The Taming of Red Butte Western

Vice-President Ford had spoken favorably of the trainmaster, recommending him to mercy in the event of a general beheading in the Angels head-quarters. "A lame duck, lik

ant whom you can trust-and who will, I think, be duly grateful for small

at it is an ill thing to pry too curiously into any man's past. So there should be present efficiency, no man in t

s festooning the ceiling and a pair of unwashed windows looking out upon the open square called, in the past and gone day of the Angelic promoters, the "railroad plaza." Two chairs, a cheap de

was a study in grotesques. There was fearless honesty in the shrewd gray eyes, and a good promise of capability in the strong Scotch jaw and long upper lip, but the grotesque note was the one which persisted, and the

se outward eccentricities when McCloskey rose and thrus

tilting the derby to the back of his head.

e man in the hearty hand-grip. "On the contrary, I've come to thank you for not dr

at's no joke. Some of the backcappers will be telling you presently that I was a train despatcher

won't do it again. That is one thing, and another is this: we start with a clean slate on the Red Butte Western. No man in the service

I wish I could promise you that the rank and file will meet you halfway. But I can't. You'll find a plucked pigeon, Mr.

rwood; and then he spoke o

e way of it. When we get through the twenty-four hours without killing somebody or

d Lidgerwood, meaning to be as just as he could

reputable-looking office-man, with a green patch over one eye and a blackened cob-pipe between his teeth. Seeing Lidgerwood, he ducked and turned to McCloskey. Bradley

to the trainmaster. "Goodloe reports it from Little Butte; says both engine

ling upon Lidgerwood. "They couldn't let

ds still to be gathered up, Lidgerwood might blamelessly have turned over the trouble call to

," he said briskly, compelling the attention of the one-eyed despatcher; and when Callahan was gone:

he Great Timanyonis, and through the Timanyoni Canyon to a park-like valley, shut in by the great range on the east and north, a

, "and here's Little But

d?" queried

ouri bottom, with the river on one side and the hills a mile away on the other. I d

id Lidgerwood. "Now, tell me what

hat has been kept up to date and in good fighting trim. We have one wrecking-crane th

our wreck

out. He can clear a main line qu

go with u

He is in town a

ndent caught at t

s, doe

iodically and comes back looking something the worse fo

offending trainmen who had put Train 71 in the ditch at Glo

ll Hallock up while you are making ready," h

an with a soft hat pulled over his eyes was directing the make-up of a train on the repair track, and the yard engine was pulling an enormous crane down from its spur b

inary work which Lidgerwood had meant to do. In the midst of the lette

wood joined the trainmaster on the Crow's Nest platform. The train was backing up to get its clear-track orders,

when the train paused for the signal from the despatche

a sweat-box welcome. If there are any of Seventy-one's crew left alive, you ought to

echanic refused to be put on probation. Lidgerwood made the effort while the rescue train was whipping around the hill shoulders and plunging deeper into the afternoon shadows of the great mountain range. The tool-car was comfortably filled with men and wor

rd's phrase, was a "brute after his own peculiar fashion." Brute or human, the big master-mechanic had the manners of a gent

ng, as he had tried before, to wrench the talk aside from t

t, but you will. It is a savage life, Mr. Lidgerwood, and if a man hasn't a good bit of the blood of his stone-ag

personal channel, and this time

ce we left Angels: are you trying to scare me off, Mr. Gridl

mechanic la

protested. "But now that you have opened the door, perhaps a little man-to-man fra

ally, yo

can come as near to making bricks without straw as the next man. But the Red But

ing," said

laughe

gineer whom you have called on the carpet c

im," was the pr

en in this human scrap-heap you've inherited will lay for

tself in the open side-door of the tool-car, missed a point. If he had been less absorbed in the personal probl

t should mean something-even in the Red Desert, Mr. Gridley. I suppose there

chanic's smil

tice of the peace; one is a blacksmith and

not thrown away upon his listener, but Lidge

the case you are supposing, might hold himself justified in shooting at me; but if I should shoot back and happen to kill him, it

eeth came together

bject abruptly, and when the train had swung around the last of the hills and was threading its tortuous way through the great canyon,

e engine and a dozen cars, and there were no casualties-the report about the involvement of the two enginemen being due to the

vel ground and with a convenient siding at hand for the sorting and shifting, was a simple one, there was still a chance for an exhibition of time-saving and spee

to McCloskey. "The Red Butte Western doesn't nee

he feels like it," admitt

t blame him for that. Picking up wrecks isn'

mself to go when it isn't convenient. I have a n

hind the returns. He felt that he had been prejudiced against Gridley at the outset, unduly so, he was be

u might give me another lesson in Red Butte geography, Mac," he

ard, lay Little Butte, where the line swept a great curve to the north and so continued on to Red Butte. Along the northward stretch, and

re like a hogback than a true mountain, and it held a silver mine, Flemister's, which was a moderately heavy shipper. The vein had been followed completely through the ridge, and the spur track in the eastern gulch, which had or

g crane was heaving the derailed cars into line with methodical precision, but now it was Gridley's shop foreman who was giving the orders. The

robably be along," the buckboard driver was saying. "How are things sh

oard wheel and began to whittle a match wi

r shoulder to the left and you'll see him sit

o be in Goodloe's office at Little Butte when he got off to look around

leman," said

l! what do I

e master-mechanic w

snapped. "Can you add the rest o

s the so

t are we u

e shut and began to chew th

nst nothing worse than the old proposition. Lidgerwood is going to try to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, beginning

ean? in just s

said. Mr. Lidgerwood is

. "I believe I'm catching on, after so l

d. He had taken out his penknife a

k to," he said. "If we cou

I've told you a hundred ti

to him he mentioned something about shooting you off-hand, but I guess

ell me how," was t

sky-rocketing finish of the Mesa Building and Loan Association

r it," sai

treasurer," put i

, bu

twenty-five or thirty men still left in the Red Butte Western service who have never wholly

at's an

ul-as the case may be. For some reason best known to himself,

o you

wrinkling at the corn

, Flemister, and usually pretty soon after it happens. Hallock will stay on as chief clerk, an

t y

business. The kickers will put it up to him, as they have put it up to every new man who has come out here. Ferguson refused to dig into

t see," persis

lf to Lidgerwood, and he can't. In fact, there is on

hat ma

of the defunct Building and Loan. You

do. What

ngton; it wouldn't be much trouble for you to fix up a story that would satisf

el

, coming and going. It's a dead open and shut. If he falls in line, you'll

ridley. Hallock's grudge against me is too bitter. You know part of it, and part of it

he whittled match away, as

Put it up to Hallock barehanded: if he comes in, all right; if no

erailed box-cars, and the crew of the wrecking-train was sh

master-mechanic, taking his foot from the

e had turned his team and was driving away when Gridley's shop f

way back to Angels, and put in the time smoking a short pip

he would, the importunate demon of distrust, distrust of himself, awakened by the master-mechanic's warning, refused to be quieted; and when, after the three hours of the slow return