The Little Gold Miners of the Sierras | Page 8

hes got to make up to him for what he loses in not bein' strong an' like
other chillren. Mother--she's disposed to spile him jest a leetle. But dear
me! what a fustrate fault that is in a woman! She did look good in that
ere red neck-tie, to-night, an' she was always pretty."
The rain was fine and close, like a slanting mist that pierced the pores,
when the Express drew out of the station, and as it fell, it froze. Stokes
growled that "the track would be one glare of ice before they got Her
in." He was inclined to be surly to-night, an uncommon circumstance
with the young fellow, and after several attempts to enliven him, Top,
Senior, let him alone. He was not in a talkative mood himself. The
tea-table chat ran in his head and set him to dreaming and calculating.
In five years Junior would be seventeen--old enough, even for a lad

who was "not strong," to earn his living. If all went well, there ought to
be a hundred and fifty dollars in the bank by then. There might be
something in Mother's idea of setting him up as a florist. And Mother
could help with the flowers.
"Hello! ole feller! look out!"
Stokes had stumbled over the fuel in the tender, in replenishing the
boiler-fires. He recovered himself with an oath at the "slippery
rubbish." Something had upset his temper, but he neither spoke nor
looked like a man who had been drinking. The teazing, chilling drizzle
continued. The headlight of the locomotive glanced sharply from
glazed rails and embankments; the long barrel-back of the engine shone
as with fresh varnish.
"D'ye know that on a night like this She beats out the tune o' Home,
Sweet Home, 's plain as ever you heerd a band play it?" said Top,
Senior, cheerily out of the thickening damps. "It makes me see Mother
'n the boy clear 's ken be. It's a great thing fur a man to hev a
comfortable home, 'n a good woman in it!"
Stokes burst out vehemently at that: "This is worse than a dog's life!
We--you 'n me--are no more to them selfish creturs in there"--nodding
backwards at the passenger cars--"then the ingine that draws 'em. I'm
sick o' freezin' an' slavin' an' bein' despised by men no better 'n I be!
How a man of any sperrit 'n' ambition ken stan' it fur twenty years as
you hev, beats my onderstandin'."
He will always remember the pause that prefaced the reply, and how
Top, Senior, patted the polished lever under his hand as he spoke:
"She's a pretty respectable cretur, take Her all in all. When you 'n I run
into the las' dark deepo that's waitin' fur us at the end, I hope we'll be
able to show's good stiffikits as hern. Here's the bridge! Will be soon
home, now."
It was a long bridge, built far out to be above high tides. As they
touched it the furnace-door flew open. Some said, afterwards, that the
door was not properly secured, others spoke of a "back-draught," others

suspected that the fire was over-fed. The volume of flame that leaped
out licked the very faces of the two men. They recoiled with a bound
and made a simultaneous rush for the air-brake in the forward
passenger-car to stop the train and check the backward sweep of the
blaze. The passengers, seeing the flash and hearing the whistle and
shouts of "Down brakes!" pressed against the front windows and a
dense living mass blocked the door against which Topliffe Briggs flung
all his weight.
[Illustration: HE HELD FAST!]
"Git in ef you ken," he said to the fireman. "I'll try Her!" He fastened
the shaggy great-coat up to his chin as he faced the pursuing fires,
walked forward to the stand where lapped and curled the fiercest flames,
laid hold of steam-brake and the lever by which he "drove" the engine.
His fur-lined gauntlets scorched and shrivelled as he grasped the bar;
the fire seized upon his hair and garments with an exultant roar. He
held fast. He must get the passengers off the floorless bridge that might
ignite at any moment. He must check the engine as soon as he cleared
the last pier, or the cars would take fire before they could be uncoupled.
He shut his eyes from the maddening heat and glare, and drove straight
on. Not so fast as to hurry the greedy flames that were doing their worst
upon him, but at a rate that ran them over the river and upon solid earth
as the fuel in the tender burst into a blaze and the forward car began to
crackle and smoke in the hot draught. At that point steam and
air-brakes