Another feature which often involves discomfort, and occasionally positive suffering and danger, is "going back to flag." When a train is unexpectedly stopped upon the road, the brakeman at the rear end must immediately take his red flag or lantern and go back a half-mile or more to give the "stop" signal to the engine-men of any train that may be following. This rule is sometimes disregarded in clear weather on straight lines, and is even evaded by lazy or unfaithful brakemen where the neglect is positively dangerous, but still many a faithful man has to go out and stand for a long time in a severe snow-storm or risk his life in walking several miles to a station. The record of individual perils and heroisms in the New York blizzard of March, 1888, are paralleled, or at least repeated, on a slightly milder scale, by brakemen every winter. Even in the blizzard country of the Northwest, where a half hour's exposure is often fatal, the system of train-running is such that the stopping of a train at an unexpected place involves danger of collision if the brakeman does not at once go back and _stay back_. A "tail-end" brakeman has various anxieties, which cannot be detailed here. Often there is a possibility that the advancing engineer will not see his red lantern. One brakeman in New Brunswick several years ago ignominiously deserted his post, leaving his train to look out for itself, because of a visit from a huge bear whose residence was in the woods near the point on the railroad where the brakeman was keeping his lonely night-vigil. [Illustration: Coupling.] The danger of sudden accidental death or maiming is constant and great, and the bare record of the numerous cases is acutely suggestive of inexpressible suffering; but, strange to say, it does not worry the average brakeman much. Though probably a thousand trainmen are killed in this country every year, and four or five thousand injured, by collisions and derailments, in coupling cars, falling off trains, striking low overhead bridges, and from other causes, not one brakeman, from what he sees in his own experience, realizes the danger very vividly. As in other dangers which are constant but inevitable, familiarity breeds carelessness which is closely akin to contempt. Falling from trains is really a serious danger, because the most ceaseless caution--next to impossible for the average man to maintain--is necessary to avoid missteps. This will be practically abolished when the long-wished-for air-brake comes into use, as that will obviate the necessity of riding on the tops of the cars.