of the worst-scared
people in America clamoring at the doors; and, by the eternal, now we're
fixed for every one of them. Come up to the bank. I want you to ride
right up with the coin, all of you."

It was an uncommonly queer occasion, but an uncommonly enthusiastic one.
Fifty policemen made the escort and cleared the way for the trucks to
pull up across the sidewalk, so the porters could lug the kegs of gold
into the bank before the very eyes of the rattled depositors.

In an hour the run was broken. But when the four railroad men left the
bank, after all sorts of hugging by excited directors, they carried not
only the blessings of the officials, but each in his vest pocket a
check, every one of which discounted the biggest voucher ever drawn on
the West End for a month's pay; though I violate no confidence in
stating that Georgie Sinclair's was bigger than any two of the others.
And this is how it happens that there hangs in the directors' room of
the Sierra Leone National a very creditable portrait of the kid
engineer.

Besides paying tariff on the specie, the bank paid for a new coat of
paint for the McWilliams Special from caboose to pilot. She was the last
train across the Mattaback for two weeks.

The Million-Dollar Freight-Train

It was the second month of the strike, and not a pound of freight had
been moved; things looked smoky on the West End.

The general superintendent happened to be with us when the news came.

"You can't handle it, boys," said he, nervously. "What you'd better do
is to turn it over to the Columbian Pacific."

Our contracting freight agent on the coast at that time was a fellow so
erratic that he was nicknamed Crazyhorse. Right in the midst of the
strike Crazyhorse wired that he had secured a big silk shipment for New
York. We were paralyzed.

We had no engineers, no firemen, and no motive power to speak of. The
strikers were pounding our men, wrecking our trains, and giving us the
worst of it generally; that is, when we couldn't give it to them. Why
the fellow displayed his activity at that particular juncture still
remains a mystery. Perhaps he had a grudge against the road; if so, he
took an artful revenge. Everybody on the system with ordinary railroad
sense knew that our struggle was to keep clear of freight business until
we got rid of our strike. Anything valuable or perishable was especially
unwelcome.

But the stuff was docked and loaded and consigned in our