On the Iron at Big Cloud

In the few hours left before dawn that morning, there wasn’t time to give much attention to the cause. There was enough else to think of, enough to give every last man on the di...

Breakfastless, he shared the men’s grub and listened wide-eyed as they talked of wrecks in times gone by; but most of all he listened to the story of how his father, when he was...

He stopped as a sharp cry came from the dispatcher’s room, followed by an instant’s silence, then the crash of a chair sounded as, hastily pushed back, it fell to the floor. Qui...

“No, I don’t have to,” Keating answered, and his face lighted up as he leaned over and touched the road boss on the sleeve. “But, Spirlaw, it’s the greatest thing in all the wor...

“What d’ye mean by treating her like that, you scrapings from the junk heap, you!” he exploded. “You know well enough what she went away for, and if you’ve any brains in that ug...

So Speckles descended the stairs to the platform and irresolutely began to cross the tracks in the direction of the running-shed. He reached the roundhouse and skirmished cautio...

“Gilleen,” said he, “is like the parrot that said ‘sic ‘em!’ and said it once too often. He talks too much. If he’d kept his mouth shut I’d have given him his run back, after a...

“Humph!” he ejaculated with a snort, and a stream of black-strap laid the dust on a good few inches of engine cinders. “You can hand any thanks you’ve got coming over to Mother...

Just as he did so, Clancy’s red shirt loomed up out of the mêlée, his arm lifted, and over the clack of the car trucks pounding the steel came the tinkle of breaking glass from...

“Hey, there, Haggerty,” he called, “quit practising that deaf and dumb alphabet. You haven’t got any time to waste. You want to run along and get the missus to press out a pair...

There never was, and there isn’t now, anything elusive about the Hill Division, unless you get to talking about the mileage--when you strike the mileage you strike deep water, a...

Holman, by virtue of railroad etiquette, had climbed to the fireman’s seat and once or twice he had glanced around at the great bulk of the man behind him, at the grim, set feat...

Both men were scrambling for the door as he spoke. They reached it not an instant too soon. The ground behind them lifted, heaved; the walls, the roof of the shack rose, cracked...

McQueen shook his head. “I’m not kicking,” he said. “I don’t see anything to strike about. Looks to me as though you fellows were hunting trouble. You’ll probably get it, what?”

Railroad ties, at best, do not make the smoothest walking in the world, and to accomplish the feat under some conditions is decidedly worthy of note. Shanley’s performance begga...

“I’m qualified for the position,” young Holman went on. “I’ve done my stint with the construction gangs and I’ve spent four years in the Eastern shops. You promised me that if I...

Spitzer wasn’t much to look at, neither was he of much account on the Hill Division. Some men rise to occasions, others don’t; as for Spitzer--well, he was a snubby-nosed, peake...

Here he would gaze wistfully at the big mogul with valves popping and the steam drumming at her gauges, as she waited on the siding just in front of him--‘Big Cloud being a divi...

“Carleton. Get it? Carleton,” repeated the messenger, evidently by no means sure that he was thoroughly understood; and then, for a parting shot as he sailed gayly up the street...

“Vait!” cried Dutchy imperiously, as the head of the column reached him. “You, yess; you, no. Vat iss it?” He was sorting the sheep from the goats, allowing the passengers to en...

No flagrant violation or disobedience of orders was there, instead the inauguration of a petty little system of nagging that embraced every indignity Munford could think of. And...