I hustled around for a room and made my peace with the boarding-house
people before I reported to break in the big consolidation that was to
fall to my care.
She was big and black and ugly and new, and her fresh fire made the
asphalt paint on her fire-box and front-end stink in that peculiar and
familiar way given to recently rebuilt engines; but it smelt better to
me than all the perfumes of Arabia.
A good-natured engineer came out on the ash-pit track to welcome me to
the West and the road, and incidentally to remark that it was a great
relief to the gang that I had come as I did.
"Why," I asked, "are you so short-handed that you are doubling and
trebling?" "No, but they are afraid that some of 'em will have to take
out the 'III'--she is a holy terror."
Hadn't she been burned the first trip? Didn't she kill Jim O'Neil with
the reverse lever? Hadn't she lain down on the bed of the Arkansas river
and wallowed on "Scar Face" Hopkins, and he not up yet? Hadn't she run
away time and again without cause or provocation?
But a fellow that has needed a job for six months will tackle almost
anything, and I tackled the "holy terror.
Pages:
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87