Danger signals

As I put down my name and the number of the crack engine of America--as well as the imprint of a greasy thumb--on the register of our roundhouse last Saturday night, the foreman borrowed a chew of my fireman's fine-cut, and said to me:

"John, that old feller that's putting on the new injectors wants to see you."

"What does he want, Jack?" said I. "I don't remember to have seen him, and I'll tell you right now that the old squirts on the 411 are good enough for me--I ain't got time to monkey with new-fangled injectors on that run."

"Why, he says he knowed you out West fifteen years ago."

"So! What kind o' looking chap is he?"

"Youngish face, John; but hair and whiskers as white as snow. Sorry-looking rooster--seems like he's lost all his friends on earth, and wa'n't jest sure where to find 'em in the next world."

"I can't imagine who it would be. Let's see--'Lige Clark, he's dead; Dick Bellinger, Hank Baldwin, Jim Karr, Dave Keller, Bill Parr--can't be none of them. What's his name?"

"Winthrop--no, Wetherson--no, lemme see--why, no--no, Wainright; that's it, Wainright; J. E. Wainright."

"Jim Wainright!" says I, "Jim Wainright! I haven't heard a word of him for years--thought he was dead; but he's a young fellow compared to me."

"Well, he don't look it," said Jack.

After supper I went up to the hotel and asked for J. E. Wainright.

Maybe you think Jim and I didn't go over the history of the "front." "Out at the front" is the pioneer's ideal of railroad life. To a man who has put in a few years there the memory of it is like the memory of marches, skirmishes, and battles in the mind of the veteran soldier. I guess we started at the lowest numbered engine on the road, and gossiped about each and every crew. We had finished the list of engineers and had fairly started on the firemen when a thought struck me, and I said:

"Oh, I forgot him, Jim--the 'Kid,' your cheery little cricket of a firesy, who thought Jim Wainright the only man on the road that could run an engine right. I remember he wouldn't take a job running switcher--said a man that didn't know that firing for Jim Wainright was a better job than running was crazy. What's become of him? Running, I suppose?"

Jim Wainright put his hand up to his eyes for a minute, and his voice was a little husky as he said:

"No, John, the Kid went away--"

"Went away?"

"Yes, across the Great Divide--dead."

"That's tough," said I, for I saw Jim felt bad. "The Kid and you were like two brothers."

"John, I loved the--"

Then Jim broke down. He got his hat and coat, and said:

"John, let's get out into the air--I feel all choked up here; and I'll tell you a strange, true story--the Kid's story."

As we got out of the crowd and into Boston Common, Jim told his story, and here it is, just as I remember it--and I'm not bad at remembering.

"I'll commence at the beginning, John, so that you will understand. It's a strange story, but when I get through you'll recall enough yourself to prove its truth.

"Before I went beyond the Mississippi and under the shadows of the Rocky Mountains, I fired, and was promoted, on a prairie road in the Great Basin well known in the railway world. I was much like the rest of the boys until I commenced to try to get up a substitute for the link motion. I read an article in a scientific paper from the pen of a jackass who showed a Corliss engine card, and then blackguarded the railroad mechanics of America for being satisfied with the link because it was handy. I started in to design a motion to make a card, but--well, you know how good-for-nothing those things are to pull loads with.