Charles E. Van Loan

“ When he could not think of anything else to do, he hired a special train from Barstow to Los Angeles—a matter of one hundred and forty-one miles over the Cajon Pass, and through the garden-spot of southern California.
Scotty broke the record with a whoop and a hurrah, and he liked the sensation so well that inside of ten days he slipped quietly out to Barstow; and I received a telegram from there, saying that the man of mystery was in the office at that point, arranging for a second special train. I wired him that he was crazy; he wired back:
Pay no attention! ”

“ In the dark the Coyote took to the mountains on the Arizona side of the line. At Seligman, four hundred and sixty miles out, we picked up mountain time, and the watches reported us eleven minute's ahead of the schedule.
Everybody knew that it was on the mountain divisions that the fight must be won or lost. On the Santa Fe "race-track" east of La Junta the balance compounds were waiting, and, as Scotty told Byrne, "You ain't got a man on your road knows how fast them balance compounds can go." ”

“ His men made us a present of an additional four minutes, for we were in Albuquerque at 9.30 Monday morning, 888 miles from Los Angeles. We made our longest stop at a station in Albuquerque, where they restocked the diner and picked up a new outfit, which included Train-master Jim Kurn, a fine specimen of a mountain railroad man.
"It's a lot easier to be on a plain's division," said Kurn; "but I like this mountain country, even if we do have to put in twenty-two hours a day fighting these grades. ”

“ THE TRUE STORY SERIES. Whenever railroad men fall to discussing shotgun runs and long-distance record-breaking specials, the conversation is sure to veer around to the trip of the Coyote Special over the line of the Santa Fe between Los Angeles and Chicago, 2,265 miles in forty-four hours and fifty-four minutes. ”

“ From Las Vegas to Raton, over the mountains, and then a tremendous sprint from La Junta and the beginning of the "race-track" and the balance compounds. Hud Gardner brought us into La Junta exactly even with the revised schedule. ”

“ They were buying an interest in themselves, but they did not know that until afterward. It is the general opinion out West that if a man is smart enough to sell a gold brick to an Eastern millionaire, he is entitled to the proceeds.
Now, about that train. After the incident of the torn one-hundred-dollar-bill—and that trick belonged to the justly celebrated Steve Brodie, who also went back after the pieces—Scotty began to appear next to live reading matter in the public prints. ”

“ That was the beginning of a two-hour confab. Byrne had an idea what the road could do, for the wires had been humming for four days. Every division superintendent along the entire route had made a report ”