frayed cables! I guess I-couldn’t believe we were out of the grip of that deluge—not for a minute. Then I saw Jake standing there, white-faced under his grime, and open-mouthed, and I took it out of him. “Get to work!” says I—or words to that effect, and with some more trim- ming; and he began to give the General coal again like mad. We didn’t stop until we made the other ridge and came to Brandon. It was 2:05 then, and we had eighteen miles to run to Helena, but down grade. PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG GOnnGooo ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED S COL