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THE COUNTRY BOY
119

went to Tacoma just to see his work and though he didn’t know where the steam got into the cylinders or where it got out, he certainly put up the hottest game in the railroad way anyone ever saw. His duty in the morning was to follow the overland up, through the long yard to the upper depot and if the traffic was not heavy there he would hitch on to the rear coach and haul her back, but the last time Jap hitched on there wasn’t anything to come back. One foggy morning he thought the passenger had time to get up so he was just clipping along about “forty-five per,” laughing with his brakeman and his fireman, watching the thick fog part and go on either side of his engine, when all at once he saw the rear of a Pullman. The train had stopped for something and the flagman hadn’t gone back. It didn’t give Jap as long as he would like to have had to make up his mind. He shut off, reversed and pulled her wide open and then jumped out the window. They were on a high trestle at the time. The engine went through two cars before it thought of starting back, then it pulled out sticking to the track. It fairly howled as it