Careers of Danger and Daring

"Can't tell," reflected Bronson.

"I b'lieve there's such a thing as people getting drawn to a train. I don't mean by the suction, but drawn by the idea of its going so blamed fast and being so strong, especially people sick or down on their luck. Now, last year I was coming through Rye one morning, and as I struck the bridge after that reverse curve I saw two young fellows running along the No. 3 track away from me. I was on No. 1 track, so they were all right, but as I came up they both swung over to No. 1, and I cut 'em all to bits. Turned out they were a couple of lads that had tramped it down from Boston, goin' to enlist. They were weak and hungry, and I think they just gave up to the train because they couldn't help it."

"Might be," said Bronson.

"Tell ye who was the nerviest man I ever killed," went on Lewis. "Fellow in West Haven. Say, but we were coming that night! Northampton express, ye know, and a down grade over the salt meadows. First thing I knew a man was standing at the side of the track, fairly close, but not where he'd get hit. I thought he was some friend of mine in West Haven trying to make me whistle. But when I got near him, say a hundred feet away, he stepped out between the rails and stood there a few seconds with his arms lifted and a smile on his face – quite a pretty smile. Then, just as I was on him he turned and knelt between the rails. I got the brakes on quick as I could, emergency and everything, but I couldn't stop her in less than a length and a half, and – well, I guess you don't want to know what that engine looked like when I went over her."

"I know," said Bronson, "they scatter something terrible. Say, I've noticed that sort of pleasant look in their faces, too. Once I was waiting on a siding, and a man came up and spoke to me very polite, and wanted to know if I'd please give him a drink of water. I told him the water in my tank was too warm to drink, but I let him have my cup and showed him where there was a spring right near. He thanked me and walked over to it, and I watched him bend down and take two good drinks, then he brought the cup back and thanked me again.

"'Any train along here soon?' he asked.

"'Which way?' said I.

"'Don't matter which way,' said he.

"'There's an up train due now,' said I; 'she's the one I'm waiting for.'

"'Is she a fast train?' he asked.

"'Fair,' said I; ''bout fifty an hour along here.'

"'That's good,' said he, and I wondered what he meant. He seemed like a nice man.

"Pretty soon along came the up train, and I saw him run down the track to meet her. Then he stopped, faced sideways, and let himself fall square across the rails. Say, I was mighty glad I'd fixed it so he had that drink of water. That was his last drink."

"Queer how they like to be hit by a fast express," reflected Lewis, "when a slow freight would do just as well. Now, that man at West Haven, the one who took it kneeling down, he'd waited around the tracks all day – the section-gang saw him – and he wasn't doing a thing but picking out a train fast enough for him. He'd stand ready for one, but when she'd turn out to be an accommodation or something slow he'd step away. Didn't propose to shake hands with anything under fifty an hour. Mine was the first one suited him."

"Do you ever think of their faces?" I asked; "ever see them at night – the way they looked when you struck them!"

"No," said Bronson; "can't say I ever do."

Neither did Lewis. And I judge that engine-drivers are not deeply affected by these sad occurrences. Which is fortunate, for few escape them. Indeed, in going about from engine to engine I found the following dialogue repeated over and over again:

"Ever in a collision?"

"No, sir."

"Ever go off the track?"

"No, sir."

"Ever kill anybody?"

"Oh, yes. Why, only last week I struck a – " Then would follow a story of sudden death. And they all spoke in a kindly but matter-of-fact way, as if these swift executions were part of their business. And I have it from a veteran that any engine-driver would sooner hit a man than a hog, for a hog is very apt to wreck the train; a hog is worse than a horse, whereas a man makes no trouble; he simply gets killed.

Near the roaring round-house at Mott Haven is another interesting place – the "Young Men's Christian Association Car," which is not a car at all, but a dingy shed built of four cars, and serving as lunch-room, wash-room, reading-room, and sleeping-room for men of the trains. This is a homely refuge spot, where any morning we may meet engineers resting after a hard night's run or making ready to go out again. Let us drop in and join one of the groups.

Here is a man telling about the mad run "Big Arthur" made the other night down from Albany. We get just the tail of the story: "So the superintendent he ripped around about how they were twenty-seven minutes late, and Big Arthur he sat in the cab and never said a word. 'Now,' says the superintendent, rather sarcastic, 'I suppose you know this is the Empire State Express you're running?' 'Yep,' says Big Arthur. 'Well, do you know what time she's supposed to pull into the Grand Central?' 'Yep,' says Big Arthur again, and that's all he did say; but, holy smoke! how they went! Had those porters on the private car scared green! A hundred miles an hour some o' the way, and they came in on time to the dot. Oh, you can't beat these new engines with the fire-box over the trailer; but say, wasn't that great when Big Arthur snapped out 'Yep' to the old man?"

I asked if I might see Big Arthur, and one of the engineers said he'd be along pretty soon, and in the meantime he told me about the individuality of locomotives: how one is good-tempered and willing, while another is cranky; how the same locomotive will act differently at different times, just as people have whims, and how some locomotives are fated to ill luck, so that nobody wants to drive them.

"Take these ten new engines the company's just put on. They're the finest and strongest made, a whole lot better than the ones we've thought were wonders on the Empire State. They're beauties, and all exactly alike, measurements all the same; but every one of 'em has its own points, good and bad. One will go faster than another with just the same steam. One will pull a heavier load with less coal. And very likely there'll be some kind of a hoodoo on one of 'em. Takes time, though, to find out these things. It's like getting acquainted with a man."

Other men came in now, and the talk changed to accidents. I asked if an engineer plans ahead what he will do in a collision. It seemed reasonable that a man always under such menace would have settled his mind on some prospective action. But they laughed at the idea, and declared that an engineer can no more tell how he will act in an emergency than the ordinary citizen can say what he would do in a fire, or how he would meet a burglar. One engineer would jump, another would stick to his throttle, and the chances of being killed were as good one way as the other.

The mention of a burglar led one of the new-comers to tell of William Powell's adventure with some Sing Sing convicts. Powell was the oldest engineer on the New York Central. He died a year ago, and this thing happened back in the seventies. It seems there was a trestle over the track about half a mile below the Sing Sing station, and on this trestle some convicts working in the quarry used to run little cars loaded with stone and dump them into the larger cars underneath. Of course, they worked under the surveillance of well-armed guards.

On one occasion, however, four or five convicts out-witted the guards by dropping from the trestle upon the tender of a moving locomotive, and the first thing the engineer knew he was set upon by a band of desperate men, who covered him and his fireman with revolvers. At the same moment half a dozen shots rang out, and bullets came crashing through the cab sides from the guards firing at random after the fleeing engine. Altogether it was quite the reverse of pleasant for William Powell.

"Out you go now, quick!" said the convicts; "we'll run this engine ourselves."

The engine was No. 105, Powell's pride and pet, and he could not bear to have unregenerate hands laid upon her, so he spoke up very politely: "Let me run her for you, gentlemen; I'll go wherever you say."

They agreed to this, and some distance down the line left the engine and departed into the woods.

"And the joke of it was," concluded the narrator, "that the revolvers those convicts had were made of wood painted black, and couldn't shoot any more than the end of a broom! It was a big bluff, but it worked."

"Wasn't any bluff when Denny Cassin got held up at Sing Sing," said another engineer. "Convicts had revolvers all right that trip, and Denny threw up his hands same as any man would. That was twenty years ago, on old engine 89. It was right at the Sing Sing station, and three of 'em jumped into the cab all of a sudden and told Denny to open her up, and you bet he did. Then they told him to jump, and he jumped; but first he managed to fix her tank-valves so she'd pump herself full of water and stop before she'd gone far. That was Denny's great scheme, and he walked along laughing to think how mad those convicts would be in a few minutes.

"It turned out, though, that Denny spoiled a nice trap they'd laid up at Tarrytown to catch those fellows when they got there. You see, the telegraph operator wired up the line that a runaway locomotive was coming with three escaped convicts on her, and the train despatcher at Tarrytown just set the switch so the locomotive would sail plump over a twelve-foot stone embankment down into the Hudson River. That's what would have happened to those convicts if Denny had left his tank-valves alone, but, of course, 89 got water-logged long before she reached Tarrytown; she just kicked out her cylinder-ends a few miles up the track and stopped. Then the convicts climbed down and skipped away. Two of 'em got caught afterward, but there was one they never caught."

Presently somebody reported that Big Arthur was out in the round-house, getting 2994 ready to take out the Empire State. It was clear enough that Big Arthur was an important figure in the eyes of these begrimed men, and, setting forth across the yards, I came upon him presently, torch in hand, looking over his deep, purring locomotive against the dangers of the run. Another engineer by the fire-box was discussing a theory of some of the boys, that a man can run his locomotive by his sense of time as well as by a watch.

"Denny Cassin says he'd agree to take the Empire State from Albany to New York and keep her right on the dot all the way, and bring her in on the minute, just by feeling. What d' ye think of that?"

"That's possible," said Big Arthur. "A man can feel how fast he's going. He's got to judge big speed by feeling, for there ain't any speed-recorder that's much good, say above ninety miles an hour."

At the first opportunity I explained to Big Arthur and his friend that I would very much like to draw upon their experience for some thrilling incidents in engine-driving.

"Tell him about the time you went in the river," suggested Big Arthur.

"That was 'way back in '69," said the other, "when I was firing for 'Boney' Cassin, the brother of Denny. It was in winter, a bitter cold day, and the Hudson was so gorged with ice that part of the jam had squeezed over the bank and torn away our tracks. So pretty soon, when we came along with twenty-three cars of a train of merchandise, why in we went, and the old engine 'Troy' just skated ahead on her side into the river, smash through the ice, down to the bottom, and pulled thirteen cars after her.

"You couldn't see a piece of that engine above water as big as your hand, and how I got out alive is more than I know. Guess I must have jumped. Anyhow, there I was on the broken floe, and I could hear the old Troy grinding away in the river, churning up water and ice like a crazy sea-serpent. She struggled for nearly a minute before her steam was cold and her strength gone. Then she lay still, dead.

"I looked around for Boney; and at first I didn't see him. I thought he'd gone down sure, and so he had; but just as I was looking I saw a big black thing heave up through the ice, and I heard a queer cry. Well, that was Providence, sure! It seems the engine had ripped her cab clean off as she tore through the ice, and here was the cab coming up bottom side first, with Boney inside hanging on to a brace and almost dead. I hauled him out, and then we scrambled ashore over the wrecked cars. They were full of flour, and the barrels were all busted open, so by the time we reached the bank we looked like a twin Santa Claus made of paste, and three quarters drowned at that."

"But Boney stuck to his throttle," I remarked.

"Yes," said the other, "he stuck to his throttle. The boys generally do."

After this I asked Big Arthur for a story, but he assured me he couldn't think of anything special.

"Tell about that woman on Eleventh Avenue," said his friend.

"Yes," said I, "tell about her."

"Oh," said Big Arthur, "that wasn't much. I was pulling a freight train down Eleventh Avenue one day, going slow through the city, and at Thirty-fifth Street a woman turned down the track ahead of me. I whistled, but she never heard me. She was going marketing, and couldn't think of anything else. I saw I'd strike her sure – there wasn't time to stop – so I ran along the boiler-side to the pilot, and got there just as we were on her. Another second and she'd have been under the wheels. I braced myself and made a jump at the woman, and struck her back of the neck with a shove that sent her sprawling off the track, with me after her. You see, I had to jump hard or I'd have stayed on the track myself and gone under the engine."

"Did it end in a romance?" I asked.

"Romance nothing!" exclaimed Big Arthur. "That woman got up so mad – why, she called me names and clawed the skin off my face until – well, I couldn't get shaved for three weeks afterward. In about a minute, though, she cooled off, and somebody told her I'd saved her life – which I had – and then, sir, blamed if she didn't go down on her knees and try to kiss my feet, and pray I'd forgive her. Say, that's the only time I ever got prayed to."

Here Big Arthur's fireman whispered something to him, and the engineer nodded. "That's so, that's a good story," and then he told how an old lady of seventy-five saved a New York Central express some years ago at Underhill Cut, about a mile south of Garrisons.

"She's a relative of my fireman, so I know the thing's true; besides that, the company gave her three hundred dollars. You see, it all happened one winter night, and this Mrs. Groves – that's her name – was the only person near enough to do anything. She lived in a little house beside Underhill Cut, and about four o'clock in the morning she heard a frightful crash, and there was a freight train wrecked right in the cut, and cars piled up three or four deep over the tracks! She knew the express might come along any minute, and of course it was a case of everybody killed if they ever struck that smash-up. So what does she do, this little old lady, but grab up a red petticoat and a kerosene lamp, and run out as fast as she could in her bare feet, – yes, sir, and nothing on but her night-gown, – right through the snow. That's the kind of a woman she was.

"Well, she went down the track until she heard the express coming, and then she took her red petticoat and held it up in front of the lamp so as to make a red light. And, what's more, it worked! The engineer saw the danger signal, slammed on his brakes, and stopped the train a few car-lengths from the wreck. Yes, sir, only a few car-lengths!"

Big Arthur nodded thoughtfully, and climbed into the cab. It was time to go.

In ending this chapter now, and with it the present series, I venture the opinion that the men who follow these Careers of Danger and Daring – the divers, steeple-climbers, and the rest – are very little different from their fellow-men, except as they have developed certain faculties by their exercise, and established in themselves the habit of courage. They were not born with any longing to do these daring acts, nor with any particular aptitude for them. They have been guided nearly always by the drift of life and by opportunities that presented. As to fear, they have the same capacity for it that we all have, and are serene in their peril only because they feel themselves, by their patience and skill, well armed against it. The steeple-climber would be afraid to go down in a diving-suit, the lion-tamer would be afraid to go up in a balloon, the pilot would be afraid to swing on the flying-bars, and so on.

I will even go further, and say that the average good citizen who is sound of body has as great capacity for courage as any of these men. He could develop it if he cared to; he would develop it if he had to. That is the main point, after all: these men must be brave, they must conquer their fear, and the only trouble with the average man is that nothing ever occurs to show him and those who know him what fine things he could do if the pressure were put upon him. Yet any day the test may come to any one of us – pain to bear, losses to bear, bereavement to bear. And then the great test.

Well, perhaps these humble heroes whose lives we have glanced at may give us a bit of their spirit for our own lives, the brave and patient spirit that will keep us unflinchingly at the hard thing, whatever it be, until we have conquered it. And perhaps we too may feel impelled to cultivate the habit of courage. That would be a fine inspiration indeed, and I can only hope that my readers may feel it.