e stood around hanging on in hopes
something would turn up to relieve the strain.

Now, it had occurred to me that I could run that engine. When I was
young and fresh in the railroad business, I had spent much of my spare
time riding around on switch engines, and once in a while I had taken a
run out over the road with an engineer who had a friendly interest in
me. One man, old Tom Robinson, who pulled a fast freight, had been
particularly kind to me, and on one occasion I had taken a few days' lay
off, and gone out and back one whole trip with him. Being of an
inquisitive turn of mind, I asked him a great many questions about
gauges, valves, oil cups, eccentrics, injectors, etc., and whenever he
would go down under his engine, I always paid the closest attention to
what he did. I used to ride on the right hand side of the cab with him,
and occasionally he would allow me to feel the throttle for a few
minutes. Thus, when I was a little older, I could run an engine quite
well. I knew the oil cups, could work the injector, knew enough to open
and close the cylinder cocks, could toot the whistle and ring the bell
like an old timer, and had a pretty fair idea, generally speaking, of
the machine. Having all these things in mind, I approached Mr. Hebron,
as he stood cogitating upon his ill-luck, and said, "Mr. Hebron, I'll
run this train into Chaminade if you will only get some one to keep the
engine hot."

"You," said Hebron, "you are a despatcher; what the devil do you know
about running a locomotive?"

I told him I might not know much, but if he would say the word I would
get those twenty-three cars into Chaminade, or know the reason why. He
looked at me for a minute, asked me a few questions about what I knew of
an engine and then said,

"By George! I'll risk it. Get on that engine, my boy; take this one
wiper left for a fireman, and pull out. But first go over to the office
for your orders. You won't need many, because everything is tied up
between here and Johnsonville, and you will have a clear track. Now fly,
and let me see what kind of stuff you are made of."

Strangely enough, after he had consented I was not half so eager to
undertake it; but I had said I would and now I must stick to my word, or
acknowledge that I was a big bluffer. I went up to the office and Fred
Bennett gave me the orders. But as he did so he said: "Bates, that's a
foolhardy thing for you to do, and I reckon the old man must be crazy to
a