ull moon. But it comes
gradually, without much jumping or wavering. This light danced and
flashed like a great white diamond. I watched it with a certain
fascination, and as it came nearer and nearer, realized that here was a
train of different kind from the others, coming down on us at terrific
speed. And Bullard shouted: "Number--8--with--the--mail." Then added, as
the train passed like the gleam of a knife: "She's--going--too."

II

WE PICK UP SOME ENGINE LORE AND HEAR ABOUT THE DEATH OF GIDDINGS

THE next day, with comfortable rocking-chairs to sit in and a row of
hotel windows before us, Bullard and I found time for engine chat, and I
was well content. First I asked him about putting his head out of the
cab window there at Greggs Hill and elsewhere. "Was it to see better?"
said I.

"No," said Bullard; "it was to hear better and to smell better."

"Hear what? Smell what?"

"Hear the noises of the engine. If any little thing was working wrong,
I'd hear it. If there was any wear on the bearings, I'd hear it. Why, if
a mouse squeaked somewhere inside of 590, I guess I'd hear it."

Then he went on to explain that the ordinary roar of the engine, which
drowned everything for me, was to him an unimportant background of sound
that made little impression, and left his ears free for other sounds.

"I get so accustomed to listening to an engine," he added, "that often
up home, talking with my wife and child, I find myself trying to hear
sounds from the round-house. And, after a run, I talk to people as if
they were deaf."

"You spoke about smelling better."

"That's right. I can smell a hot box in a minute, or oil burning. All
engineers can. Why, there was--"

This led to the story of poor Giddings, killed on 590 three years before
through this very necessity of putting his head out of the cab window.
Giddings had Bullard's place, and was one of the most trusted men in the
Burlington employ.

"You saw last night," said Bullard, "how the boiler in 590 shuts off the
engineer from the fireman. And prob'ly you noticed those posts along the
road that hold the tell-tale strings. They're to warn crews on
freight-car tops when it is time to duck for bridges. Well, Giddings was
coming along one night between Biggsville and Gladstone--that's about
ten miles before you get to the Mississippi. He was driving her fast to
make up time, sixty miles an hour easy, and he put his head out to hear
and to smell, the way I'