e master mechanic takes several of the
coach-wheels over to the machine-shop to soak, he eats a hurried lunch.

The brakeman here gets his tin lanterns ready for the night run and
fills two of them with red oil to be used on the rear coach. The fireman
puts a fresh bacon-rind on the eccentric, stuffs some more cotton
batting around the axles, puts a new lynch-pin in the hind wheels,
sweeps the apple-peelings out of the smoking car, and he is ready.

Then comes the conductor, with his plug hat full of excursion tickets,
orders, passes, and timechecks; he looks at his Waterbury watch, waves
his hand, and calls "All aboard" again. It is upgrade, however, and for
two miles the "spotter" has to push behind with all his might before the
conductor will allow him to get on and ride.

Thus began the history of a gigantic enterprise which has grown till it
is a comfort, a convenience, a luxury, and yet a necessity. It has built
up and beautified the desert. It has crept beneath the broad river,
scaled the snowy mountain, and hung by iron arms from the canon and the
precipice, carrying the young to new lands and reuniting those long
separated. It has taken the hopeless to lands of new hope. It has evaded
the solitude of the wilderness, spiked down valuable land-grants,
killed cheap cattle and then paid a high price for them, whooped through
valleys, snorted over lofty peaks, crept through long, dark tunnels,
turning the bright glare of day suddenly upon those who thought the
tunnel was two miles long, roared through the night and glittered
through the day, bringing alike the groom to his beautiful bride and the
weeping prodigal to the moss-grown grave of his mother.

You are indeed a heartless, soulless corporation, and yet you are very
essential in our business.

BILL NYE'S LETTER.

HOW OLD BRINDLE MET HER DEATH WITH A TRAIN.

A QUAINT EPISTLE, IN WHICH THE HUMORIST GIVES HIS EXPERIENCE WITH
RAILROAD OFFICIALS--HOW HE SECURED PAY FOR A COW.

DEAR HENRY: Your letter stating that you had just succeeded in running
your face for a new curriculum is at hand and contents noted, as the
feller said when I wrote to him two years ago and told him that his
cussed railroad had mashed old Brin. You remember that just as you
entered on what you called your junior year, old Brin remained out all
night, and your mother and me took our coffee milkless in the morning.

Well, I went down to the pound to see if she had registered th