Arthur Stringer

“ Web looked round, unconcernedly, as any man of solemn responsibilities should. Three months before he had been a wiper in the Moosehead roundhouse. To reach the throttle after only a quarter of a year of firing was unusual, tending, naturally enough, to give a man an undue sense of his own importance. But three months before, the engineer of the Transcontinental Express had been blown from the cab of his huge camelback by the bursting of a steam pipe. ”

“ A trackman had found him with a broken hip, and sent the alarm east and west, to keep the road clear for the wildcat train. It was Web who volunteered to pull out of Moosehead on a special engine and take the rail ahead of the runaway, slowing down gradually, until he was able to jump from his tender's rear-board to the pilot-bar of the wildcat, and then scramble perilously up to the cab and close the throttle. So Web had accepted his subscription gold watch with a grin and taken a little pride in his promotion. ”

“ As Eighty-seven took the sharp curve at Titburn Bridge, and the heavy coaches twisted and creaked in her wake, Web put a hand on the sand-lever, squinted at his gauge, and let her take the up-grade wide open. Web knew that the working-pressure of his eighty-seven-inch boiler was well over two hundred and ten pounds ”

“ Web chuckled at his own personifying jocularity. "She's too skittish yet, and needs another month or two of pettin' down and coaxin' out, and then you'll see that eighteen by twenty-six cylinder of her's getting in its fine work!"
The stranger was on the cab steps, peering about the tender and boiler head and cab windows.
"She's got to learn her table manners yet, too," said Web. He was young, and he liked to talk. "She eats coal like a hog—has the dirtiest habits of any Brooks I ever saw! But me and Tom's been teachin' her things, and she's willin', mighty willin', to learn!" ”

“ Web looked at him, and then gazed at his disabled engine, regretfully. Then he pointed toward the cab.
"By God, O'Higgins, she's human," he declared, inconsequentially, but with great conviction.
"Who's human? What's human?" ”

“ The driver of the twelve-wheeled monster snorted aloud.
"Fellow? She's no fellow! She's woman, through and through!" He pointed at her lifting-pipe with his long-nosed oiling-can. "There's her petticoat, to prove it!" ”