The Taming of Red Butte Western

and its nerve-centre, Angels, seemed disposed to take Mr. Howard Lidgerwood as a rather ill-timed joke, perpetrated u

pon the company's bounty, lacked nothing of completeness. The Red Desert grinned like the famed Cheshire cat when an incoming train from the East brought sundry boxes and trunks, said to contain the new boss's wardrobe. Its guffaws were long and

n tavern, appropriately named "The Hotel Celestial." Between his sleeping-apartment and his private office there was only a thin board parti

into the despatcher's office, with the terminals on a little table at his bed's head, and with a tiny telegraph relay instrument mounted on the stand. Thro

ue that the new boss slept in what translated itself in the laborious Morse of the Ruby Creek operator as "pijjimmies"; or when Navajo, tapping the same source of inf

h McCloskey, and at other times with breezy Jack Benson, the young engineer whom Vice-President Ford had sent, upon Lidgerwood's request

eavy-handed table-girl who ringed his plate with the semicircle of ironstone portion dishes, stood between him and the men who were still regarding him as a joke.

l; and once, when Brannagan and the 117 were ordered out on the service-car, the Irishman wore the highest celluloid collar he could find in Ang

ting his engine headlight and handrails with festoonings of colored calico, the decoration figuring as a caricature of Lidgerwood's college colors

ood knew. The jests were too broad to be missed. But he ignored them good-naturedly, rather thankful for the pla

later the necessary radical reforms would have to begin. Gridley, whose attitude toward the new superintendent continued to be

lroad men out of them," was Gridley's oft-repeated assertion; and the fact that

as friendly and apparently ingenuous. But prejudices, like prepossessions, are sometimes as strong as they are inexplicable, and while Lidgerwood freely acc

on the contrary, while Hallock attended to his duties and carried out his superior's instructions with the exactness of an automaton, his attitude was distinctly antagonistic. As the chief subaltern

clerk. Under the crabbed and gloomy crust of the man the superintendent fancied he could discover a certain savage loyalty. But under the l

eedingly hard to please. Questioned more particularly by Lidgerwood, McCloskey added that Hallock was married; that after the first few months in Angels his wife, a strikingly b

having its laugh at the new bath-room, the pajamas, and the clean linen. They weighed lightly, because the principal problem was, a

eir postings on the bulletin boards, only to be coolly ignored when they chanced to conflict with some train crew's desire to make up time or to kill it. Directed to account for fuel and oil consumed, the enginemen good-naturedly forged reports and the storekeepe

epair the station at Red Butte vanished somewhere between the Angels shipping-yards and their billing destination. Lime, cement, and paint were exceedingly volatile. House hardware, purchased in quant

wn under the wrecking-train engine. For the first few weeks Lidgerwood let McCloskey answer the "hurry calls" to the various scenes of disaster, but when three sectio

rwood's first executive act was to knock in the head of the ten-gallon celebration with a striking-hammer, before it was even spiggoted; and for another he quickly proved that he was Gridley's equal, if not his master, in the gentle art of track-clearing; lastly, and this was the most as

offending cattle-train crews before him for trial and punis

his report to the roundhouse contingent at the close of the "sweat-box" interview. "It's

ox" was Lidgerwood's private office in the Crow's Nest, and Benson happene

I've got to butt in. You can't handle the Red Desert with kid gloves on. Those fellows needed an artistic c

and pencilling idle little squares on it-a

n-crews to fill in the thirty-day lay

inst a thing like that on the sections, I fire the whole bunch and import a few more Italians. Which reminds me, as old Dunkenfeld used to say w

upt change of topic as a matter of course. "He seems a fine fellow; mu

o know. Ever met his

N

ly two angels in Angels, and the sister is the o

lifted, though his

you haven't. He is a lame duck, you know-like every other ma

k?" repeate

The blacklegs and tin-horns and sure-shots go without saying, of course, but they haven't a monopoly on the br

reason," sa

ged for incompetence, or worse, somewhere else; or a dozen conductors or engineers who weren't good and comfortably blacklisted before they climbed Crosswater. Take McCloskey: you swear

Mac was man enough to tell me himself, before I had known him five minutes.

B.S. in M.E., or he would have been if he had stayed out his senior year in Carnegie, but also he happened to be a foot-ball fiend, and in the las

exclaimed Lidgerwood.

r in Carnegie at the time. But Fred took it hard; let it spoil his life. He threw up everything, left college between two days, and came to bury himself out here. For two y

" said the s

en. Next thing he knew they dropped in on him; and he is just crazy enough to stay here, and to keep them

said Lidgerwood, doing premeditated and intentional violence to what he

s actually got the nerve to make love to Dawson's sis

-two or three, but Benson was still on the sunny slope of twenty-five. "You are prejudiced, Jack," he criticized.

enough for Faith Dawson," counter

bit of your personal grudge?

f Gridley had the weaknesses common to Red-Desert mankind, he did not parade them in Angels. As the head of his department he was well known to be a hard hitter; and now and then, when the

is case, and asked quizzically, "Where do I come in on

believe that she is a bit shy of Gridley, and maybe she thinks I could do t

office job," said the super

evenings, and you'll never go back to Maggie Donovan and the Celestial's individual hash-holders;

backing in the P. S-W. board of directors. Besides, he is a good fellow; and if I go up on the

onal favor, and do as much for you, some time. I suppose I don't have to warn you not

erwood's laugh

ve had my little turn at that wheel; or rather, perhaps I should say that th

to Navajo on it. Don't wait too long before you make up to Dawson. You

gerwood began the drawing of the net. A new time-card was strung with McCloskey's cooperation, and when it went into effect a notice on all bull

rce, threatened to involve the telegraph operators-threatened to become a protest unanimous and in the mass. Worse than this, the service, haphazard enough before, now became a maddening chaos. Orders wer

events, McCloskey was Lidgerwood's right hand, toiling, smiting, striving, and otherwise approving himself a good soldier. But close behind him came Gridley; always suave and g

the penalty for the sins of our predecessors; but if you will persevere, we'll pull through and be a railroad in fact when the clou

llock was the only non-combatant. From the beginning of hostilities he seemed to have made a pact with himself not to let it be known by any act or word of his that he was aware of the suddenly precipitated

successful candidate for the official headship of the Red Butte Western. There were none. Hallock's gaunt face, with the loose lips and the straggling, unkempt beard, was a blank; and the worst wreck of

uld take punishment without wincing overmuch. But at the end of the first fortnight

ted, in sharp discouragement. "The next thing on the docket will be a strike, and you know what that

oing to run this railroad as it should be run, or hang it up in the air. Did you discharge that o

s mouth about what he was going to do to me ... and to you. I suppose you know that his brother Bart, they call h

ay it, though his lips were curiously dry. "We are going to have discipline

bridge of his nose, his charac

esterday, when I was calling Jeff Cummings down for dropping that new shifting-engine out of an open switch in broad daylight, he p

xity, Lidgerwood was absently marking li

desert level, if I were you,

, Mr. Lidgerwood. I know this country better than you do, and the men in it. I don't say they'll come after you deliberately, but

ood patiently, and the

key came into the private office again, hat tilted to n

addle-tank shifting-engine, has disappeared. I saw Broderick using t

nd it?" echo

and none of Gridley's foremen know anything about it. I've had Callahan wire east

it, at last

te number three, where the night crew

must know where it has

es! I think I know

is

ides I haven't got the proof. But I'm going to get the

y-rolls for the superintendent's approval. McCloskey broke off shor

ere is another matter that I want to take up w

d went out, muttering cur