"Three years of indoor life had softened the wiry muscles of the Kid, and our engine was a hard steamer, so I did most of the work on the road. But the work, excitement, and outdoor life brought back the color to pale cheeks, and now and then a smile to sad lips--and I was glad. "One day the Kid was running while I broke up some big lumps of coal, and while busy in the tank I felt the air go on full and the reverse lever come back, while the wheels ground sand. I stepped quickly toward the cab to see what was the matter, when the Kid sprang into the gangway and cried 'Jump!' "I was in the left gangway in a second, but quick as a flash the Kid had my arm. "'The other side! Quick! The river!' "We were almost side by side as she swung me toward the other side of the engine, and jumped as we crashed into a landslide. I felt Kid's hand on my shoulder as I left the deck--just in time to save my life, but not the Kid's. "She was crushed between the tank and boiler in the very act of keeping me from jumping to certain death on the rocks in the river below. "When the crew came over they found me with the crushed clay of my poor, loved Kid in my arms, kissing her. They never knew who she was. I took her back to our Texas home and laid her beside the little one that had gone before. The Firemen's Brotherhood paid Kid's insurance to me and passed resolutions saying: 'It has pleased Almighty God to remove from our midst our beloved brother, George Reynolds,' etc., etc. "George Reynolds's grave cannot be found; but over a mound of forget-me-nots away in a Southern land, there stands a stone on which is cut: 'Georgiana, wife of J. E. Wainright, aged thirty-two years.' "But in my heart there is a golden pyramid of love to the memory of a fireman and a sweetheart known to you and all the world but me, as 'Jim Wainright's Kid.'" A PEG-LEGGED ROMANCE Some men are born heroes, some become heroic, and some have heroism thrust upon them; but nothing of the kind ever happened to me. I don't know how it is; but, some way or other, I remember all the railroad incidents I see or hear, and get to the bottom of most of the stories of the road. I must study them over more than most men do, or else the other fellows enjoy the comedies and deplore the tragedies, and say nothing. Sometimes I am mean enough to think that the romance, the dramas, and the tragedies of the road don't impress them as being as interesting as those of the plains, the Indians, or the seas--people are so apt to see only the everyday side of life anyway, and to draw all their romance and heroics from books. I helped make a hero once--no, I didn't either; I helped make the golden setting after the rough diamond had shown its value.