lways took the siding and saluted
Blackwings as she swept by majestically with the Limited.

More than once Moran had refused promotion that would take him from his
engine--from the open fields and free, wide world in which they lived
and moved together--to the cares and anxieties of a stuffy office. He
had been contented and happy with Blackwings, his books and his
briar-root pipe. He did not share the troubles of his less fortunate
brothers, who hugged and exaggerated their grievances until they became,
to them, unbearable. But when they quit he climbed down, took off his
overclothes, folded them carefully and carried them away with him. He
had nothing to gain by the strike, but he had much to lose by remaining
at his post--the confidence and respect of his fellow-toilers. Besides
he, in common with the rest, regarded the classification of engineers as
unfair to the men and to the travelling public. If a man were competent
to handle a passenger train, said the strikers, he ought to have
first-class pay. If he were incompetent he ought to be taken off, for
thousands of lives were in the hands of the engineer during the three
years through which, at reduced pay, he was becoming competent. These
were the arguments advanced by the men. This business upon the one hand,
and a deep longing upon the part of the management to learn just how far
the men could go in the way of dictating to the officials, in fixing the
load for a locomotive, and the pay of employees, caused the company,
after years of sparing, to undertake the chastisement of the Brotherhood
of Locomotive Engineers.[3]

[3] _The Burlington officials claim that, by resolutions in the lodge
room at Lincoln, the engineers fixed the load for certain classes of
engines, together with the penalty for pulling more. They argue that if
allowed to do this the men would want to make the time-cards and fix
freight rates. They certainly had as much right to do the one as the
other._

It is to be presumed that the generals, colonels and captains in the two
armies fought for what they considered right. At all events they were
loyal and obedient to their superiors. But each had found a foe vastly
more formidable than had been expected. They had not dreamed that the
fight could become so bitter. Life-long friends became enemies. Family
ties were severed, homes were ruined, men's lives were wrecked, women's
hearts were broken, and out of the shadow of the awful strife came men