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Updated: June 25, 2025
In his retreat the enemy had not disturbed the railway track at all, and as we had captured a hand-car at Cowan, I thought I would have it brought up to the station near the University to carry me down the mountain to my camp, and, desiring company, I persuasively invited Colonel Frank T. Sherman to ride with me.
In the discharge of his duties there was no more conscientious section foreman in the employ of the C.L.S. He timed his slumber by the sun and his waking hours were filled with the roll of hand-car wheels, the ring of spike-mauls and the tamping grate of spades.
Besides, there are some calculations I want you to make." Lighting his pipe, he took his seat on the hand-car and knitted his brows as two colored laborers drove him down the hill. Below, the lights of Santa Brigida gleamed in a cluster against the dusky sea, and he knew something of the intrigues that went on in the town.
"Tell them to bring the hand-car down here!" "Too much gone," shouted Ong. "Omaha!" "Lee! Stop! Where are you going?" Lee stopped only long enough to throw his right arm and forefinger with an excited gesture toward the west. "San Francisco, San Francisco!" he cried. "Why, Lee," exclaimed Bucks running after him, "hold on! You are crazy! San Francisco is fifteen hundred miles from here."
I supposed the cost would be several dollars, but decided not to stand on that amount. I had about made up my mind to hunt up a livery stable, when some workingmen rolled up to the station on a hand-car. "Where are you going?" I inquired of one of them. "Down to the Foley bridge," was the reply, "Will you take a passenger?" I went on quickly. "You'll have to ask the boss."
For some reason they showed no disposition to overtake us, in which attempt their locomotive would have given them an immense advantage over our heavy hand-car, and their cavalry force over our infantry. Nevertheless, I rather hoped that they would attempt it, for then an effort might have been made to cut them off in the rear by taking up some rails.
There was no danger, the men who managed the hand-car assured them; it was a couple of hours yet before the next train came in; there was plenty of time to go three or four miles down and return. Anything more delicious than the early morning air in the Black Canyon it would be difficult to imagine.
The water was poured into the tank by pails, so that a sort of bucket brigade was really necessary. Then there was needed many pairs of strong arms to work the pump handles, or "brakes," as they were sometimes called. These handles were quite long, and usually there were two of them, arranged something like those on a hand-car, used by construction gangs on a railroad.
Twenty minutes later the hand-car put in an appearance, manned by a couple of linemen from the junction, and, word having been wired up the line to hold back all trains for a period of half an hour in the interests of Scotland Yard, Cleek and Narkom boarded the vehicle, and went whizzing up the metals in the direction of Honor Oak Park, the shifting searchlight sweeping the path from left to right and glaring brilliantly on the surface of the fallen snow.
At first it is divine; then less so; then trying; then distressing; then excruciating; then agonizing, and at the end of two hours the listener is a maniac. And so, presently we took to the hand-car and went flying down the mountain again; flying and stopping, flying and stopping, till at last we were in the plain once more and stowed for Calcutta in the regular train.
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