The Nerve of Foley Part 3

He tossed the baby the higher; he looked the happier; he shouted the louder.

"The deuce it is! Well, son, I'm mighty glad of it." And I certainly was glad.

In fact, mighty glad, as Foley expressed it, when we pulled up at the depot, and I saw Andy Cameron with a wicked look pus.h.i.+ng to the front through the threatening crowd. With an ugly growl he made for Foley.

"I've got business with you--you--"

"I've got a little with you, son," retorted Foley, stepping leisurely down from the cab. "I struck a buggy back here at the first cut, and I hear it was yours." Cameron's eyes began to bulge. "I guess the outfit's damaged some--all but the boy. Here, kid," he added, turning for me to hand him the child, "here's your dad."

The instant the youngster caught sight of his parent he set up a yell.

Foley, laughing, pa.s.sed him into his astonished father's arms before the latter could say a word. Just then a boy, running and squeezing through the crowd, cried to Cameron that his horse had run away from the house with the baby in the buggy, and that Mrs. Cameron was having a fit.

Cameron stood like one daft--and the boy catching sight of the baby that instant panted and stared in an idiotic state.

"Andy," said I, getting down and laying a hand on his shoulder, "if these fellows want to kill this man, let them do it alone--you'd better keep out. Only this minute he has saved your boy's life."

The sweat stood out on the big engineer's forehead like dew. I told the story. Cameron tried to speak; but he tried again and again before he could find his voice.

"Mate," he stammered, "you've been through a strike yourself--you know what it means, don't you? But if you've got a baby--" he gripped the boy tighter to his shoulder.

"I have, partner; three of 'em."

"Then you know what this means," said Andy, huskily, putting out his hand to Foley. He gripped the little man's fist hard, and, turning, walked away through the crowd.

Somehow it put a damper on the boys. Bat Nicholson was about the only man left who looked as if he wanted to eat somebody; and Foley, slinging his blouse over his shoulder, walked up to Bat and tapped him on the shoulder.

"Stranger," said he, gently, "could you oblige me with a chew of tobacco?"

Bat glared at him an instant; but Foley's nerve won.

Flus.h.i.+ng a bit, Bat stuck his hand into his pocket; took it out; felt hurriedly in the other pocket, and, with some confusion, acknowledged he was short. Felix Kennedy intervened with a slab, and the three men fell at once to talking about the accident.

A long time afterwards some of the striking engineers were taken back, but none of those who had been guilty of actual violence. This barred Andy Cameron, who, though not worse than many others, had been less prudent; and while we all felt sorry for him after the other boys had gone to work, Lancaster repeatedly and positively refused to reinstate him.

Several times, though, I saw Foley and Cameron in confab, and one day up came Foley to the superintendent's office, leading little Andy, in his overalls, by the hand. They went into Lancaster's office together, and the door was shut a long time.

When they came out little Andy had a piece of paper in his hand.

"Hang on to it, son," cautioned Foley; "but you can show it to Mr. Reed if you want to."

The youngster handed me the paper. It was an order directing Andrew Cameron to report to the master-mechanic for service in the morning.

I happened over at the round-house one day nearly a year later, when Foley was showing Cameron a new engine, just in from the East. The two men were become great cronies; that day they fell to talking over the strike.

"There was never but one thing I really laid up against this man," said Cameron to me.

"What's that?" asked Foley.

"Why, the way you shoved that pistol into my face the first night you took out No. 1."

"I never shoved any pistol into your face." So saying, he stuck his hand into his pocket with the identical motion he used that night of the strike, and levelled at Andy, just as he had done then--a plug of tobacco. "That's all I ever pulled on you, son; I never carried a pistol in my life."

Cameron looked at him, then he turned to me, with a tired expression:

"I've seen a good many men, with a good many kinds of nerve, but I'll be splintered if I ever saw any one man with all kinds of nerve till I struck Foley."

Second Seventy-Seven

It is a bad grade yet. But before the new work was done on the river division, Beverly Hill was a terror to trainmen.

On rainy Sundays old switchmen in the Zanesville yards still tell in their shanties of the night the Blackwood bridge went out and Cameron's stock-train got away on the hill, with the Denver flyer caught at the foot like a rat in a trap.

Ben Buckley was only a big boy then, braking on freights; I was dispatching under Alex Campbell on the West End. Ben was a tall, loose-jointed fellow, but gentle as a kitten; legs as long as pinch-bars, yet none too long, running for the Beverly switch that night. His great chum in those days was Andy Cameron. Andy was the youngest engineer on the line. The first time I ever saw them together, Andy, short and chubby as a duck, was dancing around, half dressed, on the roof of the bath-house, trying to get away from Ben, who had the fire-hose below, playing on him with a two-inch stream of ice-water.

They were up to some sort of a prank all the time.

June was usually a rush month with us. From the coast we caught the new crop j.a.pan teas and the fall importations of China silks. California still sent her fruits, and Colorado was beginning cattle s.h.i.+pments. From Wyoming came sheep, and from Oregon steers; and all these not merely in car-loads, but in solid trains. At times we were swamped. The overland traffic alone was enough to keep us busy; on top of it came a great movement of grain from Nebraska that summer, and to crown our troubles a rate war sprang up. Every man, woman, and child east of the Mississippi appeared to have but one object in life--that was to get to California, and to go over our road. The pa.s.senger traffic burdened our resources to the last degree.

I was putting on new men every day then. We start them at braking on freights; usually they work for years at that before they get a train.

But when a train-dispatcher is short on crews he must have them, and can only press the best material within reach. Ben Buckley had not been braking three months when I called him up one day and asked him if he wanted a train.

"Yes, sir, I'd like one first rate. But you know I haven't been braking very long, Mr. Reed," said he, frankly.

"How long have you been in the train service?"

I spoke brusquely, though I knew, without even looking at my service-card just how long it was.

"Three months, Mr. Reed."

It was right to a day.

"I'll probably have to send you out on 77 this afternoon." I saw him stiffen like a ramrod. "You know we're pretty short," I continued.

"Yes, sir."

"But do you know enough to keep your head on your shoulders and your train on your orders?"

Ben laughed a little. "I think I do. Will there be two sections to-day?"

"They're loading eighteen cars of stock at Ogalalla; if we get any hogs off the Beaver there will be two big sections. I shall mark you up for the first one, anyway, and send you out right behind the flyer. Get your badge and your punch from Carpenter--and whatever you do, Buckley, don't get rattled."

"No, sir; thank you, Mr. Reed."