Page:Cy Warman--The express messenger and other tales of the rail.djvu/116

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One day we were out at the front with a train of steel, some eight or ten miles west of the Hill. It had been snowing all day in little fits and spits, and near nightfall the clouds became thicker and darker, and before the sun had gone down the snow was falling fast. By the time the last rail had been unloaded it was pitch dark, and as the engine was headed west, we were obliged to back up all the way to Smoky Hill. The conductor and the captain of the guard, composed of government scouts, took a stand on the rearmost flat-car, and when I got a signal I opened the throttle and began to poke the blunt end of the construction train into the darkness. Ordinarily I hate running backward at night, but in a case of this kind it is a real relief to know that there are a dozen or more well-armed soldiers between you and whatever the darkness holds. Three or four men with white lights were stationed at intervals along the tops of the ten or twelve cars that made up the train. The house car, or caboose, was next the engine, and upon the top of this car stood the foreman of the gang, and from him I was supposed to take my 'tokens.'