Held for Orders: Being Stories of Railroad LifeSpearman, Frank H. (Frank Hamilton)
General
Held for Orders: Being Stories of Railroad Life
Spearman, Frank H. (Frank Hamilton)
Fiction; Railroad stories; Short stories, American
"Get orders!" stormed Jimmie Bradshaw, pointing at the wreck. "Get
orders! Are you running an engine on this line and don't know the orders
for those mail bags? The orders is to move 'em! That's orders enough.
Move 'em! Uncouple three of those empty box-cars and hustle 'em back. By
the Great United States! any man that interferes with moving this mail
will get his time, that's what he'll get. That's Doubleday, and don't
you forget it. The thing is to move the mail, not to stand here chewing
about it!"
"Bucks wants the stuff hustled," put in the freight conductor, weakening
before Jimmie's eloquence, "everybody knows that."
"Uncouple there!" cried Jimmie, climbing into the mogul cab. "I'll pull
the bags, Kingsley; you needn't take any chances. Come back there, every
mother's son of you, and help on the transfer."
He carried his points with a gale. He was conductor and engineer and
general manager all in one. He backed the boxes to the curve below the
spill, and set every man at work piling the mail from the wrecked train
to the freight cars. The wounded cared for the wounded, and the dead
might have buried the dead; Jimmie moved the mail. Only one thing turned
his hair gray; the transfer was so slow, it threatened to defeat his
plan. As he stood fermenting, a stray party of Sioux bucks on a vagrant
hunt rose out of the desert passes, and halted to survey the confusion.
It was Jimmie Bradshaw's opportunity. He had the blanket men in council
in a trice. They talked for one minute; in two, he had them regularly
sworn in and carrying second-class. The registered stuff was jealously
guarded by those of the mail clerks who could still hobble--and who,
head for head, leg for leg, and arm for arm, can stand the wrecking that
a mail clerk can stand? The mail crews took the registered matter; the
freight crews and Jimmie, dripping sweat and anxiety, handled the
letter-bags; but second and third-class were temporarily hustled for the
Great White Father by his irreverent children of the Rockies.
Before the disabled men could credit their senses the business was done,
they made as comfortable as possible, and, with the promise of speedy
aid back to the injured, the Yellow Mail, somewhat disfigured, was
heading again westward in the box-cars. This time Jimmie Bradshaw, like
a dog with a bone, had the throttle. Jimmie Bradshaw for once in his
life had the coveted fast run, and till he sighted Fort Rucker he never
for a minute let up.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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