The White Mail

DENIS MCGUIRE lived at Lick Skillet, on the ridge between the east and west forks of Silver Creek, midway between Troy and St. Jacobs, twenty-two miles east of St. Louis--Vandal...

AT the suggestion of the section boss, the agent asked the roadmaster to put Jimmie Connor on the bridge as watchman, and give little Jack, his brother, the mule and the tank.

“I got a scheme,” said he to the agent, who, having grown up under a cloud similar to that which hung over the freckled youth in front of him, beamed upon the boy encouragingly...

WHEN the White Mail came out of the east, carrying signals for the sun on the following morning, the driver looked down on a pair of very dirty faces at the end of West Creek br...

U.P. BURNS stopped on the bridge and cocked his ear. He knew the song and the singer. It was U.P.’s day to walk the track, and he was now inspecting the bridge in an officious m...

WHEN the Highland accommodation stopped for water, about a week after Tommy had received the supplies which he had requested, the express messenger kicked off a long bundle mark...

“SAY, Jack, d’ roadmaster won’t know this mule,” said Tommy, standing off and looking the animal over. “Mr. Heidelberg says they’s just one thing ’at looks onryer ’n a long-hair...

“I DON’T care a tinker’s dime about Denis McGuire,“ said the agent, angrily, “but something must be done for little Jack. He’s having malaria. Winter will be coming on and he ca...

AT last the long winter broke, spring came back, the grass grew green upon the graves of the old watchman and his son, school was out, and little Mary brought Tommy’s dinner, as...

IT took Tommy McGuire more than a month to recover from the effect of his head-end collision with the White Mail. The old pump mule, upon whose back Tommy had hurried to the top...

It was Sunday in St. Louis, and in East St. Louis as well, but there was no rest for the officials of the Vandalia Line. Little Jack, the messenger boy, and Tommy, the pump boy,...

HAVING saved the White Mail from a watery grave in the washout at West Silver Creek, and having also been instrumental in preventing the robbery of the Midnight Express at Casey...

OMAHA hung out the first flag on young McGuire as he hurried westward in the wake of the Star of Empire. Looking far into the future he saw the necessity of learning the languag...

THE new station agent at Plainfield saw the sun rise on the morrow of his first night on the plains. He had watched it sinking in the sage-covered Sahara on the previous evening...

MCGUIRE had been at Plainfield just a month, and had begun to believe that the place was not so dangerous after all. He was watching the sunset, and the darkness deepening upon...

PUEBLO was a tough town when the Rio Grande terminated at that point. All the good men were going into the mountains, for Leadville was then sweating silver that was worth more...

DOWN on the desert the earth was warm and brown, but when the train had passed Grand Junction a few stray flakes were seen floating across the cañon. At Montrose, where they pic...

AT midnight orders came. The road was open, the wires up, and the delayed train, in three sections, pulled out for the hills. The big pilot plough that had “bucked” the beautifu...

WHEN a man sets his heart on a thing he can accomplish a great deal in a comparatively short time. Thomas McGuire had been a careful, industrious employee. He had never acquired...

She gazed on the old things of Egypt and India, Sighed o’er the ruins of Athens and Rome; Painted in Paris, fiddled in Leipsic, Summered at Homburg; and then, came home.

WHEN the band ceased playing, Miss Landon’s father had closed his eyes and had doubtless forgotten that his daughter had mentioned the conductor of the snow-bound train in which...

THAT night Miss Landon lay in her narrow bed, made short-stops of her elbows, and listened to the lash and roar of the rolling sea. At times the ship sank so deep into the main...

“Well, I can’t say that I remember him, for I have never seen him; but I have not had an opportunity to forget the story of his having saved a couple of trains for the company....

DENIS McGuire’s successor in the little shanty down by the bridge had shown a white light to the driver of the Midnight Express, and was up, and out with the dawn, to show a mil...