When the flyer pulled in from the West in the afternoon it carried two
extra sleepers. In all, eight Pullmans, and every one of them loaded to
the ventilators. While the train was changing engines and crews, the
excursionists swarmed out of the hot cars to walk up and down the
platform. They were from New York, and had a band with them--as jolly a
crowd as we ever hauled--and I noticed many boys and girls sprinkled
among the grown folks.

As the heavy train pulled slowly out the band played, the women waved
handkerchiefs, and the boys shouted themselves hoarse--it was like a
holiday, everybody seemed so happy. All I hoped, as I saw the smoke of
the engine turn to dust on the horizon, was that I could get them over
my division and their lives safely off my hands. For a week we had had
heavy rains, and the bridges and track gave us worry.

Half an hour after the flyer left, 77, the fast stock-freight, wound
like a great snake around the bluff, after it. Ben Buckley, tall and
straight as a pine, stood on the caboose. It was his first train, and he
looked as if he felt it.

In the evening I got reports of heavy rains east of us, and after 77
reported "out" of Turner Junction and pulled over the divide towards
Beverly, it was storming hard all along the line. By the time they
reached the hill Ben had his men out setting brakes--tough work on that
kind of a night; but when the big engine struck the bluff the heavy
train was well in hand, and it rolled down the long grade as gently as a
curtain.

Ben was none too careful, for half-way down the hill they exploded
torpedoes. Through the driving storm the tail-lights of the flyer were
presently seen. As they pulled carefully ahead, Ben made his way through
the mud and rain to the head end and found the passenger-train stalled.
Just before them was Blackwood Creek, bank full, and the bridge swinging
over the swollen stream like a grape-vine.

At the foot of Beverly Hill there is a siding--a long siding, once used
as a sort of cut-off to the upper Zanesville yards. This side track
parallels the main track for half a mile, and on this siding Ben, as
soon as he saw the situation, drew in with his train so that it lay
beside the passenger-train and left the main line clear behind. It then
became his duty to guard the track to the rear, where the second section
of the stock-train would soon be due.

It was pouring rain and as dark as a pocket. He started his hind-end
brakeman ba