A LOCOMOTIVE HERO.

Well, boys, if you wish it, I'll tell you the story. When I was a youth of eighteen, and lived with my parents, I had a boyish ambition to become an engineer, although I had been educated for loftier pursuits.

During my college vacation, I constantly lounged about the station, making friends with the officials, and especially with an engineer named Silas Markley. I became much attached to this man, although he was forty years of age and by no means a sociable fellow.

He was my ideal of a brave, skillful, thoroughbred engineer, and I looked up to him as something of a hero. He was not a married man, but lived alone with his old mother. I was a frequent visitor at their house, and I think they both took quite a fancy to me in their quiet, undemonstrative way.

When this Markley's fireman left him, I induced him to let me take his place during the remainder of my vacation. He hesitated for some time before he consented to humor my boyish whim; but he finally yielded, and I was in great glee.

The fact was that, in my idleness and the overworked state of my brain, I craved for the excitement, and, besides, I had such longing dreams of the fiery ride through the hills, mounted literally on the iron horse. So I became an expert fireman, and liked it exceedingly; for the excitement more than compensated for the rough work I was required to do.

But there came a time when I got my fill of excitement. Mrs. Markley one day formed a plan which seemed to give her a good deal of happiness. It was her son's birthday, and she wanted to go down to Philadelphia in the train without letting him know anything about it, and there purchase a present for him. She took me into her confidence, and asked me to assist her. I arranged the preliminaries, got her into the train without being noticed by Markley, who, of course, was busy with his engine.

The old lady was in high glee over the bit of innocent deception she was practicing on her son. She enjoined me again not to tell Silas, and then I left her and took my place.

It was a midsummer day, and the weather was delightful.

The train was one which stopped at the principal stations on the route. On this occasion, as there were two specials on the line, it was run by telegraph—that is, the engineer has simply to obey the instructions which he receives at each station, so that he is put as a machine in the hands of one controller, who directs all trains from a central point, and thus has the whole line under his eye. If the engineer does not obey to the least tittle his orders, it is destruction to the whole.

Well, we started without mishap, and up to time, and easily reached the first station in the time allotted to us. As we stopped there, a boy ran alongside with the telegram, which he handed to the engineer. The next moment I heard a smothered exclamation from Markley.

"Go back," he said to the boy; "tell Williams to have the message repeated; there's a mistake."

The boy dashed off; in a few minutes he came flying back.

"Had it repeated," he panted. "Williams is storming at you; says there's no mistake, and you'd best get on."

He thrust the second message up as he spoke.

Markley read it, and stood hesitating for half a minute.

There was dismay and utter perplexity in the expression of his face as he looked at the telegram and the long train behind him. His lips moved as if he were calculating chances, and his eyes suddenly quailed as if he saw death at the end of the calculation. I was watching him with considerable curiosity. I ventured to ask him what was the matter, and what he was going to do.

"I'm going to obey," he said curtly.

The engine gave a long shriek of horror that made me start as if it were Markley's own voice. The next instant we slipped out of the station and dashed through low-lying farms at a speed which seemed dangerous to me.

"Put in more coal," said Markley.

I shoveled in more, but took time.

"We are going very fast, Markley."

He did not answer. His eyes were fixed on the steam gauge, his lips close shut.

"More coal," he said.

I threw it in. The fields and houses began to fly past half-seen. We were nearing Dufreme, the next station. Markley's eyes went from the gauge to the face of the timepiece and back. He moved like an automaton. There was little more meaning in his face.

"More!" he said, without turning his eye.

"Markley, do you know you are going at the rate of sixty miles an hour?"

"Coal!"

I was alarmed at the stern, cold rigidity of the man. His pallor was becoming frightful. I threw in the coal. At least we must stop at Dufreme. That was the next halt. The little town was approaching. As the first house came into view the engine sent its shrieks of warning; it grew louder—still louder.

We dashed over the switches, up to the station, where a group of passengers waited, and passed it without the halt of an instant, catching a glimpse of the appalled faces and the waiting crowd. Then we were in the fields again. The speed now became literally breathless, the furnace glared red hot. The heat, the velocity, the terrible nervous strain of the man beside me seemed to weight the air. I found myself drawing long, stertorous breaths, like one drowning.

I heaped in the coal at intervals as he bade me. I did it because I was oppressed by an odd sense of duty which I never had in my ordinary brainwork. Since then I have understood how it is that dull, ignorant men, without a spark of enthusiasm, show such heroism as soldiers, firemen, and captains of wrecked vessels.

It is this overpowering sense of routine duty. It's a finer thing than sheer bravery, in my idea. However, I began to think that Markley was mad—laboring under some frenzy from drink, though I had never seen him touch liquor.

He did not move hand or foot, except in the mechanical control of his engine, his eyes going from the gauge to the timepiece with a steadiness that was more terrible and threatening than any gleam of insanity would have been. Once he glared back at the long train sweeping after the engine with a headlong speed that rocked it from side to side.

One could imagine he saw a hundred men and women in the cars, talking, reading, smoking, unconscious that their lives were all in the hold of one man, whom I now suspected to be mad. I knew by his look that he remembered that their lives were in his hand. He glanced at the clock.

"Twenty miles," he muttered. "Throw on more coal, Jack; the fire is going out."

I did it. Yes, I did it. There was something in the face of that man I could not resist. Then I climbed forward and shook him roughly by the shoulder.

"Markley," I shouted, "you are running this train into the jaws of death!"

"I know it," he replied quietly.

"Your mother is on board."

"Heavens!"

He staggered to his feet. But even then he did not remove his eyes from the gauge.

"Make up the fire," he commanded, and pushed in the throttle valve.

"I will not."

"Make up the fire, Jack," very quietly.

"I will not. You may kill yourself and your mother, but you shall not murder me!"

He looked at me. His kindly gray eyes glared like those of a wild beast, but he controlled himself in a moment.

"I could throw you off this engine, and make short work of you," he said. "But, look here, do you see the station yonder?"

I saw a faint streak in the sky about five miles ahead.

"I was told to reach that station by six o'clock," he continued. "The express train meeting us is due now. I ought to have laid by for it at Defreme. I was told to come on. The track is a single one. Unless I make the siding at the station in three minutes, we shall meet it in yonder hollow."

"Somebody's blunder?" I said.

"Yes, I think so."

I said nothing. I threw on coal. If I had had petroleum, I should have thrown it on; but I never was calmer in my life. When death actually stares a man in the face, it often frightens him into the most perfect composure. Markley pushed the valve still farther. The engine began to give a strange panting sound. Far off to the south I could see the dense black smoke of a train. I looked at Markley inquiringly. He nodded. It was the express. I stooped to the fire.

"No more," he said.

I looked across the clear summer sky at the gray smoke of the peaceful little village, and beyond that at a black line coming closer, closer, across the sky. Then I turned to the watch. In one minute more—well, I confess I sat down and buried my face in my hands. I don't think I tried to pray. I had a confused thought of mangled, dying men and women—mothers and their babies.

There was a terrible shriek from the engine, against which I leaned, another in my face. A hot, hissing tempest swept past me. I looked up. We were on the siding, and the express had gone by. It grazed our end car in passing. In a sort of delirious joy, I sprang up and shouted to Markley. He did not speak. He sat there immovable and cold as a stone. I went to the train and brought his mother to him, and, when he opened his eyes and took the old lady's hand in his, I turned hastily away.

Yes, gentlemen, I have been in many a railway accident, but I have always considered that the closest shave I ever had.

What was the blunder?

I don't know; Markley made light of it ever afterward, and kept it a secret; but no man on the line stood so high in the confidence of the company after that as he. By his coolness and nerve he had saved a hundred lives.