Democratic Sentinel, Volume 5, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 March 1881 — The DRUNKEN ENGINEER. [ARTICLE]

The DRUNKEN ENGINEER.

From the cab of a locomotive on the Union Pacific road, a succession of dissolving views strike the eye for a moment and then fade away, as the speed of the thundering iron horse whirls the short across the prairie. “More coal, Jake; more coal 1 I’m going to give these nabobs a ride they’ll long remember 1 Ha, ha, ha 1 ” And the peculiar laugh of the large, muscular man who held the throttle-lever with one baud as he looked out of the window, rang, half-cheerily, half-satanioally, above the roar of the rushing train. The laugh chilled the blood of the fireman, brave as he was. He felt a tingling sensation at the roots of his liaii*, which would have stood upright but for the skull-cap he wore. 1 ‘ Ben what in the world do you mean —we’re flying now; and look at the hand of that dial ! ” Ben, with a quick movement changed the lever from one hand to the other, stretched a brawny arm toward the coalscoop and turned his eyes on the fireman. “ More coal, I say I ” Jake complied. Never before had he seen his chief with such a look—in such an attitude. He could not account for it; but he saw plainly enough that it would be useless to demur. He added fresh fuel. Ben gave another hitch to the lever—and away flew the train at increased speed. Ben Miles was one of the best engineers of the Union Pacific road. And it was in its. earliest days, when the spirit of adventure, fostered by the war just closed, induced many good men to seek their fortunes along its route, either in the hot-house enterprises that sprang up along; the line or in constructing or operating the road. Ben’s boyhood had. been passed iu learning the trade of worker in ploster-of-paris, which held his young and buoyant mind until the fascination of designing was lost in the restless activity of the first years of manhood. With thousands of others he went West to see what was offered by this great advancing enterprise. He fell in love with the free air of the boundless plains, and conoeived the idea of running a locomotive across them. A man of mind to devise, an iron frame to execute, with his indomitable will he soon learned every secret of the engine. “Ah!” said he, “here is something worth handling.” He obtained employment and in a year became famous over half tl\p road. The capacity of a locomotive depends upon the man who handles it. Like a horse, it is obedient and strong, or weak and fractious—reflecting the skill and temperament of its driver.' Ben had often jumped upon a strange engine and hauled a train which its operator could not budge. He studied his machine, tending it with the solicitude of an enthusiast. He had tested its strength, and had always yearned an opportunity to put its speed to its utmost capacity. Jack Saunders, the stoker, thought his chief was now making his long-sought experiment. Ben Miles—brave, great-hearted and mild-tempered—possessed a grievous sin. His hours of idleness were the bane of his life. It was known that he drank ; but liis superiors trusted him implicitly, for he never drank when on duty. No power could tempt him to break his rule.* The train he was now hauling, however, was not his own. A few hours before a party of railway dignitaries had arrived at the .eastern end of Ben’s division, in a couple of magnificent coaches, a sleeping and a hotel car. They had asked for a volunteer, and they wanted to be taken over the road in a hurry. Ben Miles was idle and responded to the call with alacrity, resolved in his mind to satisfy their cry for haste with a speed that should answer it.

At the office Ben’s superiors had watched him attentively, but discovered no cause to deny his request. His companions ohaffed him at his anxiety to get back to the other end of the division. They knew his attraction there was a young and beautiful widow, who had a little girl as pretty and fresh as a morning in May, and who loved Ben Miles as much as Ben loved her mother, if that were possible. But when they rallied him on this point they were met by a fierce look so contrary to his genial nature that, after he had gone, the thought came into their minds, aud they exchanged fearful glances as the word passed round, “Ben Miles is drunk ! ” “Coal, coal; do you hear, Jake? By the winged Jupiter ! See the mile-posts hurrying by ! Three of them in two minutes and a half; I believe wo can make three in two ! Stoke, man, stoke !” Such were the behests the horrified fireman continually heard. They were delivered in tones, that admitted of no expostulation. Though at another time Jake well knew he could not shake the good temper of his chief, he saw it would be unsafe now, and he contented himself with stoking, while he muttered the conviction that had reluctantly forced itself into his mind: “ Ben Miles is drunk! ” Back in the parlor car sat a company of America’s foremost financiers; men who talked and traded in railroads and millions with the nonchalance of the clerks who counted their gains. They lounged about, chatting on whatever came uppermost—providing it was not the real affairs on their minds—and scarcely concealed their impatience under fifty miles an hour. The speed increased to nixty, and they were delighted. “Listen, Col. Tom ! No click to be heard, so lightly do the wheels skip the joints in the rails ! ” “Ah, the finest rolling stock in the world; to be put to such a movement and ride so easily! ” ’ “Speed is time—and both are money! Eh, still faster ? Great Scott, what are we coming to ?” “But look at that landscape! The long stretch of plain, bounded only by the norizon, and dotted by the shadows of floods, which pursue each other with

rapid though majestic movement, beyond the sweep of vision !” “Take it home and put it in the collection 1” “But swiftly as the clouds are going, we can give them long odds in the race 1” And even with the last speaker’s words the train again felt the impulse of Ben Miles’ hand on the lever. There was no sudden jerk, but a gradual and giant-like onward sweep that brought to their seats the last who had been trying to stand. The momentum was becoming fearful. It seemed to make them swerve with dizziness even in their seats. “By Jove, this has passed the point where it was interesting 1” “Life insurance companies would scream if they knew of tins !” “ Great Scott, I’m afraid we’re in danger of foreclosing the mortgage 1” “My landscape gone in a dizzy maze.” But the speed increased and the alarm was no longer concealed. One inquired for the conductor. Another seized the bell-rope and pulled “down brakes!” Two more, with blanching faces, cried to each other : “The locomotive is running away!” “ Or else the engineer is drunk ! ”

The message reached the cab and rang its imperious “halt” on the gong. ‘ * Ha, ha, ha! Brave boys back there, Jake ! Stood it better than I thought they would; but they may as well screw their courage to the sticking point; there’s more speed left in the snorter yet! ” The stoker heard the implied threat with a terror that shook him to the center. Any further increase of his reckless speed would put the lives of all to the brink of criminal hazard. No, it should not be! Jake Saunders was a strong man and desperation pushed him to a daring resolve ! He crept close to the engineer’s back with a huge lump of coal in his hand. Ben had adjusted the lever after giving it another forward movement, and was watching intently the track ahead of them. “No, no; I can not hit him with that! ” And Jake laid down the chunk .of coal to use only in extremity; he loved his chief too much to use it even under this pressing need. Then quick as thought Jake seized Ben from behind and threw all his strength into one huge effort to wrench him to the floor. The powerful jerk bent him backward ; but Ben’s muscles acted with his mind. The instant it became apparent to him that he was attacked, he turned in the arms of his assailant, released himself, and Jake, instead of Ben, went crashing to the floor of the cab with terrible force. ‘ ‘ What do you mean, Jake Saunders ?” cried Ben, stooping over his fireman. Bis rage at first boded ill to the fallen man ; but Jake did not get up, and it as rapidly gave way to kindness, and be raised him bodily to his feet : “ What, man ; are you hurt ? ” “ No,” answered Jake, after feeling of himself, “ only at my failure.” “Ah, I see ; you wanted to run her yourself. Well, it was a brave attempt, but exceedingly rash ! See, you have broken the lookout; now keep your eyes on the road ahead and I’il stoke myself till you’re rested.” The bell-rope sounded another signal on the gong. “That tiling makes me nervous,” said Ben, as he disconnected the rope and fastened it to a hook in the ceiling .of the cab. “Now they may jerk to their heart’s content. Poor fools ! Do I not value my life as much as they do theirs ? “Look—look!” cried Jake, as he Hen s arm. •• Aneau on tne lelt rail! ” “Bobbers, as I’m a sinner!” And Ben seized an iron bar and started towml the front of the engine, shouting to Jake as he went, “ Let her run ! It’s our only chance ! ” Jake knew that Ben was right, and that even that chance was small. He gazed with shuddering horror at the superhuman task that Beu had taken upon liimself. The broad plain they were crossing, a wilderness without trees but with more terrors to those who knew its dangers, was dotted with clumps of high grass and infested in places by robbers and ruffians of the worst type. They had mistaken this short “special ”lor the pay train, and had practiced a common device to throw it from the track. They knew a large obstruction could be seen far enough ahead to admit of stopping the traki, and they had no time to tear up enough track to serve their purpose ; so they had taken up a single rail, bent it to a right angle two feet from the end, and put it back very near its place but just outside the range of the cowcatcher, with the bent end sticking up. This obstruction was difficult to discover and sure to do its work, unless it could be thrown down before the train struck it. When the fireman spoke, it would have been impossible to stop had the speed been forty miles an hour, and they were running seventy. Ben had gone forward to throw down this rail—a thing no man in his senses would have attempted. Perhaps you have not thought of the feat. A fly might cling with little trouble to the outside of a locomotive, for the mass carries along to a slight extent its own atmospheric surroundings; but a man is clear outside this small sphere of attraction, and must possess the force himself to displace the dense air. Atmospheric pressure, at a standstill, is fourteen and seven-tenths pounds to the square inch. A locomotive going through it at a rate of seventy miles an hour is therefore a mammoth cleaver. Ben Miles was a barnacle that clung to its side by mere force of muscle. He had but a few seconds in which to get down to the cowcatcher. At first he was flattened against the front of the cab. He saw he must exert himself. He writhed, twisted, tugged himself along by the hand rail. The muscles on his bare arm. knotted themselves like a bundle of withes. It was the work of a giant, but Ben went forward.

“He never could do that but for the liquor that’s in him,” said the astonished fireman. Ben reached the front just in time to poise himself and swing his iron bar. He struck the blow. The rail rolled over. A click of the huge wheels as they cleared the spot with scarcely a depression told that the speed of the train and Ben Miles’ rashness had saved the lives in his keeping. “ Hurrah ! We’re safe 1” shouted the fireman. But not so Ben Miles. Just as he had raised the iron bar to cast it at the twisted rail, half a dozen puffs of smoke arose from as many clumps of grass not far from the track, and a shower of bullets whizzed through the air. Ben fell back on the cowcatcher. Was he struck ? The fireman strained his eyes to get a glimpse of his return. Presently Ben’s head appeared to view; then an arm ; and then he worked himself up, turning his back to the cab, the better to hold back against the rushing air, which now strove to hurl him to his retreat with as much force as before it had fought his advance. All this time Ben used but one arm, and Jake could see that the other was bloody and hung by his side. With a fearful struggle he finally reached ihe cab and clambered inside. “ Ha, ha, ha 1” rang out the same diabolical laugh; “the devils thought to throw us, but their scheme slipped up eh, Jake ?” “ But your arm, Ben ?” “Went back on me; failed me at a pinch —as it never did before. ” “Why here’s a bullet hole through the muscle above the elbow I’’ >‘Eh. hit? Well* wrap it tfith a hand'

kerchief, Jake. I know a physician for wounds like that. Yon’ll nave to coal up now. See how the dear old snorter scurries along. We’re only twenty miles from home. She shall see how a machine can ran !” And Ben thought no more of his useless arm. A few miles on the hither side of the station they were now approaching, which formed the terminus of the division on which Ben Miles had been running for some time there lived a most charming woman. Five years before her husband had been a wealthy and prosperous man in Boston; but reverses in fortune came to him, and he saw with deep pain the hollow side of that society which had always till then courted his favor. The sight shook his faith in the depth of human goodness ; he longed to be a Timon and turn his back npon this Athens. He yearned for a wild life in the West, but he could not ask his wife to forego the comforts and society in which she had always lived. She, however, observed this inclination of his mind, and, by insidious degrees, made it her own proposition. “Come,” said she, “let us live on a farm, faraway from the world; we will make a paradise for ourselves.” They went, and her words were in truth fulfilled. While he planted wheat she planted flowers, and in two years the house and grounds were a bower of loveliness. It was a sad day to this young wife when death took away the husband she delighted to make contented. She would not show his corpse to her 3-year-old girl; but when the little one asked for papa, she could only tell her that sometime she would see her papa again. So the child was happy, and the widow’s heart—during the three years that had now passed—was insensibly lightened by its gleeful laugh. Ben Miles saw this child in one of his rambles, when it had strayed from the house a little farther than usual, and thought he had found an angel, till she told him she lived in the cottage up by the road. While he was talking to her, her mother’s voice, in musical but piercing tones, called from over a rising in the ground, and, taking her in his arms, Ben strode rapidly toward the sound, saying, “There’s anguish in that cry, my little one ; you must hasten to drive it away. ” Never had Ben forgotten the look in that young mother’s eyes when he put her child in her arms; and when she thanked him, with her sweet, tremulous voice, she robbed him, without knowing it, of one of the kindest hearts that ever beat in man’s breast. Ben could only speak to her of the child. “May I come and see her again —and bring some—some —” “Candy?” queried the little one at the pause; “of course you may; I like candy—and I like you, too. ” ‘ ‘Ah, I shall bear a charmed life hereafter, I know I shall! ” and Ben raised his broad-brimmed hat and strode away with a genial laugh. He went often to the cottage afterward. It stood within twenty rods of the track, and his companions on the road had seen him there as they passed by. They had noted another fact—strange to them, but which will not be to you, reader—Ben Miles never drank at this end of his route.

“Stoke! stoke up, Jake! We’ll soon sec the cottage in the shrubbery! She says there’s poetry in the grandeur of a swiftly moving train! Ha, ha, ha; I’ll show her the grandest poem she ever saw! ” “ He’s worse than ever; strange how the liquor hangs on to him,” said Jake. “ I never knew him to speak of her until to-day.” In fact, it seemed as if Ben Miles was mad. He had run two hundred miles iu four hours—the track being cleared for this train—including the few short stops for water—andim-teadof sobering, the motion had seemed to keep the liquor in his head. Jake made up his mind to rebel, so fearful wad im accident in the short distance yet to run. “ You do not stoke, Jake!” “She’s got more than enough fire now. ” 1 ‘ Wliat! —Oh, confound this arm ! But no matter ; stand aside —I can do it with one 1” A thought struck the fireman. “ Shewill not be looking for you to pass now.” Ben looked fiercely at the fireman. “This is a special,” continued Jake, seeing Ben waver. “ Come, slack up !” “ Touch the lever at your peril! I’ll risk her knowing my engine,” said Ben to himself ; and, throwing the lover wide open, he fixed his eyes on the cottage, now only a mile away. • “ Ben! Ben ! shut off!” cried Jake. “ Not for life ! She’s coming out!” “ Look on the track ! The child 1” “Great God!” Shouted Ben, “shut off, Jake !” and out to the front of the locomotive lie clambered, this time with the speed of a wildcat. The little girl had been crossing the track, with her apron full of flowers, when the lightning-like speed of this terrible apparition, the unexpected train, had frightened her into a swoon, and she had fallen between the rails. Ben had only seen the mother as she ran out in frantic alarm. Ben reached the cowcatcher and threw himself—utterly reckless-~-prone upon his stomach across the extreme front edge, while, with liis hand outstretched, he waited to grasp the child. Quick as thought she was reached. The train had slackened to ten miles an hour. Ben seized the child and lifted it from the track, but the effort destroyed his balance. He was rolling off in front. Oh, for another hand to cling with ! He made a frantic effort to use his wounded arm. Impossible ! His unyielding grip on the child was dragging him to destruction. With tremendous power he flung the child clear of the train; and this, with the lessening momentum, threw him off to be crushed beneath the engine. The mother found her child unhurt, and, straining it to her breast, wept bitter tears as she knelt over the lifeless form of brave Ben Miles.