The Nerve of Foley, and Other Railroad Stories. Spearman Frank Hamilton
week earlier I should have risen and fallen on his neck. But there had been others.
"There's a show to get your head broke," I suggested.
"I don't mind that, if I get my time."
"What do you know about running an engine?"
"Run one three years."
"On a threshing-machine?"
"On the Philadelphia and Reading."
"Who sent you in here?"
"Just dropped in."
"Sit down."
I eyed him sharply as he dropped into a chair.
"When did you quit the Philadelphia and Reading?"
"About six months ago."
"Fired?"
"Strike."
I began to get interested. After a few more questions I took him into the superintendent's office. But at the door I thought it well to drop a hint.
"Look here, my friend, if you're a spy you'd better keep out of this. This man would wring your neck as quick as he'd suck an orange. See?"
"Let's tackle him, anyhow," replied the fellow, eying me coolly.
I introduced him to Mr. Lancaster, and left them together. Pretty soon the superintendent came into my office.
"What do you make of him, Reed?" said he.
"What do you make of him?"
Lancaster studied a minute.
"Take him over to the round-house and see what he knows."
I walked over with the new find, chatting warily. When we reached a live engine I told him to look it over. He threw off his coat, picked up a piece of waste, and swung into the cab.
"Run her out to the switch," said I, stepping up myself.
He pinched the throttle, and we steamed slowly out of the house. A minute showed he was at home on an engine.
"Can you handle it?" I asked, as he shut off after backing down to the round-house.
"You use soft coal," he replied, trying the injector. "I'm used to hard. This injector is new to me. Guess I can work it, though."
"What did you say your name was?"
"I didn't say."
"What is it?" I asked, curtly.
"Foley."
"Well, Foley, if you have as much sense as you have gall you ought to get along. If you act straight, you'll never want a job again as long as you live. If you don't, you won't want to live very long."
"Got any tobacco?"
"Here, Baxter," said I, turning to the round-house foreman, "this is Foley. Give him a chew, and mark him up to go out on 77 to-night. If he monkeys with anything around the house kill him."
Baxter looked at Foley, and Foley looked at Baxter; and Baxter not getting the tobacco out quick enough, Foley reminded him he was waiting.
We didn't pretend to run freights, but I concluded to try the fellow on one, feeling sure that if he was crooked he would ditch it and skip.
So Foley ran a long string of empties and a car or two of rotten oranges down to Harvard Junction that night, with one of the dispatchers for pilot. Under my orders they had a train made up at the junction for him to bring back to McCloud. They had picked up all the strays in the yards, including half a dozen cars of meat that the local board of health had condemned after it had laid out in the sun for two weeks, and a car of butter we had been shifting around ever since the beginning of the strike.
When the strikers saw the stuff coming in next morning behind Foley they concluded I had gone crazy.
"What do you think of the track, Foley?" said I.
"Fair," he replied, sitting down on my desk. "Stiff hill down there by Zanesville."
"Any trouble to climb it?" I asked, for I had purposely given him a heavy train.
"Not with that car of butter. If you hold that butter another week it will climb a hill without any engine."
"Can you handle a passenger-train?"
"I guess so."
"I'm going to send you west on No. 1 to-night."
"Then you'll have to give me a fireman. That guy you sent out last night is a lightning-rod-peddler. The dispatcher threw most of the coal."
"I'll go with you myself, Foley. I can give you steam. Can you stand it to double back to-night?"
"I can stand it if you can."
When I walked into the round-house in the evening, with a pair of overalls on, Foley was in the cab getting ready for the run.
Neighbor brought the Flyer in from the East. As soon as he had uncoupled and got out of the way we backed down with the 448. It was the best engine we had left, and, luckily for my back, an easy steamer. Just as we coupled to the mail-car a crowd of strikers swarmed out of the dusk. They were in an ugly mood, and when Andy Cameron and Bat Nicholson sprang up into the cab I saw we were in for trouble.
"Look here, partner," exclaimed Cameron, laying a heavy hand on Foley's shoulder; "you don't want to take this train out, do you? You wouldn't beat honest working-men out of a job?"
"I'm not beating anybody out of a job. If you want to take out this train, take it out. If you don't, get out of this cab."
Cameron was nonplussed. Nicholson, a surly brute, raised his fist menacingly.
"See here, boss," he growled, "we won't stand no scabs on this line."
"Get out of this cab."
"I'll promise you you'll never get out of it alive, my buck, if you ever get into it again," cried Cameron, swinging down. Nicholson followed, muttering angrily. I hoped we were out of the scrape, but, to my consternation, Foley, picking up his oil-can, got right down behind them, and began filling his cups without the least attention to anybody.
Nicholson sprang on him like a tiger. The onslaught was so sudden that they had him under their feet in a minute. I jumped down, and Ben Buckley, the conductor, came running up. Between us we gave the little fellow a life. He squirmed out like a cat, and backed instantly up against the tender.
"One at a time, and come on," he cried, hotly. "If it's ten to one, and on a man's back at that, we'll do it different." With a quick, peculiar movement of his arm he drew a pistol, and, pointing it squarely at Cameron, cried, "Get back!"
I caught a flash of his eye through the blood that streamed down his face. I wouldn't have given a switch-key for the life of the man who crowded him at that minute. But just then Lancaster came up, and before the crowd realized it we had Foley, protesting angrily, back in the cab again.
"For Heaven's sake, pull out of this before there's bloodshed, Foley," I cried; and, nodding to Buckley, Foley opened the choker.
It was a night run and a new track to him. I tried to fire and pilot both, but after Foley suggested once or twice that if I would tend to the coal he would tend to the curves I let him find them – and he found them all, I thought, before we got to Athens. He took big chances in his running, but there was a superb confidence in his bursts of speed which marked the fast runner and the experienced one.
At Athens we had barely two hours to rest before doubling back. I was never tired in my life till I struck the pillow that night, but before I got it warm the caller routed me out again. The East-bound Flyer was on time, or nearly so, and when I got into the cab for the run back, Foley was just coupling on.
"Did you get a nap?" I asked, as we pulled out.
"No; we slipped an eccentric coming up, and I've been under the engine ever since. Say, she's a bird, isn't she? She's all right. I couldn't run her coming up; but I've touched up her valve motion a bit, and I'll get action on her as soon as it's daylight."
"Don't mind getting action on my account, Foley; I'm shy on life insurance."
He