The Last Spike Part 14

"Yes?" queried the capitalist.

"Yes," echoed Cromwell, "here are his wife and his child; and here, where we're grubbing, his grave."

"Quite so, quite so," said the big, warm-hearted English-American, glaring at the ground; "and that was Ramsey's 'reason' for not writing."

THE GREAT WRECK ON THE PeRE MARQUETTE

The reader is not expected to believe this red tale; but if he will take the trouble to write the General Manager of the Pere Marquette Railroad, State of Michigan, U.S.A. enclosing stamped envelope for answer, I make no doubt that good man, having by this time recovered from the dreadful shock occasioned by the wreck, will cheerfully verify the story even to the minutest detail.

Of course Kelly, being Irish, should have been a Democrat; but he was not. He was not boisterously or offensively Republican, but he was going to vote the prosperity ticket. He had tried it four years ago, and business had never been better on the Pere Marquette. Moreover, he had a new hand-car.

The management had issued orders to the effect that there must be no coercion of employees. It was pretty well understood among the men that the higher officials would vote the Republican ticket and leave the little fellows free to do the same. So Kelly, being boss of the gang, could not, with "ju" respect to the order of the Superintendent, enter into the argument going on constantly between Burke and Shea on one side and Lucien Boseaux, the French-Canadian-Anglo-Saxon-Foreign-American Citizen, on the other. This argument always reached its height at noon-time, and had never been more heated than now, it being the day before election. "Here is prosper tee," laughed Lucien, holding up a half-pint bottle of _vin rouge_.

"Yes," Burke retorted, "an' ye have four pound of cotton waste in the bottom o' that bucket to trow the grub t' the top. Begad, I'd vote for O'Bryan wid an empty pail--er none at all--before I'd be humbugged."

"Un I," said Lucien, "would pour Messieur Rousveau vote if my baskett shall all the way up be cotton."

"Sure ye would," said Shea, "and ate the cotton too, ef your masther told ye to. 'Tis the likes of ye, ye bloomin' furreighner, that kapes the thrust alive in this country."

When they were like to come to blows, Kelly, with a mild show of superiority, which is second nature to a section boss, would interfere and restore order. All day they worked and argued, lifting low joints and lowering high centres; and when the red sun sank in the tree-tops, filtering its gold through the golden leaves, they lifted the car onto the rails and started home.

When the men had mounted, Lucien at the forward handle and Burke and Shea side by side on the rear bar, they waited impatiently for Kelly to light his pipe and seat himself comfortably on the front of the car, his heels hanging near to the ties.

There was no more talk now. The men were busy pumping, the "management"

inspecting the fish-plates, the culverts, and, incidentally, watching the red sun slide down behind the trees.

At the foot of a long slope, down which the men had been pumping with all their might, there was a short bridge. The forest was heavy here, and already the shadow of the woods lay over the right-of-way. As the car reached the farther end of the culvert, the men were startled by a great explosion. The hand-car was lifted bodily and thrown from the track.

The next thing Lucien remembers is that he woke from a fevered sleep, fraught with bad dreams, and felt warm water running over his chest. He put his hand to his s.h.i.+rt-collar, removed it, and found it red with blood. Thoroughly alarmed, he got to his feet and looked, or rather felt, himself over. His fingers found an ugly ragged gash in the side of his neck, and the fear and horror of it all dazed him.

He reeled and fell again, but this time did not lose consciousness.

Finally, when he was able to drag himself up the embankment to where the car hung crosswise on the track, the sight he saw was so appalling he forgot his own wounds.

On the side opposite to where he had fallen, Burke and Shea lay side by side, just as they had walked and worked and fought for years, and just as they would have voted on the morrow had they been spared.

Immediately in front of the car, his feet over one rail and his neck across the other, lay the mortal remains of Kelly the boss, the stub of his black pipe still sticking between his teeth. As Lucien stooped to lift the helpless head his own blood, spurting from the wound in his neck, flooded the face and covered the clothes of the limp foreman.

Finding no signs of life in the section boss, the wounded, and by this time thoroughly frightened, French-Canadian turned his attention to the other two victims. Swiftly now the realization of the awful tragedy came over the wounded man. His first thought was of the express now nearly due. With a great effort he succeeded in placing the car on the rails, and then began the work of loading the dead. Out of respect for the office so lately filled by Kelly, he was lifted first and placed on the front of the car, his head pillowed on Lucien's coat. Next he put Burke aboard, bleeding profusely the while; and then began the greater task of loading Shea. Shea was a heavy man, and by the time Lucien had him aboard he was ready to faint from exhaustion and the loss of blood.

Now he must pump up over the little hill; for if the express should come round the curve and fall down the grade, the hand-car would be in greater danger than ever.

After much hard work he gained the top of the hill, the hot blood spurting from his neck at each fall of the handle-bar, and went hurrying down the long easy grade to Charlevoix.

To show how the trifles of life will intrude at the end, it is interesting to hear Lucien declare that one of the first thoughts that came to him on seeing the three prostrate figures was, that up to that moment the wreck had worked a Republican gain of one vote, with his own in doubt.

But now he had more serious work for his brain, already reeling from exhaustion. At the end of fifteen minutes he found himself hanging onto the handle, more to keep from falling than for any help he was giving the car. The evening breeze blowing down the slope helped him, so that the car was really losing nothing in speed. He dared not relax his hold; for if his strength should give out and the car stop, the express would come racing down through the twilight and scoop him into eternity. So he toiled on, dazed, stupefied, fighting for life, surrounded by the dead.

Presently above the singing of the wheels he heard a low sound, like a single, smothered cough of a yard engine suddenly reversed. Now he had the feeling of a man flooded with ice-water, so chilled was his blood.

Turning his head to learn the cause of delay (he had fancied the pilot of an engine under his car), he saw Burke, one of the dead men, leap up and glare into his face. That was too much for Lucien, weak as he was, and twisting slightly, he sank to the floor of the car.

Slowly Burke's wandering reason returned. Seeing Shea at his feet, bloodless and apparently unhurt, he kicked him, gently at first, and then harder, and Shea stood up. Mechanically the waking man took his place by Burke's side and began pumping, Lucien lying limp between them.

Kelly, they reasoned, must have been dead some time, by the way he was pillowed.

When Shea was reasonably sure that he was alive, he looked at his mate.

"Phat way ar're ye feelin'?" asked Burke.

"Purty good fur a corpse. How's yourself?"

"Oh, so-so!"

"Th' Lord is good to the Irish."

"But luck ut poor Kelly."

"'Tis too bad," said Shea, "an' him dyin' a Republican."

"'Tis the way a man lives he must die."

"Yes," said Shea, thoughtfully, "thim that lives be the sword must go be the board."

When they had pumped on silently for awhile, Shea asked, "How did ye load thim, Burke?"

"Why--I--I suppose I lifted them aboard. I had no derrick."

"Did ye lift me, Burke?"

"I'm d.a.m.ned if I know, Shea," said Burke, staring ahead, for Kelly had moved. "Keep her goin'," he added, and then he bent over the prostrate foreman. He lifted Kelly's head, and the eyes opened. He raised the head a little higher, and Kelly saw the blood upon his beard, on his coat, on his hands.

"Are yez hurted, Kelly?" he asked.

"Hurted! Man, I'm dyin'. Can't you see me heart's blood ebbin' over me?"

And then Burke, crossing himself, laid the wounded head gently down again.

By this time they were nearing their destination. Burke, seeing Lucien beyond human aid, took hold again and helped pump, hoping to reach Charlevoix in time to secure medical aid, or a priest at least, for Kelly.

When the hand-car stopped in front of the station at Charlevoix, the employees watching, and the prospective pa.s.sengers waiting, for the express train gathered about the car.

"Get a docther!" shouted Burke, as the crowd closed in on them.

In a few moments a man with black whiskers, a small hand-grip, and bicycle trousers panted up to the crowd and pushed his way to the car.