ired railway president with plenty of time to talk.

"We had, on the Vandalia," he began after lighting a fresh cigar, "a
dare-devil driver named Hubbard--'Yank' Hubbard they called him. He was
a first-class mechanic, sober and industrious, but notoriously reckless,
though he had never had a wreck. The Superintendent of Motive Power had
selected him for the post of master-mechanic at Effingham, but I had
held him up on account of his bad reputation as a wild rider.

"We had been having a lot of trouble with California fruit
trains,--delays, wrecks, cars looted while in the ditch,--and I had made
the delay of a fruit train almost a capital offence. The bulletin was, I
presume, rather severe, and the enginemen and conductors were not taking
it very well.

"One night the White Mail was standing at the station at East St. Louis
(that was before the first bridge was built) loading to leave. My car
was on behind, and I was walking up and down having a good smoke. As I
turned near the engine, I stopped to watch the driver of the White Mail
pour oil in the shallow holes on the link-lifters without wasting a
drop. He was on the opposite side of the engine, and I could see only
his flitting, flickering torch and the dipping, bobbing spout of his
oiler.

"A man, manifestly another engineer, came up. The Mail driver lifted his
torch and said, 'Hello, Yank,' to which the new-comer made no direct
response. He seemed to have something on his mind. 'What are you out
on?' asked the engineer, glancing at the other's overalls. 'Fast
freight--perishable--must make time--no excuse will be taken,' he
snapped, quoting and misquoting from my severe circular. 'Who's in that
Kaskaskia?' he asked, stepping up close to the man with the torch.

"'The ol' man,' said the engineer.

"'No! ol' man, eh? Well! I'll give him a canter for his currency this
trip,' said Yank, gloating. 'I'll follow him like a scandal; I'll stay
with him this night like the odor of a hot box. Say, Jimmie,' he
laughed, 'when that tintype of yours begins to lay down on you, just
bear in mind that my pilot is under the ol' man's rear brake-beam, and
that the headlight of the 99 is haunting him.'

"'Don't get gay, now,' said the engineer of the White Mail.

"'Oh, I'll make him think California fruit is not all that's perishable
on the road to-night,' said Yank, hurrying away to the round-house.

"Just as we were about to pull out, our engineer, who was brother to
Yank,