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A snake's-head on the old railroads was where a rail got loose from the fish-plate at one end and came up over the wheel instead of staying down under it. Track's End was a new town just built at the end of the railroad. The next town back toward the east was Lone Tree; but that day it burned up and was no more.
When I dropped off the train at Track's End I saw by the moonlight that the railroad property consisted of a small coal-shed, a turntable, a roundhouse with two locomotive stalls, a water-tank and windmill, and a rather long and narrow passenger and freight depot. The town lay a little apart, and I could not make out its size.
"Stir her up," ordered the engineer, and nodded when his comrade swung back the fire-door and hurled in coal. Then he turned to Hardie. "We're losing no time. She's running to beat the Imperial Limited clip, and the track's not worked down yet into its bed." Hardie, looking about for a few moments, thought the speed could not safely be increased.
Thus it comes I know that Pawsy caught a mouse in the barn on Wednesday, January 12th, at about half-past seven o'clock in the morning, while I was milking the cow. I think it was the only mouse at Track's End that winter, for I never saw or heard any other.
He had no opportunity of inhaling the track's atmosphere. Sometimes he wondered idly why he liked to stop and caress every stray horse. He could not know that those same hands had once coaxed thoroughbreds down the stretch to victory. His haunts necessarily kept him from meeting with those whom he had once known. The few he did happen to meet he cut unconsciously as he had once cut Jimmy Drake.
It was light enough so I could see pretty well by this time; but I heard the crunching of the crust by the horses' feet before I could see them at all. Then I saw the whole gang coming on a dog-trot along the grade, two abreast, with one ahead, seven pleasant neighbors coming to call on me at Track's End.
So I must tell you what little I can of this other matter. I am not here in Track's End alone. What it is that is here I do not know. How long it has been here I do not know. Where it stays, what it does, where it goes, I do not know. I have looked over my shoulder twenty times from nervousness since I began this letter.
This I picked up, and, telling Alzura to throw me the pole, proceeded to investigate. "Is it all right?" he cried softly. "Yes," said I, and stood back while he jumped across. "Caramba!" said he, "that's a nasty bit well over!" and I noticed that his limbs trembled. "All's well that ends well," I replied. "Come on, my boy; we've done the worst part, and the track's as plain as a pikestaff now.
Then I saw that the line must have been repaired; but if this were so a train must have come nearly through; otherwise the repairmen could not have reached the break, which, I remembered, Tom said was just beyond Siding No. 15, fourteen miles east of Track's End. I went to the table and sat down and listened to the steady clicking, the same thing, nothing but the call.
A Fire and a Blizzard: with how a great many People go away from Track's End and how some others come. It was an even two hours' fight between the town of Track's End and the fire; and they came out about even that is, most of the scattering dwelling-houses were burned, but the business part of the town was saved.
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