in. I have
yet to see a man who has worked at the business for any length of time
who could give it up entirely. It's like the opium habit--powerful hard
to break off. I have never since tried to lose sight of it.

In 189- one of those spasmodic upheavals known as a sympathetic strike
spread over the country like wild fire, and it wasn't long before the
continuance of law and order was entirely out of the hands of the state
authorities in about ten states, and once more the faithful little army
was called out to put its strong hand on the throat of destruction and
pillage. Troops were hurriedly despatched from all posts to the worst
points and the inefficient state militia in several states relegated to
its proper sphere--that of holding prize drills and barbecues.

Owing to the fact that the army cannot be used until a state executive
acknowledges his inability to preserve law and order, and owing also to
the fact that the executives in one or two of the states were pandering
to the socialistic element, saying they could enforce the laws without
the assistance of the army, this strike had spread until the entire
country except the extreme east and southeast was in its strong grasp,
and the work cut out for the army was doled out to it in great big
chunks. Men seemed to lose all their senses and the emissaries of the
union succeeded in getting many converts, each one of which paid the sum
of one dollar to the so-called head of the union. Snap for the aforesaid
"head," wasn't it? It was positively refreshing to the army at this time
to have at its head a man who did not know what it was to pander to the
socialists, and one who would enforce his solemn oath, "To enforce the
laws of the United States," at all hazards. United States mail trains
were being interfered with; the Inter-State Commerce law was being
violated with impunity, and various other acts of vandalism and pillage
were being committed all over the land--and the municipal and state
authorities "winked the other eye."

Way out in one of the far western posts was a certain Lieutenant Jack
Brainerd, 31st U. S. Infantry, serving with his company. Jack was a big,
whole-souled, impulsive chap, and before his entrance to the military
academy, had been a pretty fair operator. In fact, being the son of a
general superintendent of one of the big trunk lines, he was quite
familiar with a railroad, and could do almost anything from driving a
spike, or throwing a swit