escent, that's all. There's a whole lot of men like Beezer.

X

THE RAT RIVER SPECIAL

This is Martin Bradley's story; an excerpt, if you will, from the pages
of railroading where strange and grim things are, where death and
laughter lock arms in the winking of an eye, and are written down as
though akin. There have been better men than Martin Bradley--and
worse. Measure him as you will, that is one matter; in the last
analysis frailty is a human heritage, and that is another. On the Hill
Division they called him a game man.

Bradley was a fireman, a silent, taciturn chap. Not sullen or
surly--don't get that idea--more quiet than anything else, never much
of anything to say. When a laugh was going around Bradley could
appreciate the fun, and did; only his laugh seemed tempered somehow by
something behind it all. Not a wet blanket, not by any means--they
didn't understand him then, perhaps, didn't pretend to--he never
invited a confidence or gave one--but the boys would crowd up and make
room for Bradley any time, as they dragged at their pipes and swopped
yarns in the murk of the roundhouse at the midnight lunch hour, about
the time Bradley used to stroll in, snapping his fingers together
softly in that curious, absent-minded way he had of doing--for Bradley
was firing for Smithers then on the 582, that took the local freight,
west, out of Big Cloud in the small morning hours.

Well set-up, jumper tucked in his overalls, the straps over husky
shoulders, thick through the chest, medium height, stocky almost,
steady black eyes, a clean-shaven, serious face, the black hair
grizzled a little and threading gray--that was Martin Bradley. A bit
old to be still firing, perhaps, but he had had to take his turn for
promotion with the rest of the men when he came to the Hill Division.
He'd have gone up in time, way up, to the best on the division,
probably, for Regan had him slated for an engine even then, only----But
we'll come to that in a moment; there's just a word or two to "clear"
the line before we have "rights" through to the terminal.

Big Cloud in those days, which was shortly after the line was laid
through the Rockies, and the East and West were finally linked after
the stress of toil and hardship and bitter struggle was over, was a
pretty hard burg, pretty hard--a whole lot harder than it is to-day.
There was still a big transient population of about every nationality
on earth, for the road, just