Barry, himself, showed up in a
little while, but he didn't seem the least bit disturbed, when he found
out who I really was. He said there was a time card rule, that forbade
him allowing any unauthorized person in his office; he thought I was
some semi-respectable "hobo," who wanted a place to stay all night; how
in the world was he to know? Suppose some one else had come out and said
he was the chief despatcher, was he going to let them in the office
without some proof? I saw that this was mighty good reasoning and that
he was right. Did I fire him? Not much. Men on railroads who so
implicitly obey orders are too valuable to lose; and before I left the
road he was working the third trick.
Things ran along very smoothly for a while and I was having a good time.
The winter passed and with the advent of spring came the heavy rains for
which that part of the country was justly noted. Then the work
commenced.
One Friday evening after four or five days of the steadiest and hardest
kind of rain, I received a message from the section foreman at Truxton,
saying that Big River was beginning to come up pretty high, and that the
constant rains were making the track quite soft.
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