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
allow you to try it, but rather than give in to that mob out there I'll
see you through with it. Now don't you forget for one minute, that you
have twenty-three cars and a caboose trailing along behind you; that I
am on the hind end, and that I have a wife and family to support, with a
mighty small insurance on my life."
He went out, and Bennett told the cattle men to get aboard as we were
about to start. All this had been done unbeknown to any of the strikers;
but when they saw me coming down that yard with a piece of yellow tissue
paper in my hand they knew something was up, for every man of them knew
that was a train order. But where was the engineer?
I went down and climbed up in the cab of old 341, and removing my coat,
put on a jumper I had brought from the office.
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