OFFICIAL BULLETIN: Burlington Route

The Denver Limited went out on time to-night with a reasonably well-filled train, Engineer Cowels in the cab. Mr. Cowels has been many years in the service of the company and is highly esteemed by the officials. Although he was, for a time, a prominent striker, he saw the folly of further resistance on the part of the employees, and this morning came to the company's office and begged to be allowed to return to his old run, which request was granted. Cowels is a thoroughly competent engineer and has been on this same run for five years, and up to the time of the strike had never missed a trip. It is expected that his return to his engine will be the signal for a general stampede. The company has generously agreed to reïnstate all old employees (unless guilty of some lawless act) who return before noon to-morrow.

STONAKER.

It would be difficult to say which of these dispatches distressed him most. The first said he had sold himself for so much money, the second that he had gone to the company and begged to be reïnstated. Slowly he opened the first crumpled message and read down to the word "scab." "George Cowels, the scab,—burned in effigy—a great mob about his house." All these things passed swiftly before him, and the thought of his wife and baby being in actual danger, his boy being kicked and cuffed about, almost made him mad. He crushed the crumpled messages in his right hand while with his left he pulled the throttle wide open. The powerful Blackwings, built to make time with ten cars loaded, leaped forward like a frightened deer. The speed of the train was now terrific, and the stations, miles apart, brushed by them like telegraph poles. At Mendota a crowd of men hurled sticks and stones at the flying train. As the stones hailed into the cab, and the broken glass rained over him, the desperate driver never so much as glanced to either side, but held his place, his hand on the throttle and his eye on the track. For the first time he looked at his watch. He was still more than an hour late. He remembered how the old engineer had said, an hundred times perhaps: "George, an express train should never be late; she should be on time or in the ditch."

It was the first time Blackwings had ever been an hour late anywhere, and with all his greater sorrows this grieved the young engineer. Now at the way stations the crowd that awaited them invariably fell back as the wild train dashed by, or, if they hurled their missiles, those aimed at the locomotive struck the sleeper or flew across the track behind it, so great was the speed of the train. Cowels yielded at last to the irresistible desire to see how his companion was taking it, but as he bent his gaze in that direction it encountered the grinning face of the fireman, into which he threw the crumpled paper. Then, as he continued to grin, the infuriated engineer grabbed a hard-hammer and hurled it murderously at Guerin's head. The latter saved his life by a clever dodge, and springing to the driver's side caught him by the back of the neck and shoved his head out at the window and held it there. They were just at that moment descending a long grade down which the most daring driver always ran with a closed throttle. Blackwings was wide open, and now she appeared to be simply rolling and falling through space. Although we have no way of knowing how fast she fell, it is safe to say she was making ninety miles an hour. While the fireman held on to the engineer, squeezing and shaking away at the back of his neck, the speed of the train was increasing with every turn of the wheels. Gradually the resistance of the engineer grew feebler until all at once he dropped across the arm-rest, limp and lifeless. Guerin, finding himself alone on the flying engine, had presence of mind enough to close the throttle, but with that his knowledge of the locomotive ended. He reasoned that in time she must run down and stop of herself, and then the train crew would come forward and relieve his embarrassment. It never occurred to him for a moment that he might be regarded as a murderer, for he had only held the engineer down to the seat, with no more violence than boys use toward each other in play. And while he stood staring at the still form of the driver that hung out of the window like a pair of wet overalls, the engine rolled, the snow drifted deeper and deeper on the headlight, and with every roll the bell tolled! tolled!! like a church bell tolling for the dead. The train, slowing down, rolled silently over the shrouded earth, the fire in the open furnace blackened and died, the cold air chilled her flues and the stream of water from the open injector flooded the boiler of Blackwings and put the death-rattle in her throat. When at last the train rolled slowly into Galesburg the fireman stood on the deck of a dead locomotive, with snow on her headlight, and, as the crowd surged round him, pointed to the limp form of the young engineer that hung in the window, dead.



CHAPTER TWELFTH

Judge Meyer's court was crowded when the three big policemen, formed like a football team, wedged their way into the building. In the centre of the "A" walked the prisoner, handcuffed and chained like a murderer. When they had arrived in front of the judge and the officers stepped back they left the prisoner exposed to the gaze of the spectators. Standing six feet two, strong and erect, he looked as bold and defiant as a Roman warrior, and at sight of him there ran a murmur through the court room which was promptly silenced by the judge.

In response to the usual questions the prisoner said his name was Dan Moran, that his occupation was that of a locomotive engineer. He had been in the employ of the Burlington for a quarter of a century—ever since he was fifteen years old—but being one of the strikers he was now out of employment.

"You are charged," said the clerk, "with trespassing upon the property of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Company, inciting a riot, attempting to blow up a locomotive and threatening the life of the engineer. How do you plead?"

"Not guilty," said the old engine-driver, and as he said this he seemed to grow an inch and looked grander than ever.

Being asked if he desired counsel the prisoner said he did not, that the whole matter could be explained by a single witness—an employee of the company.

The company detective and the police officers exchanged glances, the judge coughed, the crowd of loafers shifted ballast and rested on the other foot. Only the prisoner stood motionless and erect.

The detective, the first witness for the prosecution, testified that he had followed the prisoner into the yards from among the freight cars, watched him approach the engine Blackwings and talk with the engineer. He could not make out all that passed, but knew that the men had quarrelled. He had seen the prisoner stoop down and fumble about the air-pump on the engineer's side of the engine. He then rose and as he moved off made some threat against the life of the engineer and about "ditching" the train.

Being asked to repeat this important part of his testimony, the witness admitted that he could not repeat the threat exactly, but he was positive that the prisoner had threatened the life of the engineer of the Denver Limited. He was positive that the last words uttered by the prisoner as he left the engine were these: "This train, by this time, ought to be in the ditch." The witness followed the statement with the explanation that the train was then nearly two hours late. "This," said the witness, still addressing the court, "was found in the prisoner's inside coat pocket," and he held up a murderous looking stick of dynamite. After landing the would-be dynamiter safely in jail the detective had hastened back to the locomotive, which was then about to start out on her perilous run, and had found a part of the fuse, which had been broken, attached to the air brake apparatus. This he exhibited, also, and showed that the piece of fuse found on the engine fitted the piece still on the dynamite.

It looked like a clear case of intent to kill somebody, and even the prisoner's friends began to believe him guilty. Three other witnesses were called for the prosecution. The company's most trusted detective, and a Watchem man testified that the prisoner had, up to now, borne a good reputation. He had been one of the least noisy of the strikers and had often assisted the police in protecting the company's property. The master-mechanic under whom Dan Moran had worked as a locomotive engineer for twenty years took the stand and said, with something like tears in his voice, that Dan had been one of the best men on the road. Being questioned by the company's attorney he gave it as his opinion that no dynamite was attached to the air-pump of Blackwings when she crossed the table, and that if it was there at all it must have been put there after the engine was coupled on to the Denver Limited. Then he spoiled all this and shocked the prosecuting attorney by expressing the belief that there must be some mistake.

"Do you mean to say that you disbelieve this gentleman, who, at the risk of his life, arrested this ruffian and prevented murder?" the lawyer demanded.

"I mean to say," said the old man slowly, "that I don't believe Dan put the dynamite on the engine."

When the master-mechanic had been excused and was passing out Dan put out his hand—both hands in fact, for they were chained together—and the company's officer shook the manacled hands of the prisoner and hurried on.

When the prosecution had finished, the prisoner was asked to name the witness upon whom he relied.

"George Cowels," said the accused, and there ran through the audience another murmur, the judge frowned, and the standing committee shifted back to the other foot.

"Your Honor, please," said the attorney rising, "we are only wasting time with this incorrigible criminal. He must know that George Cowels is dead for he undoubtedly had some hand in the murder, and now to show you that he had not, he has the temerity to stand up here and pretend to know nothing whatever about the death of the engineer. I must say that, quiet and gentle as he is, he is a cunning villain to try to throw dust in the eyes of the people by pretending to be ignorant of Cowels's death. I submit, your Honor, there is no use in wasting time with this man, and we ask that he be held without bail, to await the action of the grand jury."

Dan Moran appeared to pay little or no attention to what the lawyer was saying, for the news of Cowels's death had been a great shock to him. The fact that he had been locked up over night and then brought from the jail to the court in a closed van might have accounted for his ignorance of Cowels's death, but no one appeared to think of that. But now, finding himself at the open door of a prison, with a strong chain of circumstantial evidence wound about him, he began to show some interest in what was going on.

The judge, having adjusted his glasses, and opened and closed a few books that lay on his desk, was about to pronounce sentence when the prisoner asked to be allowed to make a statement.

This the attorney for the company objected to as a waste of time, for he was satisfied of the prisoner's guilt, but the judge over-ruled the objection and the prisoner testified.

He admitted having had the dynamite in his pocket when arrested, but said he had taken it from the engine to prevent its exploding and wrecking the locomotive. He said he had quarrelled with the engineer of Blackwings at first, but later they came to an understanding. He then gave the young runner some fatherly advice, and started to leave when he was arrested.

Although he told his story in a straightforward honest way, it was, upon the face of it, so inconsistent that even the loafers, changing feet again, pitied the prisoner and many of them actually left the room before the judge could pronounce sentence. Moran was held, of course, and sent to jail without bail. He had hosts of friends, but somehow they all appeared to be busy that evening and only a few called to see him.

One man, not of the Brotherhood, said to himself that night as he went to his comfortable bed: "I will not forsake the company, neither will I forsake Dan Moran until he has been proven guilty."



CHAPTER THIRTEENTH

While Dan Moran was being examined in Judge Meyer's ill-smelling court in Chicago a coroner's jury was sitting on the body of the dead engineer at Galesburg. Hundreds of people had been at the station and witnessed the arrival of the express train that came in with a dead engine, with snow on her headlight, and a dead engineer hanging out of the window. Hundreds of people could testify that this had happened, but none of them knew what had caused the death of the engine-driver. Medical experts who were called in to view the body could find no marks of violence upon it and, in order to get out of a close place without embarrassment, agreed that the engineer had died of heart failure. This information, having been absorbed by the jury, they gave in a verdict to that effect. If the doctors had said, "He died for want of breath," the verdict would no doubt have agreed perfectly with what the doctors said.

After the train had arrived and the coroner was called and had taken the dead man from the engine, Barney Guerin had wandered into a small hotel near the station and engaged a room for the night. Being the only person on the engine at the time of the engineer's death, Guerin was very naturally attracting the attention of the railway officials, and calling about him, unconsciously, all the amateur detectives and newspaper reporters in the place. Fortunately for him, he was arrested, upon a warrant sworn out by the station agent, and lodged in jail before the reporters got at him. Here he was visited by a local lawyer, for the company, and instructed to say nothing whatever about the death of Cowels.

Upon the announcement of the verdict of the coroner's jury the prisoner was released, and returned to Chicago by the same train that bore the remains of the dead engineer.

Guerin, whose heart was as big as his body and as tender as a woman's, hastened to the home of his late companion and begged the grief-sick widow to allow him to be of some service to her. His appearance (she had known him by sight) excited her greatly for she knew he had been arrested as the murderer of her husband.

The news he brought of the verdict of the coroner's jury, which his very presence corroborated, quieted her and she began to ask how it had all happened.

Guerin began cautiously to explain how the engineer had died, still remembering the lawyer's advice, but before he had gone a dozen words the poor woman wept so bitterly that he was obliged to discontinue the sad story.

Then came the corpse, borne by a few faithful friends—some of the Brotherhood and some of the railway company—who met thus on neutral ground and in the awful presence of death forgot their feud. Not an eye was dry while the little company stood about as the mother and boy bent over the coffin and poured out their grief, and the little girl, not old enough to understand, but old enough to weep, clung and sobbed at her mother's side.

The next day they came again and carried Cowels away and buried him in the new and thinly settled side of the grave-yard, where the lots were not too high, and where for nearly four years their second son, a baby boy, had slept alone. Another day came and the men who had mixed their tears at the engineer's grave passed one another without a nod of recognition, and, figuratively speaking, stood again to their respective guns.

One man had been greatly missed at the funeral, and the recollection that he had been greatly wronged by the dead man did not excuse him in the eyes of the widow. Dan Moran had been a brother, a father, everything to her husband and now when he was needed most, he came not at all. Death, she reasoned, should level all differences and he should forgive all and come to her and the children in their distress. At the end of a week this letter came:

County Jail, —— 1888.

My dear Mrs. Cowels:

Every day since George's death I have wanted to write you to assure you of my innocence and of my sympathy for you in this the hour of your sorrow. These are dreadful times. Be brave, and believe me Your friend, Dan Moran.

This letter, and the information it contained, was as great a surprise to Mrs. Cowels as the news of Cowels's death had been to Moran. She began at the beginning and read it carefully over again, as women always do. She determined to go at once to the jail. She was shrewd enough to say "Yes" when asked if the prisoner were related in any way to her, and was shortly in the presence of the alleged dynamiter. She did not find him walking the floor impatiently, or lying idly on his back counting the cracks in the wall, but seated upon his narrow bed with a book resting on his cocked-up knees, for, unlike most railway employees, Moran was a great reader.

"I'm glad to see you, Mrs. Cowels," he said in his easy, quiet way, as he arose and took her hand, "but sorry we are compelled to meet under such melancholy circumstances."

At sight of their old friend her woman's heart sent forth a fresh flood of tears, and for some moments they stood thus with heads bowed in silent grief.

"I'm sorry I can't offer you a chair," said the prisoner after she had raised her head and dried her eyes. "This only chair I have is wrecked, but if you don't mind the iron couch—" and then they sat down side by side and began to talk over the sad events of the past week.

"Your presence here is a great surprise," began Moran, "and a great pleasure as well, for it leads me to hope that you believe me innocent."

"How could I believe you otherwise, for I do not know now of what you are accused, nor did I know, until I received your note, that you were imprisoned."

"But the papers have been full of—"

"Perhaps," she said interrupting him, "but I have not looked at a paper since I read of the death of George."

Here she broke down again and sobbed so that the guard outside the cell turned his back; and the old engineer, growing nervous, a thing unusual for him, decided to scold her.

"You must brace up now, Nora,—Mrs. Cowels, and close your sand valve. You've got a heavy load and a bad rail, and you mustn't waste water in this way."

"Oh! I shall never be able to do it, Dan, I shall die—I don't want to live and I shall die."

"You'll do nothing of the sort—women don't die so easy; thousands of others, not half as brave as you are, have made the same run, hard as it seems, and have come in on time. There are few sorrows that time will not heal. Engine-men are born to die, and their wives to weep over them and live on—you will not die."

"But I—I shall die," sobbed the woman.

Before he could reply the door opened and an elderly man, plainly, but comfortably dressed, stood before them.

Moran gave his hand to the newcomer in silence and it was taken in silence; then, turning to the veiled figure he said: "Mrs. Cowels, this is our master-mechanic."

When the visitor had taken her hand and assured her of his sympathy, Moran asked them to be seated, and standing before them said:

"Mrs. Cowels has just asked me why I am here, and I was at the point of replying when you came in. Now, with your permission I will tell her, for I am afraid, my friend, that you did not quite understand me that day in court. I am charged with trespassing upon the property of the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Railroad Company, inciting a riot (although there was no riot), attempting to blow up Blackwings and threatening to kill George Cowels."

"Oh! how could they say such dreadful things?" said Mrs. Cowels, "and I suppose that you were not even on the company's ground!"

"Oh yes, I was. I went to the engine, and quarrelled with George, just as the detective said I did, but we only quarrelled for a moment because George could not know why I came."

"But you did not threaten to kill George?" said the woman excitedly.

"No."

"Tell me, Dan," said the master-mechanic, "had you that stick of dynamite when the detective arrested you? Tell us truly, for you are talking to friends."

"There is something about the dynamite that I may not explain, but I will say this to you, my friends, that I went to the engine, not to kill Cowels, but to save his life, and I believe I did save it, for a few hours at least."

Mrs. Cowels looked at the man, who still kept his seat on the narrow bed, as though she wished him to speak.

"Dan," he began, "I don't believe you put that dynamite on the engine; I have said so, and if I don't prove it I am to be dismissed. That conclusion was reached to-day at a meeting of the directors of the road. I have been accused of sympathy with the strikers, it seems, before, and now, after the statement by the attorney that I used my influence to have you discharged after he had made out a clear case against you, I have been informed by the general manager that I will be expected to prove your innocence or look for another place.

"I have been with the Burlington all my life and don't want to leave them, particularly in this way, but it is on your account, more than on my own, that I have come here to-night to ask you to tell the whole truth about this matter and go from this place a free man."

"To do that I must become an informer, the result of which would be to put another in my place. No, I can't do that; I've nothing to do at present and I might as well remain here."

"And let your old friend here be discharged, if not disgraced?" asked Mrs. Cowels.

"No, that must not be," said Moran, and he was then silent for a moment as if trying to work out a scheme to prevent that disaster to his much-loved superior. "You must let me think it over," he said, presently. "Let me think it over to-night."

"And let the guilty one escape," Mrs. Cowels added.

"Some people seem to think," said Moran, with just a faint attempt at a smile, "that the guilty one is quite secure."

"Don't talk nonsense, Dan," she said, "you know I believe you."

"And you, my friend?" he said as he extended his hand to the official.

"You know what I believe," said the visitor; "and now good-night—I shall see you again soon."

"I hope so," said Dan. "It is indeed very good of you to call, and of you, too," he added, as he turned to his fairer visitor. "I shall not forget your kindness to me, and only hope that I may be of some help to you in some way, and do something to show my appreciation of this visit and of your friendship. But," he added, glancing about him, "one can't be of much use to his friends shut up in a hole like this."

"You can do me a great favor, even while in prison," she said.

"Only say what it is and I shall try."

"Tell us who put the dynamite on Blackwings."

"I shall try," he said, "only let me have time to think what is best to do."

"What is right is what is best to do," said Mrs. Cowels, holding out her hand—"Good-night."

"Good-night," said the prisoner, "come again when you can, both of you." And the two visitors passed out into the clear, cold night, and when the prisoner had seen them disappear he turned to his little friend, the book.



CHAPTER FOURTEENTH

"Mr. Scouping of The London Times would like to see you for a few minutes," said the jailor.

"I don't care to see any newspaper man," said Moran, closing his book.

"I knew that," said the jailor, "but this man is a personal friend of mine and in all the world there is not his equal in his chosen profession, and if you will see him just for a few minutes it will be a great favor to me. I feel confident, Dan, that he can be of service to you—to the public at least—will you see him?"

The jailor had been extremely kind to the engineer and when he put the matter as a personal request, Moran assented at once and Mr. Scouping was ushered in. He was a striking figure with a face that was rather remarkable.

"Now, what are you thinking about?" asked the visitor, as Moran held his hand and looked him full in the face.

"Oh!" said the prisoner, motioning the reporter to a chair which the jailor had just brought in, "I was thinking what a waste of physical strength it was for you to spend your time pushing a pencil over a sheet of paper."

"Are you sure?"

"Quite sure. What were you thinking about?"

"The trial of the robbers who held up the Denver Limited at Thorough-cut some eight or ten years ago. You look like the man who gave one of them a black eye, and knocked him from the engine, branding him so that the detectives could catch him."

Moran smiled. He had been thinking on precisely the same subject, but, being modest, he did not care to open a discussion of a story of which he was the long-forgotten hero. "It strikes me," said Moran, "as rather extraordinary that we should both recall the scene at the same time."

"Not at all," said the reporter. "The very fact that one of us thought of it at the moment when our hands and eyes met would cause the other to remember."

"Perhaps you reported the case for your paper, that we saw each other from day to day during the long trial, and that I remembered your face faintly, as you remembered mine. Wouldn't that be a better explanation?"

"No," said the journalist cheerfully. "I must decline to yield to your argument, and stick to my decision. What I want to talk to you about, Mr. Moran, is not your own case, save as it may please you, but about the mysterious death of Engineer Cowels."

"I know less about that, perhaps, than any man living," said Moran frankly.

"But you know the fireman's story?"

"No."

"Well, he claims that they were running at a maddening rate of speed, that he and the engineer had quarrelled as to their relative positions in the estimation of the public in general, the strikers in particular. Cowels threw a hammer at the fireman, whereupon Guerin, as he claims, caught the man by the left arm and by the back of the neck and shoved his head out of the window. The engineer resisted, but Guerin, who is something of an athlete, held him down and in a few moments the man collapsed."

"How fast were they going?"

"Well, that is a question to be settled by experts. How fast will Blackwings go with four cars empty?"

"Ninety miles an hour."

"How fast would she go, working 'wide open in the first notch,' as you people say, down Zero Hill?"

"She would go in the ditch—she could hardly be expected to hold the rail for more than two minutes."

"But she did hold it."

"I don't believe it," said the old driver; "but if she did, she must have made a hundred miles an hour, and in that case the mystery of Cowels's death is solved—he was drowned."

"But his clothes were not wet, and he was still in the window when they reached Galesburg."

"I do not mean," said Moran, "that he was drowned in the engine-tank, but in the cab window—in the air."

"That sounds absurd."

"Try it," said the prisoner. "Get aboard of Blackwings, strike the summit at Zero Hill with her lever hooked back and her throttle wide open, let a strong man hold your head out at the window, and if she hangs to the rail your successor will have the rare opportunity of writing you up."

"Do you mean that seriously?"

"I do. If what you tell me is true, there can be no shade of doubt as to the cause of Cowels's death."

"I believe," said the reporter, "that you predicted his death, or that the train would go in the ditch, did you not?"

"No."

"I was not present at the examination, but it occurs to me that the man who claimed to be a detective, and who made the arrest, swore that you had made such a prediction."

"Perhaps," said Moran. "The truth is when that fellow was giving his testimony I was ignorant of Cowels's death, upon whose evidence I hoped to prove that the fellow was lying wilfully, or that he had misunderstood me, and later, I was so shocked and surprised at the news of my old fireman's death that I forgot to make the proper explanation to the magistrate."

"Why not make that explanation now? These are trying times and men are not expected to be as guarded in their action as in times of peace."

"If you hope to learn from me that I had anything to do with Cowels's death, or with the placing of the dynamite upon the locomotive, I am afraid you are wasting your time. Suppose you are an army officer, the possessor of a splendid horse—one that has carried you through hundreds of battles, but has finally been captured by the enemy. You are fighting to regain possession of the animal with the chances of success and failure about equally divided, but you have an opportunity, during the battle, to slay this horse, thereby removing the remotest chance of ever having it for yourself again, to say nothing of the wickedness of the act,—would you do it?"

"I should say not."

"And yet, I venture to say," said the prisoner, "that there is no love for a living thing that is not human, to equal the love of a locomotive engineer for his engine. To say that he would wilfully and maliciously wreck and ruin the splendid steed of steel that had carried him safely through sun and storm is utterly absurd."

"But what was it, Mr. Moran, that you said about the train going in the ditch?"

"I have a little motto of my own," said the engineer, with his quiet smile, "which makes the delay of an express train inexcusable, and I was repeating it to George, as I had done scores of times before. It is that there are only two places for an express train; she should either be on time or in the ditch. It may have been rather reckless advice to a new runner, but I was feeling a mite reckless myself; but, above all the grief and disappointments (for the disgrace of my fireman's downfall was in a measure mine) arose the desire that Blackwings should not be disgraced; such is the love of the engineer for his engine."

The old engineer had shown much feeling, more than was usual for him to display, while talking about his engine, and the reporter was impressed very favorably. "This has been most interesting to me," said the journalist; "and now I must leave you to your book, or to your bed," and then the two men shook hands again and parted.

* * * * *

It was almost midnight when a closed carriage stopped at the general office of the Burlington Company, and the man who had been representing The London Times stepped out.

The Philosopher, who was still on duty, touched his cap and led the visitor to the private office of the general manager.

"By Jove, Watchem," said the railway man, advancing to meet his visitor, "I had nearly given you up—what success?"

"Well," said the great detective, removing his heavy coat, "I have had a talk with Moran. Why, I know that fellow; he is the hero of the celebrated Thorough-cut train robbery, and he ought to be wearing a medal instead of irons."

"What! for attempting to blow up an engine?" asked the general manager.

"He never did it," said the dark man positively. "He may know who did do it, but he will not tell, and he ought to be discharged."

"He will never be until he is proved innocent," said the railroad man.

"One of the conditions," began the detective deliberately, "upon which I took charge of this business was that I should have absolute control of all criminal matters and I am going to ask you to instruct the prosecuting attorney's office to bring this man before Judge Meyer to-morrow morning and ask that he be discharged."

"The prosecuting attorney will never consent," said the general manager. "He believes the man guilty."

"And what do I care for his opinion or his prejudice? What does it matter to the average attorney whether he convicts or acquits, so long as his side wins? Before we proceed further with this discussion, I want it distinctly understood that Dan Moran shall be released at once. The only spark of pleasure that comes into the life of an honest detective, to relieve the endless monotony of punishing the wicked, is the pleasure of freeing those wrongfully accused. Dan Moran is innocent; release him and I will be personally responsible for him and will agree to produce him within twenty-four hours at any time when he may be wanted."

The general manager was still inclined to hold his ground, but upon being assured that the Watchem detective agency would throw the whole business over unless the demands of the chief were acceded to, he yielded, and after a brief conference the two men descended, the Philosopher closed the offices and went his way.



CHAPTER FIFTEENTH

Scores of criminals, deputies and strikers were rounded up for a hearing before Judge Meyer. So great was the crowd of defendants that little room was left for the curious. The first man called was a laborer, a freight handler, whose occupation had gone when the company ceased to handle freight. The charge against him was a peculiar one. His neighbor, a driver for one of the breweries, owned a cow, which, although she gave an abundance of milk at night, had ceased almost entirely to produce at the morning milking. The German continued to feed her and she waxed fat, but there was no improvement, and finally it was decided that the cow should be watched. About four A. M. on the following morning a small man came and leaned a ladder against the high fence between the driver's back-yard, and that of the laborer. Then the small man climbed to the top of the fence, balanced himself carefully, hauled the ladder up and slid it down in the Dutchman's lot. All this was suspicious, but what the driver wanted was positive proof, so he choked his dog and remained quiet until the man had milked the cow and started for the fence. Now the bull-dog, being freed from his master's grasp, coupled into the climber's caboose and hauled him back down the ladder. It was found upon examination that a rubber hot-water bag, well filled with warm milk, was dangling from a strap that encircled the man's shoulders, shot-pouch fashion.

Upon being charged, the man pleaded guilty. At first, he said, he had only taken enough milk for the baby, who had been without milk for thirty-six hours. The thought of stealing had not entered his mind until near morning of the second night of the baby's fast. They had been up with the starving child all night, and just before day he had gone into the back-yard to get some fuel to build a fire, when he heard his neighbor's cow tramping about in the barn lot, and instantly it occurred to him that there was milk for the baby; that if he could procure only a teacupful, it might save the child's life. He secured a ladder and went over the fence, but being dreadfully afraid he had taken barely enough milk to keep the baby during the day and that night they were obliged to walk the floor again. It was only a little past midnight when he went over the fence for the second time. Upon this occasion he took more milk, so that he was not obliged to return on the following night, but another day brought the same condition of affairs and over the fence he went, and he continued to go every night, and the baby began to thrive as it had not done in all its life.

Finally the food supply began to dwindle, he was idle, and his wife was unable to do hard work; they had other small children who now began to cry for milk, and the father's heart ached for them and he went over the fence one night prepared to bring all he could get. That day all the children had milk, but it was soon gone and then came the friendly night and the performance at the back fence was repeated.

Emboldened by success the man had come to regard it as a part of his daily or nightly duty to milk his neighbor's cow, but alas! for the wrong-doer there comes a day of reckoning, and it had come at last to the freight handler. The freight agent who was called as a witness testified as to the good character of the man previously, but he was a thief. Put to the test it had been proven that he would steal from his neighbor simply to keep his baby from starving, so he went to the workhouse, his family went to the poor-house, and the strike went on.

"If you were to ask who is responsible for this strike," said the philosophic tramp to Patsy, "which has left in its wake only waste, want, misery, and even murder, the strikers would answer 'the company'; the company, 'the strikers'; and if Congress came in a private car to investigate, the men on either side would hide behind one another, like cattle in a storm, and the guilty would escape. The law intends to punish, but the law finds it so hard to locate the real criminals in a great soulless corporation, or in a conglomeration of organizations whose aggregate membership reaches into the hundreds of thousands, that the blind goddess grows weary, groping in the dark, and finally falls asleep with the cry of starving children still ringing in her ears."

Now an officer brought engineer Dan Moran, the alleged dynamiter, into court for a special hearing. He wore no manacles, but stood erect in the awful presence of the judge, unfettered and unafraid.

Mr. Alexander, the lawyer for the strikers, having had a hint from Billy Watchem, the detective, asked that the prisoner be discharged, but the young man who had been sent down from the office of the prosecuting attorney, being behind the procession, protested vigorously. In the midst of a burning argument, in which the old engineer was unmercifully abused, the youthful attorney was interrupted to receive a message from the general manager of the Burlington route. Pausing only long enough to read the signature, the orator continued to pour his argument into the court until a second messenger arrived with a note from his chief. It was brief and he read it: "Let go; the house is falling in on you"; and he let go. It was a long, hard fall, so he thought he would drop a little at a time. The court was surprised to see the attorney stop short in what he doubtless considered the effort of his life, and ask that the prisoner be released on bail. Now the prosecuting attorney glanced at Mr. Alexander, but that gentleman was looking the other way. "Does that proposition meet with the approval of the eminent counsel on the other side?"

"No," said the other side.

"Then will you take the trouble to make your wishes known to the court?"

"No, you will do that for me," said the eminent counsel, with a coolness that was exasperating. "It would be unsafe to shut off such a flow of eloquence all at once. Ask the court, please, to discharge the prisoner."

"Never," said the young lawyer, growing red to the roots of his perfectly parted hair. The counsel for the defence reached over the table and flipped the last message toward the lawyer, at the same time advising the young man to read it again. Then the young man coughed, the old lawyer laughed, the judge fidgeted on his bench, but he caught the prayer of the youthful attorney, it was answered, and Dan Moran received his freedom.

"Do you observe how the law operates?" asked the Philosopher, who had been the bearer of the message from the general manager, of Patsy Daly as they were leaving the court.

"I must confess," said Patsy, "that I am utterly unable to understand these things. Here is a lawyer abusing a man—an honest man at that—unmercifully, and all of a sudden he asks the court to discharge the prisoner. It's beyond me."

"But the side play! Didn't you get on to the message that blackguard received? He had a hunch from the prosecuting attorney who had been hunched by the general manager, who, as I happened to know, was severely, but very successfully hunched by Billy Watchem, to the effect that this man was innocent and must be released. It was the shadow-hand of old 'Never Sleep,' that did the business and set an innocent man free, and hereafter, when I cuss a copper I'll say a little prayer for this man whose good deeds are all done in the dark, and therefore covered up."

"Thank you," said Patsy, "I should never have been able to work it out myself."

"Well, it is not all worked out yet," said the Philosopher, "and will not be until we come up for a final hearing, in a court that is infallible and unfoolable; and what a lot of surprises are in store for some people. It is not good to judge, and yet I can't help picturing it all to myself. I see a sleek old sinner, who has gone through this life perfectly satisfied with himself, edging his way in and sidling over where the sheep are. Then in comes this poor devil who went to jail this morning—that was his first trip, but the road is easy when you have been over it once—and he, having been herding all along with the goats, naturally wanders over that way. Then at the last moment I see the Good Shepherd shooing the sleek old buck over where the goats are and bringing the milk-thief back with him, and I see the look of surprise on the old gentleman's face as he drops down the 'goat-chute.'"



CHAPTER SIXTEENTH

In time people grew tired of talking and reading about the strike, and more than one man wished it might end. The strikers wished it too, for hundreds of them were at the point of starvation. The police courts were constantly crowded, and often overflowed and filled the morgue. Misery, disappointment, want, and hunger made men commit crimes the very thought of which would have caused them to shudder a year ago. One day a desolate looking striker was warming his feet in a cheap saloon when a well-dressed stranger came and sat near him and asked the cause of his melancholia.

"I'm a striker," said the man; "and I have had no breakfast. More than that, my wife is hungry at home and she is sick, too. She's been sick ever since we buried the baby, three weeks ago. All day yesterday I begged for work, but there was nothing for me to do. To-day I have begged for money to buy medicine and food for her, but I have received nothing, and now my only hope is that she may be dead when I go home to-night, empty-handed and hungry."

The stranger drew his chair yet nearer to that of the miserable man and asked in a low tone why he did not steal.

"I don't know how," said the striker, looking his questioner in the face. "I have never stolen anything and I should be caught at my first attempt. If not, it would only be a question of time, and if I must become a thief to live we might as well all die and have done with it. It'll be easier anyway after she's gone, and that won't be long; she don't want to live. Away in the dead of night she wakes me praying for death. And she used to be about the happiest woman in the world, and one of the best, but when a mother sits and sees her baby starve and die, it is apt to harden her heart against the people who have been the cause of it all. I think she has almost ceased to care for me, for of course she blames me for going out with the strikers, but how's a man to know what to do? If I could raise the price I think I'd take a couple of doses of poison home with me and put an end to our misery. She'd take it in a holy minute."

"Don't do that," said the stranger, dabbing a silk handkerchief to his eyes, one after the other. "And don't steal, for if you do once you will steal again, and by and by you'll get bolder and do worse. I've heard men tell how they had begun by lifting a dicer in front of a clothing store, or stealing a loaf of bread, and ended by committing murder. They can't break this way always—brace up."

The switchman went over to the bar where a couple of non-union men were shaking dice for the drinks. He recognized one of them as the man who had taken his place in the yards, but he scarcely blamed him now. Perhaps the fellow had been hungry, and the striker knew too well what that meant. Presently, the switchman went back to the stove and began to button his thin coat up about his throat.

"I'm dead broke myself," said the well-dressed stranger, "but I'm going to help you if you'll let me."

As the striker stared at the stranger the man took off a sixty-dollar overcoat and hung it over the switchman's arm. "Take it," he said, "it's bran new; I just got it from the tailor this morning. Go out and sell it and bring the money to me and I'll help you."

When the striker had been gone a quarter of an hour the well-dressed man strolled up to the bar and ordered a cocktail. Fifteen minutes later he took another drink and went out in front of the saloon. It was cold outside and after looking anxiously up and down the street the philanthropist reëntered the beer-shop and warmed himself by the big stove. At the end of an hour he ordered another dose of nerve food and sat down to think. It began to dawn upon him that he had been "had," as the English say. Perhaps this fellow was an impostor, a professional crook from New York, and he would sell the overcoat and have riotous pastime upon the proceeds.

"The wife and baby story was a rank fake—I'm a marine," said the well-dressed man taking another drink. It seemed to him that the task of helping the needy was a thankless one, and he wished he had the overcoat back again. He had been waiting nearly two hours when the switchman came in. "I had a hard time finding a purchaser," explained the striker, "and finally when I did sell it I could only get twelve dollars and they made me give my name and tell how I came to have such a coat. I suppose they thought I had stolen it and I dare say I looked guilty for it is so embarrassing to try to sell something that really doesn't belong to you, and to feel yourself suspected of having stolen it."

"And you told them that a gentleman had given the coat to you to sell because he was sorry for you?"

"Yes, I gave them a description of you and told them the place."

"That was right," said the gentleman, glancing toward the door. "Here are two dollars; come back here to-morrow and I'll have something more for you—good-by." And the philanthropist passed out by a side door which opened on an alley.

The striker gripped the two-dollar bill hard in his hand and started for the front door. All thought of hunger had left him now, and he was thinking only of his starving wife, and wondering what would be best for her to eat. Two or three men in citizens' dress, accompanied by a policeman, were coming in just as he was going out, but he was looking at the money and did not notice them. "There goes the thief," said one of the men, and an officer laid a heavy hand on the striker's shoulder. The man looked up into the officer's face with amazement, and asked what the matter was.

"Did you sell an overcoat to this gentleman a little while ago?" asked the policeman.

"Yes," said the striker glancing down at the two dollars he still held in his hand.

"Und yer sthold dot coats fum mine vindo'," said a stout man shoving his fist under the switchman's nose.

"A gentleman gave me the coat in this saloon," urged the striker. "Why, he was here a moment ago."

"Ah! dot's too tin," laughed the tailor, "tak' 'im avay, Meester Bleasman, tak' 'im avay," and the miserable man was hurried away to prison.

That night while the switchman sat in a dark cell his young wife lay dying of cold and hunger in a fireless room, and when an enterprising detective came to search the house for stolen goods on the following morning, he found her there stiff and cold.

Of course no one was to blame in particular, unless it was the well-dressed gentleman who had "helped" the striker, for no one, in particular, was responsible for the strike. It may have been the company and it may have been the brotherhood, or both, but you can't put a railroad company or a brotherhood in jail.



CHAPTER SEVENTEENTH

Mr. Watchem's plumber, as might have been expected, had the good taste to leave his modest lodgings after the downfall and death of his landlord, and now the widow was left alone with her two children. She was a gentle soul, who had always been esteemed by her neighbors, but since her husband's desertion to the enemy, she had been shamefully slighted. One would have thought that her present helpless condition would have shielded her from such slights, but it did not.

A few dollars still remained from the last rent money received from the plumber, who always paid in advance, and upon this she lived for a week or more after the death of her husband. She wondered how long it would be before the Benevolent Building Association would sell the house, and then how long before they would put her and the children into the street. Upon visiting the undertaker she was surprised to learn that all the expenses of her husband's funeral had been paid. It must have been done by the company, since, having left the Brotherhood, her husband could have had no claim upon the organization. Well, she was glad it was paid, for the road that led into the future was rough and uncertain.

One evening, when the baby had gone to sleep and the lone widow was striving to entertain little Bennie, and at the same time to hide her tears from him, for he had been asking strange questions about his father's death, the bell rang and two of the neighbors came in. They were striking firemen and she knew them well. One of the men handed her a large envelope with an enormous seal upon it. She opened the letter and found a note addressed to her and read it:

Dear Mrs. Cowels:

Although your husband had deserted us, he had not been expelled, but was still a member in good standing at the moment of his death, and therefore legally entitled to the benefits of the order. For your sake I am glad that it is so, and I take pleasure in handing you a cheque for two thousand dollars, the amount of his insurance, less the amount paid by the local lodge for funeral expenses.

Very truly yours, EUGENE V. DEBSON, Grand Secretary and Treasurer.

She thanked them as well as she could and the men tried to say it was all right, but they were awkward and embarrassed and after a few commonplace remarks withdrew.

Mrs. Cowels sat for a long while looking at the cheque, turning it over and reading the figures aloud to Bennie and explaining to him what an enormous amount of money it was. And what a load had thus been lifted from the slender shoulders of this lone woman! Now she could pay off the mortgage and have nearly fourteen hundred dollars left. It seemed to her that that amount ought to keep them almost for a lifetime. This relief, coming so unexpectedly, had made her forget for the moment her great sorrow. She even smiled when telling Bennie how very rich they were, but when the boy looked up, with tears swimming in his big, blue eyes, and said, through the sobs that almost choked him: "But I'd ruther have papa back again," it pierced her heart and made the old wound bleed anew.

Patsy Daly and his friend, the Philosopher, were at that moment approaching the Cowels's house where they lodged—they were room-mates now. They had seen the two men leaving the house, and having caught sight of the lonely woman and her child, stood looking beneath the window shade upon the pathetic scene. When they saw the official envelope, with the big, red seal, they readily guessed the errand of the men, for they knew the rules and ways of the Brotherhood, and that the dead engineer's family was entitled to the insurance upon his life. They saw the little mother smiling upon her boy, saw him turn a tearful face up to hers, and the change that came, and the look of anguish upon the unhappy woman's face touched them deeply. "O God!" said the Philosopher, laying a hand upon the shoulder of his friend, "if it be true that we, who are so wicked, must suffer for our sins, it is pleasant to feel that these martyrs—the millions of mothers whose hearts are torn in this world—will have a pleasant place in the world to come."



CHAPTER EIGHTEENTH

Mr. Watchem, chief of the famous Watchem detective agency, was pacing his private office. He was a heavy man with heavy features and a heavy, dark mustache, at which he tugged vigorously as he walked. In his left hand he carried a dozen or more sheets of closely written note paper. Presently the door opened, and a small man, slightly stooped, entered and removed his hat.

"Is this your report, sir?" asked the chief.

The man said it was.

"And can you substantiate these charges? Mind you, if an innocent man suffers I shall hold you accountable, do you understand?"

"I understand, and I am willing to swear to that statement."

"Have the men been arrested?"

"They have, and are now on their way to Chicago."

"They will probably be arraigned to-morrow morning," observed the great detective.

"See that your witnesses are on hand—you may go now."

When the small man had stolen softly out, down the stair and into the street, the chief detective descended, entered a closed carriage and was driven to his home.

It was now past midnight, and all over the city printers were setting up the story of the arrest of a number of dynamiters on a Burlington train. The wires were singing it across the country, and cables were carrying to the ends of the earth the story of the disgrace and downfall of the Brotherhood.

The headquarters of the strikers were crowded with a host of anxious men, unwilling to believe that their brothers had been guilty of so dastardly a crime.

On the following morning, when the daily press had announced the arrest of the alleged dynamiters, the city was thrown into a fever of excitement, and thousands who had been in sympathy with the men now openly denounced them, and by so doing gave aid and encouragement to the company. The most conservative papers now condemned the strikers, while the editor of The Chicago Times dipped his quill still deeper into the gallstand.

Following close upon the heels of the arrest of these strikers came the sensational arrest of Mr. Hogan, director general of the strike, charged with conspiracy. The private secretaries of the strike committee turned out to have been all along in the employ of the Watchem detective agency, but the charges of conspiracy were never pushed. The men who were charged with having and using dynamite, however, were less fortunate. Two were imprisoned, one was fined, the others proved to be detectives, and of course were released.

The effect of all this was very satisfactory to the company, and disheartening to the men.

The daily meetings in the hall in town were less crowded, and the speeches of the most radical and optimistic members of the fraternity failed to create the old-time enthusiasm. The suits worn by the strikers were becoming shiny, and the suffering in hundreds of homes was enough to cause men to forget the commandments. The way cars and cabs of out-going freight trains were crowded with old Burlington men starting out to find work on other roads. They had been losing heart for some time, and now the shame and disgrace caused by the conviction of the dynamiters made them long to be away; to have a place in the world where they might be allowed to win an honest living, and forget the long struggle of which they had grown weary. Unlike the Philosopher, they were always sure of a ride, but they found that nearly all the roads in the country had all the men they needed to handle their trains. The very fact that a man had once been a Burlington engineer was a sufficient recommendation, and the fact that he had been a striker seems not to have injured him in the estimation of railway officials generally, but the main trouble was that there was no place for him.

While the boycott on Burlington cars had kept all roads, not operating under a receiver, from handling Burlington business, it made it all the easier for the company to handle the little traffic that came to them and gave the road the appearance of running trains. All this was discouraging to the men, and at last, having exhausted all fair means, and some that were unfair, the strike was declared off. While the company refused to the last to accept anything short of unconditional surrender it is pleasing to be able to record here that the moment the men gave in the officials did all they could, consistent with the policy of the company and past events, to lessen the pain of defeat. The following letter, which was sent by the president to the vice-president and general manager, reminds us of the gentleness of Grant, in receiving the surrender of a brave and noble general:

Boston, Jan. 3, 1889.

To ——, Vice-President C. B. & Q. Railroad, Chicago.

The company will not follow up, black-list, or in any manner attempt to proscribe those who were concerned in the strike, but on the contrary, will cheerfully give to all who have not been guilty of violence, or other improper conduct, letters of introduction, showing their record in our service, and will in all proper ways assist them in finding employment.

In making this letter known to the public the general manager said:

"It is important that no question should arise as to the good faith of the company, and it is our desire and intention that there should be no opportunity for such question."

He even offered to shield, as far as was consistent, those who, in the heat of the fight, had committed unlawful acts. He was a generous conqueror. It was humane, and manly, and noble in him to help those unfortunate ones who were now in so much need of help, and to protect them from the persecution of the few little-souled officials who were loath to stop fighting. It is all the more creditable because he was not bound to do it. He wrote: "While men who have been guilty of improper conduct during the late strike cannot be re-employed, and while we cannot give letters to them, no officer or employee should continue the animosities of the conflict after it is over, or interfere to prevent the employment of such men elsewhere."



CHAPTER NINETEENTH

At last the agony was over—at least the agony of suspense. The poor misguided men knew now that all hope had died. They would be re-employed when the company needed them, but it was January—the dullest month in the year. Every railroad in the West was laying men off. Hundreds of the new men were standing in line waiting for business to pick up, and this line must be exhausted before any of the old employees could be taken back. The management considered that the first duty of the company was to the men who had helped to win the strike. There was no disposition on the part of the officials to make it harder for the vanquished army. They admired the loyalty and self-sacrifice, though deploring the judgment of the mismanaged men; but they were only officers in an opposing army, and so fought the fight for the interest they represented, and for the principles in which they believed.

Nothing in the history of the strike shows more conclusively that the men were out-generalled than the manner in which the company handled the press. It is not to be supposed for a moment that the daily papers of Chicago, with possibly one exception, willfully misrepresented the men, but the story of the strikers was never told. Mr. Paul, the accomplished "bureau of information," stood faithfully at the 'phone and saw that the public received no news that would embarrass the company or encourage the men. The cold, tired reporter found a warm welcome and an easy chair in Mr. Paul's private office, and while he smoked a fragrant cigar the stenographer brought in the "news" all neatly type-written and ready for the printer. Mr. Paul was a sunny soul, who, in the presence of the reporter laughed the seemingly happy laugh of the actor-man, and when alone sighed, suffered and swore as other men did. Mr. Paul was a genius. By his careful manipulation of the press the public was in time persuaded that the only question was whether the company, who owned the road, should run it, or whether the brotherhoods, who did not own it, should run it for them. Every statement given out by the company was printed and accepted, generally, as the whole thing, while only two papers in all the town pretended to print the reports issued by the strikers. The others cut them and doctored them so that they lost their point. But all is fair in love and war, and this was war—war to the knife and the knife to the hilt—so Mr. Paul should not be hated but admired, even by his foes. He was a brilliant strategist. Many there are who argue to this day that Mr. Paul won the strike for the company, but Mr. Paul says Watchem, the detective, did it. At all events they each earned the deathless hatred of the strikers. But, leaving this question open, the fact remains that the general in command—the now dead hero of that fierce fight—deserves a monument at the expense of American railroads, if, as American railroad managers argue, that war was an holy war.

There had never been a moment when the management feared defeat. They had met and measured the amateur officials who were placed in command of the strikers. They were but children in the hands of the big brainy men who were handling the company's business. They could fire a locomotive, "ride a fly," or make time on the tick of the clock. They could awe a convention of car-hands or thrill an audience at a union meeting, but they had not the experience, or mental equipment to cope with the diplomatic officials who stood for the company. Their heads had been turned by the magnitude of their position. They established themselves at a grand hotel where only high-salaried railroad officials could afford to live. They surrounded themselves with a luxury that would have been counted extravagant by the minister of many a foreign land. They dissipated the strength of the Brotherhood and wasted their substance in high living. They had gotten into clothes that did not fit them, and, saddest of all, they did not know it. The good gray chief of the Brotherhood, who was perfectly at home in the office of a president or a general manager, who knew how to meet and talk with a reporter, who was at ease either in overalls or evening dress, was kept in the background. He would sell out to the company, the deep-lunged leaders said. He could not be trusted, and so from the men directly interested in the fight the strikers chose a leader, and he led them to inglorious defeat; though defeat was inevitable.

At last, made desperate by the shadow of coming events, this man, so the officials say, issued a circular advising old employees to return to work and when out on the road to disable and destroy the company's locomotives, abandoning them where they were wrecked and ruined. The man accused of this crime declared that the circular was a forgery, committed by his secretary, who was a detective. But that the circular went out properly signed and sealed is beyond dispute, and in reply to it there came protests from hundreds of honest engine-drivers all up and down the land. The chief of a local division came to Chicago with a copy of the circular and protested so vigorously that he was expelled from the Brotherhood, to the Brotherhood's disgrace.

Smarting under what he deemed a great wrong, he gave the letter into the hands of the officials, and now whenever he secures a position the road that employs him is forced to let him go again or have a strike. He is an outcast—a vagabond, so far as the union is concerned. Ah, the scars of that conflict are deep in the souls of men. The blight of it has shadowed hundreds of happy homes, and ruined many a useful life.

With this "sal-soda" circular in their possession the managers caused the arrest of its author, charging him with conspiracy—a serious offense in Illinois.

A sunny-faced man, with big, soulful blue eyes and a blond mustache, had been living on the same floor occupied by the strike committee. He had conceived a great interest in the struggle. For a man of wealth and culture he showed a remarkable sympathy for the strikers, and so won the heart and confidence of the striker-in-chief. It was perfectly natural, then, that in the excitement incidental to the arrest, the accused should rush into the apartments of the sympathetic stranger and thrust into his keeping an armful of letters and papers.

As the officers of the law led the fallen hero away the blond man selected a number of letters and papers from the bundle, abandoned the balance and strolled forth. For weeks, months, he had been planning the capture of some of these letters, and now they had all come to him as suddenly as fame comes to a man who sinks a ship under the enemy's guns.

This blond man was a detective. His victim was a child.

Yes, the great struggle that had caused so much misery and cost so many millions was at an end, but it was worth to labor and capital all it had cost. The lesson has lasted ten years, and will last ten more.

It had been a long, bitter fight in which even the victorious had lost. They had lost at least five million dollars in wrecked and ruined rolling stock, bridges and buildings. The loss in net earnings alone was nearly five millions in the first five months of the strike that lasted nearly a year. It would cost five millions more to put the property in the same excellent condition in which the opening of hostilities had found it. It would cost another five millions to win back the confidence of the travelling and shipping public. Twenty millions would not cover the cost, directly and indirectly, to the company, for there were no end of small items—incidentals. To a single detective agency they paid two hundred thousand dollars. And there were others.

It has taken nearly ten years to restore the road to its former condition, and to man the engines as they were manned before the strike. It would have taken much longer had the owners of the property not settled upon the wise policy of promoting men who had been all their lives in the employ of the Burlington road, to fill the places as fast as they became vacant, of men—the heroes of the strike—who were now sought out by other companies for loftier positions. In this way the affairs of the company were constantly in the hands of men who had gone through it all, who could weed out the worthless among the new men, and select the best of those who had left the road at the beginning of the strike. The result is that there is scarcely an official of importance in the employ of the company to-day who has not been with it for a quarter of a century. The man who took the first engine out at the beginning of the strike—taking his life in his hands, as many believed—is now the general manager of the road.

There was something admirable, even heroic, in the action of the owners in standing calmly by while the officials melted down millions of gold. As often as a directors' meeting was called the strikers would take heart. "Surely," they would say, "when they see what it costs to fight us they will surrender." The men seem never to have understood that all this was known to the directors long before the sad news reached the public. And then, when the directors would meet and vote to stand by the president, and the president would approve and endorse all that the general manager had done, the disheartened striker would turn sadly away to break the melancholy news to a sorrowing wife, who was keeping lonely vigil in a cheerless home.



CHAPTER TWENTIETH

Dan Moran had not applied for re-employment when the strike was off, but chose rather to look for work elsewhere, and he had looked long and faithfully, and found no place. First of all he had gone west, away to the coast, but with no success. Then he swung around the southern route, up the Atlantic coast and home again. Three years,—one year with the strikers,—four years in all of idleness, and he was discouraged. "It's the curse of the prison," he used to say to his most intimate friends; "the damp of that dungeon clings to me like a plague. It's a blight from which I can't escape. Every one seems to know that I was arrested as a dynamiter, and even my old friends shun me."

He had been saying something like that to Patsy Daly the very day he returned to Chicago. They were walking down through the yards, for Patsy, who was close to the officials, had insisted upon going personally to the master-mechanic, and interceding for the old engineer who had carried him thousands of miles while the world slept, and the wild storm raged around them. Patsy had been telling the old engineer the news of the road, but was surprised that Moran should seem to know all that had taken place, the changes and promotions, the vast improvements that had been made by the company, and the rapidly growing traffic. Patsy stopped short, and looking his companion in the eye, began to laugh.

"Now what in thunder are you laughing at?" asked Moran.

"At Patsy Daly, the luny," said the conductor (Patsy had been promoted); "why, of course you know everything. I've been rooming at the house, and I remember now that she always knew just where you were at all times. Ah! ye sly old rogue—"

"Patsy," said Moran, seriously, putting up his hand as a signal for silence.

"That's all right, old man. She deserves a decent husband, but it'll be something new to her. Say, Dan, a fool has less sense than anybody, an' Patsy Daly's a fool. Here have I been at the point of making love to her myself, and only her tears and that big boy of hers have kept me from it. And all the time I thought she was wastin' water on that blatherskite of a Cowels, but I think better of her now."

"And why should she weep for any one else?" asked the old engineer.

"And why shouldn't she weep for you, Dannie? wandering up and down the earth, homeless and alone. Why I remember now. She would cry in her coffee at the mention of your name. And Dan, she's growin' prettier every day, and she's that gentle and—"

Just then the wild scream of a yard engine close behind them caused them to step aside.

"Wope!" cried a switchman, bang bang went the bell—"Look out there," yelled Patsy, for as the two pedestrians looked back they saw a drunken man reel out from among the cars. The driver of the switch-engine saw the man as the engine struck him, and, reversing, came to a quick stop and leaped to the ground.

The man lay with his lower limbs beneath the machine, and a blind driver (those broad wheels that have no flanges) resting on the pit of his stomach, holding him to the rail. The young engineer, having taken in the situation, leaped upon his engine, and was about to back off when Moran signalled him to stand still. "Don't move," said the old engineer, "he may want to say a word before he dies, and if you move that wheel he will be dead."

"Why, hello Greene, old hoss; is this you?" asked Moran, lifting the head of the unfortunate man and pushing the unkept hair back from his forehead.

Greene opened his eyes slowly, looked at his questioner, glanced all about and, as Moran lifted his head, gazed at the great wheel that had almost cut his body into two pieces. He was perfectly sober now, and asked why they didn't back up and look him over.

"We shall presently," said Moran, "only we were afraid we might hurt you. You are not in any pain now, are you?"

"No," said the man, "I don't know when I've felt more comfortable; but for all that I guess I'm clean cut in two, ain't I, Dan?"

"Oh no, not so bad as that."

"Oh yes, I guess there's no use holdin' out on me. Is the foreman here?"

"Yes, here I am, Billy."

"Billy!" said Greene, "now wouldn't that drive you to cigarettes? Billy!—why don't you call me drunken Bill? I'm used to that."

"Well, what is it, old man?" asked the foreman, bending down.

"You know this man? This is Dan Moran, the dynamiter." And the foreman of the round-house, recognizing the old engineer for the first time, held out his hand, partly to show to Moran and others that the strike was off, and partly to please the dying man.

"That's right," said Greene to the foreman, "it'll be good for you to touch an honest hand."

By this time a great crowd had gathered about the engine. Some police officers pushed in and ordered the engineer to "back away."

"An' what's it to ye?" asked Greene with contempt, for he hated the very buttons of a policeman. "It's no funeral uf yours. Ye won't grudge me a few moments with me friend, will ye? Move on ye tarrier."

The big policeman glanced about and recognizing the foreman asked why the devil he didn't "git th' felly out?"

Now a red-haired woman came to the edge of the crowd, put her bucket and scrubbing brush down, and asked what had happened.

"Drunk man under the engine," said one of the curious, snappishly. The woman knew that Greene had passed out that way only a few moments ago. She had given him a quarter and he had promised not to come back to her again, and now she put her head down and ploughed through the crowd like a football player.

"Hello Mag," said Greene, as the woman threw herself upon her knees beside him. "Here's yer money—I won't get to spend it," and he opened his clinched fist and there was the piece of silver that she had given him.

The big policeman now renewed his request to have the man taken out, but the foreman whispered something to him. "Oh! begorry, is that so? All right, all right," said the officer.

"Am I delayin' traffic?" asked Greene of the foreman. "It takes a little time to die ye know, but ye only have to do it onct."

"Have ye's anythin' to say?" asked the officer.

"Yes," said Greene, for his hatred for a policeman stayed with him to the end, "ye can do me a favor."

"An' phot is it?"

"Jist keep your nose out of this business, an' don't speak to me again till after I'm dead. Do ye mind that, ye big duffer?"

It was the first time in all his life when he could say what was on his mind to a policeman without the dread of being arrested.

"Come closer, Mag—whisper, Dan. Here, you," said Greene to the foreman, and that official bent down to catch the words which were growing fainter every moment. "I'm goin' to die. Ye mind the time ye kicked me out at the round-house? Well, ye don't need to say; I mind, an' that's sufficient. I swore to git even with the Burlington for that. I hated George Cowels because he married a woman that was too good fur 'im,—she was too good for me, for that matter. Well, when he went back on the Brotherhood and took his old engineer's job I went to this man Moran and offered to blow the engine up, and he put me out of his room. I then put the dynamite on the engine myself an' Moran followed me and took it off, and saved Cowels's life, prevented me from becoming a murderer, and went to jail. Good-by, Mag. Give me your hand Dan, old man. Back up."

The old engineer nodded to the foreman, who signalled the man on the engine, and the great wheel moved from above the body. More than one man turned his back to the machine. The woman fainted. Moran had covered the eyes of the unfortunate man with his hand, and now when he removed it slowly the man's eyes were still closed. He never moved a finger nor uttered a sound. It was as if he had suddenly fallen asleep.



CHAPTER TWENTY-FIRST

The Denver Limited had backed into the depot shed at Chicago, and was loading when the Philosopher came through the gate. He was going down to Zero Junction where he was serving the company in the capacity of station agent. Patsy Daly was taking the numbers of the cars, and at his elbow walked a poorly-dressed man, and the Philosopher knew in a moment that the man wanted to ride.

The Philosopher, with a cigar in his mouth, strolled up and down catching snatches of the man's talk. In a little while he had gathered that the anxious stranger's wife lay dying in Cheyenne, and that he had been tramping up and down the land for six months looking for work. If Patsy could give him a lift to Omaha he could work his way over the U. P. where he knew some of the trainmen, having worked on the Kansas Pacific out of Denver in the early days of the road. His story was so lifelike and pathetic that Patsy was beginning to look troubled. If he could help a fellow-creature up the long, hard hill of life—three or four hundred miles in a single night—without straining the capacity of the engine, he felt that he ought to do it.

Patsy had gone to the head end (the stranger standing respectfully apart) to ask the engineer to slow down at the Junction, and let the agent off. He hoped the man might go away and try a freight train, but as the conductor turned back the unfortunate traveller joined him.

Now the eyes of Patsy fell upon the face of the Philosopher, and a brilliant thought flashed through his mind. He marvelled, afterwards, that he had not thought of it sooner.

"Here, old man," said Patsy, "take this fellow's testimony, try his case, and let me have your opinion in nine minutes—it's just ten minutes to leaving time."

Now it was the Philosopher to whom the prospective widower rehearsed his tale of woe.

There was not much time, so the station agent at Zero began by offering the man a cigar, which was accepted. In the midst of his sorrowful story the man paused to observe a handsome woman, who was at that moment lifting her dainty, silken skirts to step into the sleeper. The Philosopher had his eyes fastened to the face of the man, and he thought he saw the man's mustache quiver as though it had been agitated by the passing of a smothered smile.

"Well," the man was saying, "we had been married only a year when I lost my place and started out to look for work."

By this time he had taken a small pocket knife from his somewhat ragged vest, clipped the end off the cigar neatly, put the cut end between his teeth, and the knife back into his pocket. Without pausing in his narrative (he knew he had but nine minutes) he held out a hand for a match. The Philosopher pretended not to notice the movement, which was graceful and perfectly natural. As they turned, up near the engine, the sorrowful man went into his vest again and brought up a small, silver match-box which he held carefully in his closed fist, but which snapped sharply, as the knife had done when he closed it.

"Excuse me," said the Philosopher, reaching for the match-box, "I've lost my fire."

The melancholy man made a move towards his vest, paused, changed his mind, and passed over his lighted cigar.

"Go on," said the examining judge, when he had got his cigar going again.

Now at each turn the Philosopher quickened his pace, and the man, eager to finish his sad story, walked beside him with a graceful, springy walk. The man's story was so like his own—so like the tale he had told to Patsy when the strikers had chased him into a box car—that his heart must have melted, had it not been for the fact that he was becoming more and more convinced, as the story grew upon him, that the man was lying. Now and then he said to himself in spite of himself, "This must be true," for there were tears in the man's voice, and yet there were things about him that must be explained before he could ride.

"Patsy," said the Philosopher, pausing before the conductor, "if you'll stand half the strain, I'll go buy a ticket for this man to Cheyenne."

"N' no," said the man, visibly affected by this unexpected generosity, "n' no, I can't let you do that. I should be glad of a ride that would cost you nothing and the company nothing; but I can't—I can't take your money," and he turned away, touching the cuff of his coat, first to his right and then to his left eye.

Patsy sighed, and the two men walked again. Five minutes more and the big engine would begin to crawl from the great shed, and the voyager began wondering whether he would be on board. The engineer was going round the engine for the last time. The fireman had spread his fire and was leaning leisurely on the arm-rest. The Pullman conductors, with clean cuffs and collars, were putting away their people. The black-faced porters were taking the measures of men as they entered the car. Here comes a gray-haired clergyman, carrying a heavy hand-satchel, and by his side an athletic looking commercial tourist.

One of the black porters glides forward, takes the light hand-grip, containing the travelling man's tooth-brush, nightshirt, and razor, and runs up the step with it.

Now a train arrives from the West, and the people who are going away look into the faces of the people who are coming home, who look neither to the right nor left, but straight ahead at the open gates, and in three minutes the empty cars are being backed away, to be washed and dusted, and made ready for another voyage. How sad and interesting would be the story of the life of a day coach. Beaten, bumped, battered, and banged about in the yards, trampled and spat upon by vulgar voyagers, who get on and off at flag stations, and finally, in a head-end collision, crushed between the heavy vestibuled sleepers and the mighty engine.

But sadder still is the story of a man who has been buffeted about and walked upon by the arrogant of this earth, and to such a story the Philosopher was now listening. The man was talking so rapidly that he almost balled up at times, and had to go back and begin again. At times it seemed to him that the Philosopher, to whom he was talking, was giving little or no attention to his tale; but he was. He was making up his mind.

It is amazing the amount of work that can be done in ten minutes, when all the world is working. Tons of trunks had passed in and out, the long platform had been peopled and depopulated twice since the two men began their walk, and now another train gave up its human freight to the already crowded city.

Now, as they went up and down, the Philosopher, at each turn, went a little nearer to the engine. Only three minutes remained to him in which to render his decision, which was to help the unhappy man a half-thousand miles on the way to his dying wife, or leave him sadder still because of the failure—to pine and ponder upon man's inhumanity to man.

Patsy, glancing now and then at the big clock on the station wall, searched the sad face of his friend and tried to read there the answer to the man's prayer.

It would be that the man should ride, he had no doubt, for this story was so like the story of this same man, the Philosopher, with which he had come into Patsy's life, and Patsy had resolved never to turn his back upon a man who was down on his luck.

The Philosopher's face was indecipherable. Finally when they had come to the turning point in the shadow of the mail car, he stopped, leaned against the corner of the tank and said: "I can't make you out, and you haven't made out your case."

"I don't follow you," said the man.

"No? Well suppose I say, for answer, that I'll let you go—sneak away up through the yards and lose yourself; provided you promise not to do it again."

"You talk in riddles. What is it that I am not to do again? You say you have hit the road yourself, and you ought to have sympathy for a fellow out o' luck."

"I have, and that's why I'm going to let you go. Your story is a sad one, and it has softened my heart. It's the story of my own life."

"Then how can you refuse me this favor, that will cost you nothing?"

"Hadn't you better go?"

"No, I want you to answer me."

"Well, to be frank with you, you are not a tramp. You've got money, and you had red wine with your supper, or your dinner, as you would say."

The man laughed, a soundless laugh, and tried to look sad.

"You've got a gold signet ring in your right trousers pocket."

The man worked his fingers and when the Philosopher thought he must have the ring in his hand, he caught hold of the man's wrist, jerked the hand from his pocket, and the ring rolled upon the platform. When the man cut off the end of his cigar the Philosopher had seen a white line around one of the fingers of the man's sea-browned hand. Real tramps, thought the Philosopher, don't cut off the ends of their cigars. They bite them off, and save the bite. They don't throw a half-smoked cigar away, but put it, burning if necessary, in their pocket.

"What do you mean?" demanded the man, indignantly.

"Pick up your ring."

"I have a mind to smash you."

"Do, and you can ride."

"You've got your nerve."

"You haven't. Why did you stare at that lady's feet, when she was climbing into the car?"

"That's not your business."

"It's all my business now."

"I'll report you for this."

The man started to walk past the big station master, but a strong hand was clapped to the man's breast pocket and when it came away it held a small pocket memorandum.

"See what's in that, Patsy," said the Philosopher, passing the book to the conductor, who had gone forward for the decision.

The man made a move, as if he would snatch the book, but the big hand at his throat twisted the flannel shirt, and choked him. Patsy, holding the book in the glare of his white light, read the record of a man who had been much away from home. He had, according to the book, ridden with many conductors, whose names were familiar to Patsy, and had, upon divers occasions, noticed that sometimes some people rode without paying fare. In another place Patsy learned that trainmen and other employees drank beer, or other intoxicating beverages. A case in point was a couple of brakemen on local who, after unloading a half-dozen reapers and a threshing machine at Mendota, had gone into a saloon with the shipper and killed their thirst.

While Patsy was gleaning this interesting information the man writhed and twisted, fought and fumed, but it was in vain, for the hand of the Philosopher was upon his throat.

"Let me go," gasped the man, "an' we'll call it square, an' I won't report you."

"Oh! how good of you."

"Let me go, I say, you big brute."

"I wanted to let you go a while ago, and you wouldn't have it."

The man pulled back like a horse that won't stand hitched and the button flew from his cheap flannel shirt.

"I'm a goat," said the Philosopher, stroking the man's chest with his big right hand, "if he hasn't got on silk underwear."

"Come now, you fellahs," said the man changing his tune, "let me go and you'll always have a friend at Court."

"Be quiet," said the Philosopher, "I'm going to let you go, but tell me, why did you want to do little Patsy, that everybody likes?"

"Because Mr. Paul was so cock sure I couldn't. He bet me a case of champagne that I couldn't ride on the Omaha Limited without paying fare."

"And now you lose the champagne."

"It looks that way."

"Poor tramp!"

Patsy had walked to the rear of the train, shouted "All aboard," and the cars were now slipping past the two men.

"Have you still a mind to smash me?"

"I may be a wolf but this is not my night to howl."

"Every dog has his day, eh?"

"Curse you."

"Good night," said the Philosopher, reaching for a passing car.

"Go to—" said the tramp, and the train faded away out over the switches.



CHAPTER TWENTY-SECOND

The old master-mechanic, who had insisted that Dan Moran was innocent, from the first, had gone away; but the new man was willing to give him an engine after the confession of Bill Greene. Having secured work the old engineer called upon the widow, for he could tell her, now, all about the dynamite. Three years had brought little change to her. She might be a little bit stouter, but she was handsomer than ever, Dan thought. The little girl, whom he remembered as a toddling infant, was a sunny child of four years. Bennie was now fourteen and was employed as caller at the round-house, and his wages, thirty dollars a month, kept up the expenses of the home. He had inherited the splendid constitution of his father with the gentleness and honesty of his mother. The foreman was very fond of him, and having been instructed by the old general manager to take good care of the boy, for his mother's sake, he had arranged to send him out firing, which would pay better, as soon as he was old enough. So Moran found the little family well, prosperous, and reasonably happy. Presently, when she could wait no longer, Mrs. Cowels asked the old engineer if he had come back to stay, and when he said he had, her face betrayed so much joy that Moran felt half embarrassed, and his heart, which had been so heavy for the past four years, gave a thump that startled him. "Oh! I'm so glad," she said earnestly, looking down and playing with her hands; and while her eyes were not upon his, Moran gazed upon the gentle face that had haunted him day and night in his three years' tramp about the world.

"Yes," he said at length, "I'm going back to the 'Q.' It's not Blackwings, to be sure, and the Denver Limited, but it's work, and that's something, for it seems to me that I can bear this idleness no longer. It's the hardest work in the world, just to have nothing to do, month in and month out, and to be compelled to do it. I can't stand it, that's all, and I'm going out on a gravel train to-morrow."

Moran remembered now that Bennie had come to him that morning in the round-house and begged the engineer to "ask for him," to go out as fireman on the gravel train, for it was really a boy's work to keep an engine hot on a side track, but he would not promise, and the boy had been greatly disappointed.

"I'd like to ask for the boy," said Moran, "with your permission. He's been at me all morning, and I'm sure the foreman won't object if you consent."