Argosy, Vol. 1 (1882) — page 163: what you’re looking at

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

TRAIN AND STATION, BY EDGAR R. HOADLEY. A railroad story in which the exciting experiences that befall a railroad man are related with vivid faithfulness to facts by one who knows whereof he writes. The quest of Dash- wood DykKeman in search of a name that was more rightfully his and the strange happenings that marked his pathway to the goal. SYNOPSIS OF CHAPTERS PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED. WHILE traveling on the limited express from Chicago to St. Louis, with his parents, Dashwood Dykeman is made an orphan by their death in a collision. His paternal grandfather, who educates him, loses his money, and informs Dash that the latter’s name is not Dykeman, and that he—his grandfather—does not know what it is, as his son married a widow, with one child, against his parents’ wishes. Dash looks for a situation, and, after learning telegraphy, secures one which is lost on account of a wreck for which he is not wholly responsible. He starts to St. Louis to learn his father’s name; the train stops in a village where a hotel is on fire; Dash rescues a woman and subsequently meets her and her daughter, Dorothy Orloff, on the traiu. Mrs. Orloff dies in the night and Dash meets the expenses of sending the body home with Dorothy, who has but little money with her. In St. Louis Dash goes to his mother’s old boarding house where he learns that his name is Dashwood Orloff, and his father was the conductor of the train on which his mother was killed. He is no relation, however, to Dorothy Orloff, and here he loses all further trace of his father. Dash goes as brakeman on a freight train to help solve the mysterious disappearances of valuable freight. He succeeds in giving the officials a clue which puts an end to further losses; he is then transferred to a passenger train as the baggageman, where he is to watch the conductor, as the ‘trouble lies with the tickets. For some time his watch is in vain, but one night as he has succeeded in opening the conductor’s train box, a brakeman suddenly enters, and concluding that Dash belongs to his gang gives the whole scheme away. Dash proves to the contrary and the brakeman pulls a revolyer—at the same moment the train 1s boarded by the other robbers, and for a time the shots fly wildly about. The brakeman and another robber are killed, and Dash is dismayed to hear one of the escaping gang addressed as Orloff. When‘Dash reports to the superintendent, he is offered a position as agent at Madrid. The good salary is not the only pleasing feature of the position, for Madrid is the home of Dorothy Orloff. CHAPTER XXX VI—(Continued.) AGENT AT MADRID. now he concluded he must be only an assistant tg Forsdyke. He was kept so busy for some days many stations the agency for the T A express is added to the numerous duties of the regular agent. Dykeman had been aware of this, and when he found he was not to have it—for which he was not sorry—he had wondered at the moment who was the express agent, but he had not asked. He had afterwards noticed a young man at the express car of the passen- ger trains attending to the husiness, and supposed he was the agent, but *This story began in the June issue of THE ARGOSY. mailed to any address on receipt of 60 cents. after his installation as agent at Mad- rid that he saw very little of the super- intendent’s clerk, except to return the nod of recognition the latter deigned to favor him with occasionally and to take his receipt for the remittances ; in fact, the agent did not have an oppor- tunity for nearly a week after his ar- rival to call on Dorothy, though she sent him a note, kindly inviting him to take tea at Mrs. Handiford’s. Though Forsdyke had a room oppo- The stx back nurtbers will be COLAC OOOKKS eo