hat was the situation. I could see that Brown was up on his hind
legs about it, but it made me tired, all the same. Of course the job had
to be done, but I wasn't letting him have any satisfaction. I told him
he ought to give it to somebody else, and he handed me a lot of stuff
about my experience. Finally I said: 'You come around in the morning,
Mr. Brown. I ain't had any sleep to speak of for three weeks. I lost
thirty-two pounds,' I said, 'and I ain't going to be bothered to-night.'
Well, sir, he kind of shook his head, but he went away, and I got to
thinking about it. Long about half-past seven I went down and got a
time-table. There was a train to Stillwater at eight-forty-two."

"That night?"

"Sure. I went over to the shops with an express wagon and got a thousand
feet of rope--had it in two coils so I could handle it--and just made
the train. It was a mean night. There was some rain when I started, but
you ought to have seen it when I got to Stillwater--it was coming down
in layers, and mud that sucked your feet down halfway to your knees.
There wasn't a wagon anywhere around the station, and the agent wouldn't
lift a finger. It was blind dark. I walked off the end of the platform,
and went plump into a mudhole. I waded up as far as the street crossing,
where there was an electric light, and ran across a big lumber yard, and
hung around until I found the night watchman. He was pretty near as mean
as the station agent, but he finally let me have a wheelbarrow for half
a dollar, and told me how to get to the job.

"He called it fifty rods, but it was a clean mile if it was a step, and
most of the way down the track. I wheeled her back to the station, got
the rope, and started out. Did you ever try to shove two five hundred
foot coils over a mile of crossties? Well, that's what I did. I scraped
off as much mud as I could, so I could lift my feet, and bumped over
those ties till I thought the teeth were going to be jarred clean out of
me. After I got off the track there was a stretch of mud that left the
road by the station up on dry land.

"There was a fool of a night watchman at the power plant--I reckon he
thought I was going to steal the turbines, but he finally let me in, and
I set him to starting up the power while I cleaned up Murphy's job and
put in the new rope."

"All by yourself?" asked Peterson.

"Sure thing. Then I got her going and she worked smooth as grease. When
we shut down and I came up to w