The signature is that of the initials of the division superintendent, the numerals have been spelled out. It would seem as if the railroad had taken every possible precaution for safety. And yet again, remember that great accidents have happened upon American railroads just because men's minds have perversely refused to read what eyes and ears have read. And yet there seems to be nothing to be done, more thorough than is already being done. "Are all these freights upon schedule?" you may ask Collins, after you meet a few dozen of them within the limits of a single-track division. He is decent enough not to laugh at your ignorance. "Schedule?" he repeats. "It's a joke. They give our first section a time to get out on, in the time-card and then one o' them bright office-boys gets a figger out o' his head an' puts it down for an arrivin' time. He never hits it an' he never expects to. So more an' more they're gettin' to move this freight on special orders. They can better regulate it then, 'cordin' to volume of business. Mos' of the men carry the schedules of the fas' an' th' way-freights in their domes. Th' coarse tonnage stuff doesn't even get special orders. When they get enough of it, down on th' main line, they get an engine out o' th' roundhouse, give the train th' engine number, and start off. Railroad traffic along the freight end follows business conditions mighty close." It is still daylight when we halt at a junction, across a frozen river from a city. The city is set upon a steep hillside, and its houses rise from the river in even terraces. At the top a great domed structure--the State House--crowns it. It is a still winter's morning, and the smoke from all the chimney-pots extends straight heavenward. We wait patiently upon a long siding until everything else has been moved--through fast expresses heavily laden with opulent-looking Pullmans, jerky little suburban trains, long draughts of empty coaches, being drawn by consequential switch-engines in and out of the train-shed of the passenger station. Finally a certain semaphore blade drops, we cross over to the important main line and begin pulling on a sharp curve, across the river, clear of the station with its confusion, through and past the city to a busy division yard. In a very little time, for this is their home town, Collins and his crew are registering at the yardmaster's office. The engineer of the 1847, and his fireman, turn in their time-slips and proceed with the locomotive to the roundhouse where they make a report upon its condition. Their names are posted on the "in" list or register, and they are off duty until they are summoned by the callers at this end of the division. The despatcher has, of course, been apprised of the safe ending of the run of Third-118.