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Updated: May 21, 2025
"I knew these kiddies had some fool 'code' they played at, but this beats me, as well as you." "It's no 'fool' code, friend Mack," answered the engineer. "It's what an engine whistle or the swing of a lantern is to us trainmen, and I'm glad our boys play at something so sensible. It's a mighty good thing once in a while, as we saw to-day this 'Signal Code."
And then there was the time when the trainmen put off a scared and sick cripple, who lay in the depot waiting-room with a ring of sympathetic incompetents around him until Doc Simms could help him. He touched our hearts, and we shelled out enough to send him on a hundred miles to his people.
Most of them were working people who had only their evenings free, and for whom these services were held: girls from the department stores, servants with an evening out, trainmen from the Elevated, off duty for an hour or two, small storekeepers whose places closed early, with their wives and children beside them, all under the spell of the hushed interior.
The trainmen were soon through with their supper, being notoriously rapid feeders, which disastrous habit they acquire while on freight, when they are expected to eat dinner and do an hour's switching in twenty minutes. Unusually early for him, Buck passed out. Nora purposely avoided him, but watched him from the unlighted little private office.
The trainmen, on the other hand, used no fine phrases. They called it simply "Number Seventeen"; and, when it started, said it had "pulled out." On the evening in question, there it stood, nearly ready.
Certain important-appearing trainmen, with sleeves rolled to the elbows, hastily throwing open the door of the baggage-car, seemed to take the hint. Presently a trunk, turning a summersault through the air, landed, somewhat damaged, on the platform. A few boxes and packages followed likewise, similarly ejected. Then, through the open doorway, there appeared the shapely, graceful bow of a canoe.
It was deserted. The trainmen did not come back that far, because the doors of the show cars were kept locked so they could not. Show people do not like strangers about them. Teddy lay down on the platform, peering down between the cars. "No, no air is coupled on. They ought to be ashamed of themselves," he muttered. "I guess they must have fixed it up for me on purpose."
Seeing that they were going to refuse me admission to the car, I began to call them off in no gentle manner. My billingsgate caused a crowd to gather. I informed the trainmen and the people assembled that if I could have a squad of my regiment there for a very few minutes, I would go in that car, or that train would be a wreck.
From her, Trueman and the other passengers, including the Coal and Iron Police, learn of the plot to wreck the train and of the heroic effort made by Sister Martha and the widow herself, to avert the calamity. Trueman starts in quest of Sister Martha. Accompanied by one of the trainmen with a lamp, he reaches the scene of the explosion. The trainman discovers the body of Martha.
They carried off all the stores they could handle, drove with them or stampeded the cattle, and burned the wagons. The trainmen were permitted to retain one wagon and team, with just enough supplies to last them to army headquarters. It was a disheartened, discomfited band that reached Fort Bridger.
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