“WHERE IGNORANCE IS BLISS.”
The splendid steamship Adamant, of the celebrated Cross Bow line, left New York on her February trip under favorable auspices. There had just been a storm on the ocean, so there was every chance that she would reach Liverpool before the next one was due.
Capt. Rice had a little social problem to solve at the outset, but he smoothed that out with the tact which is characteristic of him. Two Washington ladies—official ladies—were on board, and the captain, old British sea-dog that he was, always had trouble in the matter of precedence with Washington ladies. Capt. Rice never had any bother with the British aristocracy, because precedence is all set down in the bulky volume of “Burke’s Peerage,” which the captain kept in his cabin, and so there was no difficulty. But a republican country is supposed not to meddle with precedence. It wouldn’t, either, if it weren’t for the women.
So it happened that Mrs. Assistant-Attorney-to-the-Senate Brownrig came to the steward and said that, ranking all others on board, she must sit at the right hand of the captain. Afterwards Mrs. Second-Adjutant-to- the-War-Department Digby came to the same perplexed official and said she must sit at the captain’s right hand because in Washington she took precedence over everyone else on board. The bewildered steward confided his woes to the captain, and the captain said he would attend to the matter. So he put Mrs. War-Department on his right hand and then walked down the deck with Mrs. Assistant-Attorney and said to her:
“I want to ask a favor, Mrs. Brownrig. Unfortunately I am a little deaf in the right ear, caused, I presume, by listening so much with that ear to the fog horn year in and year out. Now, I always place the lady whose conversation I wish most to enjoy on my left hand at table. Would you oblige me by taking that seat this voyage? I have heard of you, you see, Mrs. Brownrig, although you have never crossed with me before.”
“Why, certainly, captain,” replied Mrs. Brownrig; “I feel especially complimented.”
“And I assure you, madam,” said the polite captain, “that I would not for the world miss a single word that,” etc.
And thus it was amicably arranged between the two ladies. All this has nothing whatever to do with the story. It is merely an incident given to show what a born diplomat Capt. Rice was and is to this day. I don’t know any captain more popular with the ladies than he, and besides he is as good a sailor as crosses the ocean.
Day by day the good ship ploughed her way toward the east, and the passengers were unanimous in saying that they never had a pleasanter voyage for that time of the year. It was so warm on deck that many steamer chairs were out, and below it was so mild that a person might think he was journeying in the tropics. Yet they had left New York in a snow storm with the thermometer away below zero.
“Such,” said young Spinner, who knew everything, “such is the influence of the Gulf Stream.”
Nevertheless when Capt. Rice came down to lunch the fourth day out his face was haggard and his look furtive and anxious.
“Why, captain,” cried Mrs. Assistant-Attorney, you look as if you hadn’t slept a wink last night.”
“I slept very well, thank you, madam.” replied the captain. “I always do.”
“Well, I hope your room was more comfortable than mine. It seemed to me too hot for anything. Didn’t you find it so, Mrs. Digby?”
“I thought it very nice,” replied the lady at the captain’s right, who generally found it necessary to take an opposite view from the lady at the left.
“You see,” said the captain, “we have many delicate women and children on board and it is necessary to keep up the temperature. Still, perhaps the man who attends to the steam rather overdoes it. I will speak him.”
Then the captain pushed from him his untasted food and went up on the bridge, casting his eye aloft at the signal waving from the masthead, silently calling for help to all the empty horizon.
“Nothing in sight, Johnson?” said the captain.
“Not a speck, sir.”
The captain swept the circular line of sea and sky with his glasses, then laid them down with a sigh.
“We ought to raise something this afternoon, sir,” said Johnson; “we are right in their track, sir. The Fulda ought to be somewhere about.”
“We are too far north for the Fulda, I am afraid,” answered the captain.
“Well, sir, we should see the Vulcan before night, sir. She’s had good weather from Queenstown.”
“Yes. Keep a sharp lookout, Johnson.”
“Yes, sir.”
The captain moodily paced the bridge with his head down.
“I ought to have turned back to New York,” he said to himself.
Then he went down to his own room, avoiding the passengers as much as he could, and had the steward bring him some beef-tea. Even a captain cannot live on anxiety.
“Steamer off the port bow, sir,” rang out the voice of the lookout at the prow. The man had sharp eyes, for a landsman could have seen nothing.
“Run and tell the captain,” cried Johnson to the sailor at his elbow, but as the sailor turned the captain’s head appeared up the stairway. He seized the glass and looked long at a single point in the horizon.
“It must be the Vulcan,” he said at last.
“I think so, sir.”
“Turn your wheel a few points to port and bear down on her.”
Johnson gave the necessary order and the great ship veered around.
“Hello!” cried Spinner, on deck. “Here’s a steamer. I found her. She’s mine.”
Then there was a rush to the side of the ship. “A steamer in sight!” was the cry, and all books and magazines at once lost interest. Even the placid, dignified Englishman who was so uncommunicative, rose from his chair and sent his servant for his binocular. Children were held up and told to be careful, while they tried to see the dim line of smoke so far ahead.
“Talk about lane routes at sea,” cried young Spinner, the knowing. “Bosh, I say. See! we’re going directly for her. Think what it might be in a fog! Lane routes! Pure luck, I call it.”
“Will we signal to her, Mr. Spinner?” gently asked the young lady from Boston.
“Oh, certainly,” answered young Spinner. “See there’s our signal flying from the masthead now. That shows them what line we belong to.”
“Dear me, how interesting,” said the young lady. “You have crossed many times, I suppose, Mr. Spinner.”
“Oh, I know my way about,” answered the modest Spinner.
The captain kept the glasses glued to his eyes. Suddenly he almost let them drop.
“My God! Johnson,” he cried.
“What is it, sir?”
“She’s flying a signal of distress, too!”
The two steamers slowly approached each other and, when nearly alongside and about a mile apart, the bell of the Adamant rang to stop.
“There, you see,” said young Spinner to the Boston girl, “she is flying the same flag at her masthead that we are.”
“Then she belongs to the same line as this boat?”
“Oh, certainly,” answered Mr. Cock-Sure Spinner.
“Oh, look! look! look!” cried the enthusiastic Indianapolis girl who was going to take music in Germany.
Everyone looked aloft and saw running up to the masthead a long line of fluttering, many-colored flags. They remained in place for a few moments and then fluttered down again, only to give place to a different string. The same thing was going on on the other steamer.
“Oh, this is too interesting for anything,” said Mrs. Assistant. “I am just dying to know what it all means. I have read of it so often but never saw it before. I wonder when the captain will come down. What does it all mean?” she asked the deck steward.
“They are signalling to each other, madam.”
“Oh, I know that. But what are they signalling?”
“I don’t know, madam.”
“Oh, see! see!” cried the Indianapolis girl, clapping her hands with delight. “The other steamer is turning round.”
It was indeed so. The great ship was thrashing the water with her screw, and gradually the masts came in line and then her prow faced the east again. When this had been slowly accomplished the bell on the Adamant rang full speed ahead, and then the captain came slowly down the ladder that led from the bridge.
“Oh, captain, what does it all mean?”
“Is she going back, captain? Nothing wrong, I hope.”
“What ship is it, captain?”
“She belongs to our line, doesn’t she?”
“Why is she going back?”
“The ship,” said the captain slowly, “is the Vulcan, of the Black Bowling Line, that left Queenstown shortly after we left New York. She has met with an accident. Ran into some wreckage, it is thought, from the recent storm. Anyhow there is a hole in her, and whether she sees Queenstown or not will depend a great deal on what weather we have and whether her bulkheads hold out. We will stand by her till we reach Queenstown.”
“Are there many on board, do you think, captain?”
“There are thirty-seven in the cabin and over 800 steerage passengers,” answered the captain.
“Why don’t you take them on board, out of danger, captain?”
“Ah, madam, there is no need to do that. It would delay us, and time is everything in a case like this. Besides, they will have ample warning if she is going down and they will have time to get everybody in the boats. We will stand by them, you know.”
“Oh, the poor creatures,” cried the sympathetic Mrs. Second-Adjutant. “Think of their awful position. May be engulfed at any moment. I suppose they are all on their knees in the cabin. How thankful they must have been to see the Adamant.”
On all sides there was the profoundest sympathy for the unfortunate passengers of the Vulcan. Cheeks paled at the very thought of the catastrophe that might take place at any moment within sight of the sister ship. It was a realistic object lesson on the ever-present dangers of the sea. While those on deck looked with new interest at the steamship plunging along within a mile of them, the captain slipped away to his room. As he sat there there was a tap at his door.
“Come in,” shouted the captain.
The silent Englishman slowly entered.
“What’s wrong, captain,” he asked.
“Oh, the Vulcan has had a hole stove in her and I signalled——”
“Yes, I know all that, of course, but what’s wrong with us?”
“With us?” echoed the captain blankly.
“Yes, with the Adamant? What has been amiss for the last two or three days? I’m not a talker, nor am I afraid any more than you are, but I want to know.”
“Certainly,” said the captain. “Please shut the door, Sir John.”
Meanwhile there was a lively row on board the Vulcan. In the saloon Capt. Flint was standing at bay with his knuckles on the table.
“Now what the devil’s the meaning of all this?” cried Adam K. Vincent, member of Congress.
A crowd of frightened women were standing around, many on the verge of hysterics. Children clung, with pale faces, to their mother’s skirts, fearing they knew not what. Men were grouped with anxious faces, and the bluff old captain fronted them all.
“The meaning of all what, sir?”
“You know very well. What is the meaning of our turning-round?”
“It means, sir, that the Adamant has eighty-five saloon passengers and nearly 500 intermediate and steerage passengers who are in the most deadly danger. The cotton in the hold is on fire, and they have been fighting it night and day. A conflagration may break out at any moment. It means, then, sir, that the Vulcan is going to stand by the Adamant.”
A wail of anguish burst from the frightened women at the awful fate that might be in store for so many human beings so near to them, and they clung closer to their children and thanked God that no such danger threatened them and those dear to them.
“And dammit, sir,” cried the Congressman, “do you mean to tell us that we have to go against our will—without even being consulted—back to Queenstown?”
“I mean to tell you so, sir.”
“Well, by the gods, that’s an outrage, and I won’t stand it, sir. I must be in New York by the 27th. I won’t stand it, sir.”
“I am very sorry, sir, that anybody should be delayed.”
“Delayed? Hang it all, why don’t you take the people on board and take 'em to New York? I protest against this. I’ll bring a lawsuit against the company, sir.”
“Mr. Vincent,” said the captain sternly, “permit me to remind you that I am captain of this ship. Good afternoon, sir.”
The Congressman departed from the saloon exceeding wroth, breathing dire threats of legal proceedings against the line and the captain personally, but most of the passengers agreed that it would be an inhuman thing to leave the Adamant alone in mid-ocean in such terrible straits.
“Why didn’t they turn back, Captain Flint?” asked Mrs. General Weller.
“Because, madam, every moment is of value in such a case, and we are nearer Queenstown than New York.”
And so the two steamships, side by side, worried their way toward the east, always within sight of each other by day, and with the rows of lights in each visible at night to the sympathetic souls on the other. The sweltering men poured water into the hold of the one and the pounding pumps poured water out of the hold of the other, and thus they reached Queenstown.
On board the tender that took the passengers ashore at Queenstown from both steamers two astonished women met each other.
“Why! Mrs.—General—WELLER!!! You don’t mean to say you were on board that unfortunate Vulcan!”
“For the land’s sake, Mrs. Assistant Brownrig! Is that really you? Will wonders never cease? Unfortunate, did you say? Mightily fortunate for you, I think. Why! weren’t you just frightened to death?”
“I was, but I had no idea anyone I knew was on board.”
“Well, you were on board yourself. That would have been enough to have killed me.”
“On board myself? Why, what do you mean? I wasn’t on board the Vulcan. Did you get any sleep at all after you knew you might go down at any moment?”
“My sakes, Jane, what are you talking about? Down at any moment? It was you that might have gone down at any moment or, worse still, have been burnt to death if the fire had got ahead. You don’t mean to say you didn’t know the Adamant was on fire most of the way across?”
“Mrs.—General—Weller!! There’s some horrible mistake. It was the Vulcan. Everything depended on her bulkheads, the captain said. There was a hole as big as a barn door in the Vulcan. The pumps were going night and day.”
Mrs. General looked at Mrs. Assistant as the light began to dawn on both of them.
“Then it wasn’t the engines, but the pumps,” she said.
“And it wasn’t the steam, but the fire,” screamed Mrs. Assistant. “Oh, dear, how that captain lied, and I thought him such a nice man, too. Oh, I shall go into hysterics, I know I shall.”
“I wouldn’t if I were you,” said the sensible Mrs. General, who was a strong-minded woman; “besides, it is too late. We’re all safe now. I think both captains were pretty sensible men. Evidently married, both of ‘em.”
Which was quite true.
THE DEPARTURE OF CUB MCLEAN.
Of course no one will believe me when I say that Mellish was in every respect, except one, an exemplary citizen and a good-hearted man. He was generous to a fault and he gave many a young fellow a start in life where a little money or a few encouraging words were needed. He drank, of course, but he was a connoisseur in liquors, and a connoisseur never goes in for excess. Few could tell a humorous story as well as Mellish, and he seldom dealt in chestnuts. No man can be wholly bad who never inflicts an old story on his friends, locating it on some acquaintance of his, and alleging that it occurred the day before.
If I wished to write a heart-rending article on the evils of gambling, Mellish would be the man I would go to for my facts and for the moral of the tale. He spent his life persuading people not to gamble. He never gambled himself, he said. But if no attention was paid to his advice, why then he furnished gamblers with the most secluded and luxurious gambling rooms in the city. It was supposed that Mellish stood in with the police, which was, of course, a libel. The idea of the guardians of the city standing in with a gambler or a gambling house! The statement was absurd on the face of it. If you asked any policeman in the city where Mellish’s gambling rooms were, you would speedily learn that not one of them had ever even heard of the place. All this goes to show how scandalously people will talk, and if Mellish’s rooms were free from raids, it was merely Mellish’s good luck, that was all. Anyhow, in Mellish’s rooms you could have a quiet, gentlemanly game for stakes about as high as you cared to go, and you were reasonably sure there would be no fuss and that your name would not appear in the papers next morning.
One night as Mellish cast his eye around his well-filled main room he noticed a stranger sitting at the roulette table. Mellish had a keen eye for strangers and in an unobtrusive way generally managed to find out something about them. A stranger in a gambling room brings in with him a certain sense of danger to the habitués.
“Who is that boy?” whispered Mellish to his bartender, generally known as Sotty, an ex-prize fighter and a dangerous man to handle if it came to trouble. It rarely came to trouble there, but Sotty was, in a measure, the silent symbol of physical force, backing the well-known mild morality of Mellish.
“I don’t know him,” answered Sotty.
“Whom did he come in with?”
“I didn’t see him come in. Hadn’t noticed him till now.”
Mellish looked at the boy for a few minutes. He had the fresh, healthy, smooth face of a lad from the country, and he seemed strangely out of place in the heated atmosphere of that room, under the glare of the gas. Mellish sighed as he looked at him, then he turned to Sotty and said:
“Just get him away quietly and bring him to the small poker room. I want to have a few words with him.”
Sotty, who had the utmost contempt for the humanitarian feelings of his boss, said nothing, but a look of disdain swept over his florid features as he went on his mission. If he had his way, he would not throw even a sprat out of the net. Many a time he had known Mellish to persuade a youngster with more money than brains to go home, giving orders at the double doors that he was not to be admitted again.
The young man rose with a look of something like consternation on his face and followed Sotty. The thing was done quietly, and all those around the tables were too much absorbed in the game to pay much attention.
“Look here, my boy,” said Mellish, when they were alone, “who brought you to this place?”
“I guess,” said the lad, with an expression of resentment, “I’m old enough to go where I like without being brought.”
“Oh, certainly, certainly,” said Mellish, diplomatically, knowing how much very young men dislike being accused of youth, “but I like to know all visitors here. You couldn’t get in unless you came with someone known at the door. Who vouched for you?”
“See here, Mr. Mellish,” said the youth angrily, “what are you driving at? If your doorkeepers don’t know their own business why don’t you speak to them about it? Are you going to have me turned out?”
“Nothing of the sort,” said Mellish, soothingly, putting his hand in a fatherly manner on the young fellow’s shoulder. “Don’t mistake my meaning. The fact that you are here shows that you have a right to be here. We’ll say no more about that. But you take my advice and quit the business here and now. I was a gambler before you were born, although I don’t gamble any more. Take the advice of a man who knows. It doesn’t pay.”
“It seems to have paid you reasonably well.”
“Oh, I don’t complain. It has its ups and downs like all businesses. Still, it doesn’t pay me nearly as well as perhaps you think, and you can take my word that in the long run it won’t pay you at all. How much money have you got?”
“Enough to pay if I lose,” said the boy impudently; then seeing the look of pain that passed over Mellish’s face, he added more civilly:
“I have three or four hundred dollars.”
“Well, take my advice and go home. You’ll be just that much better off in the morning.”
“What! Don’t you play a square game here?”
“Of course we play a square game here,” answered Mellish with indignation. “Do you think I am a card-sharper?”
“You seem so cock-sure I’ll lose my money that I was just wondering. Now, I can afford to lose all the money I’ve got and not feel it. Are you going to allow me to play, or are you going to chuck me out?”
“Oh, you can play if you want to. But don’t come whining to me when you lose. I’ve warned you.”
“I’m not a whiner,” said the young fellow; “I take my medicine like a man.”
“Right you are,” said Mellish with a sigh. He realized that this fellow, young as he looked, was probably deeper in vice than his appearance indicated and he knew the uselessness of counsel in such a case. They went into the main room together and the boy, abandoning roulette, began to play at one of the card tables for ever-increasing stakes. Mellish kept an eye on him for a time. The boy was having the luck of most beginners. He played a reckless game and won hand over fist. As one man had enough and rose from the table another eagerly took his place, but there was no break in the boy’s winnings.
Pony Rowell was always late in arriving at the gambling rooms. On this occasion he entered, irreproachably dressed, and with the quiet, gentlemanly demeanor habitual with him. The professional gambler was never known to lose his temper. When displeased he became quieter, if possible, than before. The only sign of inward anger was a mark like an old scar which extended from his right temple, beginning over the eye and disappearing in his closely-cropped hair behind the ear. This line became an angry red that stood out against the general pallor of his face when things were going in a way that did not please him. He spoke in a low tone to Mellish.
“What’s the excitement down at the other end of the room? Every one seems congregated there.”
“Oh,” answered Mellish, “it’s a boy—a stranger—who is having the devil’s own luck at the start. It will be the ruin of him.”
“Is he playing high?”
“High? I should say so. He’s perfectly reckless. He’ll be brought up with a sharp turn and will borrow money from me to get out of town. I’ve seen a flutter like that before.”
“In that case,” said Pony tranquilly, “I must have a go at him. I like to tackle a youngster in the first flush of success, especially if he is plunging.”
“You will soon have a chance,” answered Mellish, “for even Ragstock knows when he has enough. He will get up in a moment. I know the signs.”
With the air of a gentleman of leisure, somewhat tired of the frivolities of this world, Rowell made his way slowly to the group. As he looked over their shoulders at the boy a curious glitter came into his piercing eyes, and his lips, usually so well under control, tightened. The red mark began to come out as his face paled. It was evident that he did not intend to speak and that he was about to move away again, but the magnetism of his keen glance seemed to disturb the player, who suddenly looked up over the head of his opponent and met the stern gaze of Rowell.
The boy did three things. He placed his cards face downward on the table, put his right hand over the pile of money, and moved his chair back.
“What do you mean by that?” cried Ragstock.
The youth ignored the question, still keeping his eyes on Rowell.
“Do you squeal?” he asked.
“I squeal,” said Pony, whatever the question and answer might mean. Then Rowell cried, slightly raising his voice so that all might hear:
“This man is Cub McLean, the most notorious card-sharper, thief, and murderer in the west. He couldn’t play straight if he tried.”
McLean laughed. “Yes,” he said; “and if you want to see my trademark look at the side of Greggs’ face.”
Every man looked at Pony, learning for the first time that he had gone under a different name at some period of his life.
During the momentary distraction McLean swept the money off the table and put it in his pockets.
“Hold on,” cried Ragstock, seemingly not quite understanding the situation. “You haven’t won that yet.”
Again McLean laughed.
“It would have been the same in ten minutes.”
He jumped up, scattering the crowd behind him.
“Look to the doors,” cried Pony. “Don’t let this man out.”
McLean had his back to the wall. From under his coat he whipped two revolvers which he held out, one in each hand.
“You ought to know me better than that, Greggs,” he said, “do you want me to have another shot at you? I won’t miss this time. Drop that.”
The last command was given in a ringing voice that attracted every one’s attention to Sotty. He had picked up a revolver from somewhere behind the bar and had come out with it in his hand. McLean’s eye seemed to take in every motion in the room and he instantly covered the bartender with one of the pistols as he gave the command.
“Drop it,” said Mellish. “There must be no shooting. You may go quietly. No one will interfere with you.”
“You bet your sweet life they won’t,” said McLean with a laugh.
“Gentlemen,” continued Mellish, “the house will stand the loss. If I allow a swindler in my rooms it is but right that I alone should suffer. Now you put up your guns and walk out.”
“Good old Mellish,” sneered McLean, “you ought to be running a Sunday- school.”
Notwithstanding the permission to depart McLean did not relax his precautions for a moment. His shoulders scraped their way along the wall as he gradually worked towards the door. He kept Pony covered with his left hand while the polished barrel of the revolver in his right seemed to have a roving commission all over the room, to the nervous dread of many respectable persons who cowered within range. When he reached the door he said to Pony:
“I hope you’ll excuse me, Greggs, but this is too good an opportunity to miss. I’m going to kill you in your tracks.”
“That’s about your size,” said Pony putting his hands behind him and standing in his place, while those near him edged away. “I’m unarmed, so it is perfectly safe. You will insure your arrest so blaze away.”
“Dodge under the table, then, and I will spare you.”
Pony invited him to take up his abode in tropical futurity.
Cub laughed once more good naturedly, and lowered the muzzle of his revolver. As he shoved back his soft felt hat, Mellish, who stood nearest him, saw that the hair on his temples was grey. Lines of anxiety had come into his apparently youthful face as he had scraped his way along the wall.
“Good-night, all,” he shouted back from the stairway.
OLD NUMBER EIGHTY-SIX.
John Saggart stood in a dark corner of the terminus, out of the rays of the glittering arc lamps, and watched engine Number Eighty-six. The engineer was oiling her, and the fireman, as he opened the furnace-door and shovelled in the coal, stood out like a red Rembrandt picture in the cab against the darkness beyond. As the engineer with his oil can went carefully around Number Eighty-six, John Saggart drew his sleeve across his eyes, and a gulp came up his throat. He knew every joint and bolt in that contrary old engine—the most cantankerous iron brute on the road—and yet, if rightly managed, one of the swiftest and most powerful machines the company had, notwithstanding the many improvements that had been put upon locomotives since old Eighty-six had left the foundry.
Saggart, as he stood there, thought of the seven years he had spent on the foot-board of old Eighty-six, and of the many tricks she had played him during that period. If, as the poet says, the very chains and the prisoner become friends through long association, it may be imagined how much of a man’s affection goes out to a machine that he thoroughly understands and likes—a machine that is his daily companion for years, in danger and out of it. Number Eighty-six and John had been in many a close pinch together, and at this moment the man seemed to have forgotten that often the pinch was caused by the pure cussedness of Eighty-six herself, and he remembered only that she had bravely done her part several times when the situation was exceedingly serious.
The cry “All aboard” rang out and was echoed down from the high-arched roof of the great terminus, and John with a sigh turned from his contemplation of the engine, and went to take his seat in the car. It was a long train with many sleeping-cars at the end of it. The engineer had put away his oil-can, and had taken his place on the engine, standing ready to begin the long journey at the moment the signal was given.
John Saggart climbed into the smoking-carriage at the front part of the train. He found a place in one of the forward seats, and sank down into it with a vague feeling of uneasiness at being inside the coach instead of on the engine. He gazed out of the window and saw the glittering electric lights slide slowly behind, then, more quickly, the red, green, and white lights of the signal lamps, and finally there flickered swiftly past the brilliant constellation of city windows, showing that the town had not yet gone to bed. At last the flying train plunged into the country, and Saggart pressed his face against the cold glass of the window, unable to shake off his feeling of responsibility, although he knew there was another man at the throttle.
He was aroused from his reverie by a touch on the shoulder, and a curt request, “Tickets, please.”
He pulled out of his pocket a pass, and turned to hand it to the conductor who stood there with a glittering, plated, and crystal lantern on his arm.
“Hello, John, is this you?” cried the conductor, as soon as he saw the face. “Hang it, man, you didn’t need a pass in travelling with me.”
“They gave it to me to take me home,” said Saggart, a touch of sadness in his voice, “and I may as well use it as not. I don’t want to get you into trouble.”
“Oh, I’d risk the trouble,” said the conductor, placing the lantern on the floor and taking his seat beside the engineer. “I heard about your worry to-day. It’s too bad. If a man had got drunk at his post, as you and I have known ‘em to do, it wouldn’t have seemed so hard; but at its worst your case was only an error of judgment, and then nothing really happened. Old Eighty-six seems to have the habit of pulling herself through. I suppose you and she have been in worse fixes than that, with not a word said about it.”
“Oh, yes,” said John, “we’ve been in many a tight place together, but we won’t be any more. It’s rough, as you say. I’ve been fifteen years with the company, and seven on old Eighty-six, and at first it comes mighty hard. But I suppose I’ll get used to it.”
“Look here, John,” said the conductor, lowering his voice to a confidential tone, “the president of the road is with us to-night; his private car is the last but one on the train. How would it do to speak to him? If you are afraid to tackle him, I’ll put in a word for you in a minute, and tell him your side of the story.”
John Saggart shook his head.
“It wouldn’t do,” he said; “he wouldn’t overrule what one of his subordinates had done, unless there was serious injustice in the case. It’s the new manager, you know. There’s always trouble with a new manager. He sweeps clean. And I suppose that he thinks by ‘bouncing’ one of the oldest engineers on the road, he will scare the rest.”
“Well, I don’t think much of him between ourselves,” said the conductor. “What do you think he has done to-night? He’s put a new man on Eighty-six. A man from one of the branch lines who doesn’t know the road. I doubt if he’s ever been over the main line before. Now, it’s an anxious enough time for me anyhow with a heavy train to take through, with the thermometer at zero, and the rails like glass, and I like to have a man in front that I can depend on.”
“It’s bad enough not to know the road,” said John gloomily, “but it’s worse not to know old Eighty-six. She’s a brute if she takes a notion.”
“I don’t suppose there is another engine that could draw this train and keep her time,” said the conductor.
“No! She’ll do her work all right if you’ll only humor her,” admitted Saggart, who could not conceal his love for the engine even while he blamed her.
“Well,” said the conductor, rising and picking up his lantern, “the man in front may be all right, but I would feel safer if you were further ahead than the smoker. I’m sorry I can’t offer you a berth to-night, John, but we’re full clear through to the rear lights. There isn’t even a vacant upper on the train.”
“Oh, it doesn’t matter,” said Saggart. “I couldn’t sleep, anyhow. I’d rather sit here and look out of the window.”
“Well, so long,” said the conductor. “I’ll drop in and see you as the night passes on.”
Saggart lit his pipe and gazed out into darkness. He knew every inch of the road—all the up grades and the down grades and the levels. He knew it even better in the murkiest night than in the clearest day. Now and then the black bulk of a barn or a clump of trees showed for one moment against the sky, and Saggart would say to himself, “Now he should shut off an inch of steam,” or, “Now he should throw her wide open.” The train made few stops, but he saw that they were losing time. Eighty-six was sulking, very likely. Thinking of the engine turned his mind to his own fate. No man was of very much use in the world, after all, for the moment he steps down another is ready to stand in his place. The wise men in the city who had listened to his defence knew so well that an engine was merely a combination of iron and steel and brass, and that a given number of pounds of steam would get it over a given number of miles in a given number of hours, and they had smiled incredulously when he told them that an engine had her tantrums, and informed them that sometimes she had to be coddled up like any other female. Even when a man did his best there were occasions when nothing he could do would mollify her, and then there was sure to be trouble, although, he added, in his desire to be fair, she was always sorry for it afterward. Which remark, to his confusion, had turned the smile into a laugh.
He wondered what Eighty-six thought of the new man. Not much, evidently, for she was losing time, which she had no business to do on that section of the road. Still it might be the fault of the new man not knowing when to push her for all she was worth and when to ease up. All these things go to the making of time. But it was more than probable that old Eighty-six, like Gilpin’s horse, was wondering more and more what thing upon her back had got. “He’ll have trouble,” muttered John to himself, “when she finds out.”
The conductor came in again and sat down beside the engineer. He said nothing, but sat there sorting his tickets, while Saggart gazed out of the window. Suddenly the engineer sprang to his feet with his eyes wide open. The train was swaying from side to side and going at great speed.
The conductor looked up with a smile.
“Old Eighty-six,” he said, “is evidently going to make up for lost time.”
“She should be slowing down for crossing the G. & M. line,” replied the engineer. “Good heavens!” he cried a moment after, “we’ve gone across the G. & M. track on the keen jump.”
The conductor sprang to his feet. He knew the seriousness of such a thing. Even the fastest expresses must stop dead before crossing on the level the line of another railway. It is the law.
“Doesn’t that fool in front know enough to stop at a crossing?”
“It isn’t that.” said Saggart. “He knows all right. Even the train boys know that. Old Eighty-six has taken the bit between her teeth. He can’t stop her. Where do you pass No. 6 to-night?”
“At Pointsville.”
“That’s only six miles ahead,” said the engineer; “and in five minutes at this rate we will be running on her time and on her rails. She’s always late, and won’t be on the side track. I must get to Eighty-six.”
Saggart quickly made his way through the baggage-coach, climbed on the express car, and jumped on the coal of the tender. He cast his eye up the track and saw glimmering in the distance, like a faint wavering star, the headlight of No. 6. Looking down into the cab he realized the situation in a glance. The engineer, with fear in his face and beads of perspiration on his brow, was throwing his whole weight on the lever, the fireman helping him. Saggart leaped down to the floor of the cab.
“Stand aside,” he shouted; and there was such a ring of confident command in his voice that both men instantly obeyed.
Saggart grasped the lever, and instead of trying to shut off steam flung it wide open. Number Eighty-six gave a quiver and a jump forward. “You old fiend!” muttered John between his teeth. Then he pushed the lever home, and it slid into place as if there had never been any impediment. The steam was shut off, but the lights of Pointsville flashed past them with the empty side-track on the left, and they were now flying along the single line of rails with the headlight of No. 6 growing brighter and brighter in front of them.
“Reverse her, reverse her!” cried the other engineer, with fear in his voice.
“Reverse nothing,” said Saggart. “She’ll slide ten miles if you do. Jump, if you’re afraid.”
The man from the branch line promptly jumped.
“Save yourself,” said Saggart to the stoker; “there’s bound to be a smash.”
“I’ll stick by you, Mr. Saggart,” said the fireman, who knew him. But his hand trembled.
The air-brake was grinding the long train and sending a shiver of fear through every timber, but the rails were slippery with frost, and the speed of the train seemed as great as ever. At the right moment Saggart reversed the engine, and the sparks flew up from her great drivers like catharine wheels.
“Brace yourself,” cried Saggart. “No. 6 is backing up, thank God!”
Next instant the crash came. Two headlights and two cow-catchers went to flinders, and the two trains stood there with horns locked, but no great damage done, except a shaking up for a lot of panic-stricken passengers.
The burly engineer of No. 6 jumped down and came forward, his mouth full of oaths.
“What the h—l do you mean by running in on our time like this? Hello, is that you, Saggart? I thought there was a new man on to-night. I didn’t expect this from you.”
“It’s all right, Billy. It wasn’t the new man’s fault. He’s back in the ditch with a broken leg, I should say, from the way he jumped. Old Eighty-six is to blame. She got on the rampage. Took advantage of the greenhorn.”
The conductor came running up.
“How is it?” he cried.
“It’s all right. Number Eighty-six got her nose broke, and served her right, that’s all. Tell the passengers there’s no danger, and get ‘em on board. We’re going to back up to Pointsville. Better send the brakesmen to pick up the other engineer. The ground’s hard tonight, and he may be hurt.”
“I’m going back to talk to the president,” said the conductor emphatically. “He’s in a condition of mind to listen to reason, judging from the glimpse I got of his face at the door of his car a moment ago. Either he re-instates you or I go gathering tickets on a street-car. This kind of thing is too exciting for my nerves.”
The conductor’s interview with the president of the road was apparently satisfactory, for old Number Eighty-six is trying to lead a better life under the guidance of John Saggart.