XIX
It is well for its peace of mind that the traveling public
takes railroads so much for granted. The only men who
are incurably nervous about railway travel are the railroad
operatives. A railroad man never forgets that the next run
may be his turn.
On a single-track road, like that upon which Ray Ken-
nedy worked, the freight trains make their way as best they
can between passenger trains. Even when there is such a
thing as a freight time-schedule, it is merely a form. Along
the one track dozens of fast and slow trains dash in both
directions, kept from collision only by the brains in the
dispatcher's office. If one passenger train is late, the whole
schedule must be revised in an instant; the trains following
must be warned, and those moving toward the belated train
must be assigned new meeting-places.
Between the shifts and modifications of the passenger
schedule, the freight trains play a game of their own. They
have no right to the track at any given time, but are sup-
posed to be on it when it is free, and to make the best time
they can between passenger trains. A freight train, on a
single-track road, gets anywhere at all only by stealing
bases.
Ray Kennedy had stuck to the freight service, although
he had had opportunities to go into the passenger service
at higher pay. He always regarded railroading as a tempo-
rary makeshift, until he "got into something," and he dis-
liked the passenger service. No brass buttons for him, he
said; too much like a livery. While he was railroading he
would wear a jumper, thank you!
The wreck that "caught" Ray was a very commonplace
one; nothing thrilling about it, and it got only six lines in
the Denver papers. It happened about daybreak one
morning, only thirty-two miles from home.
At four o'clock in the morning Ray's train had stopped
to take water at Saxony, having just rounded the long
curve which lies south of that station. It was Joe Giddy's
business to walk back along the curve about three hundred
yards and put out torpedoes to warn any train which might
be coming up from behind--a freight crew is not notified
of trains following, and the brakeman is supposed to protect
his train. Ray was so fussy about the punctilious observ-
ance of orders that almost any brakeman would take a
chance once in a while, from natural perversity.
When the train stopped for water that morning, Ray
was at the desk in his caboose, making out his report.
Giddy took his torpedoes, swung off the rear platform, and
glanced back at the curve. He decided that he would not
go back to flag this time. If anything was coming up be-
hind, he could hear it in plenty of time. So he ran forward
to look after a hot journal that had been bothering him.
In a general way, Giddy's reasoning was sound. If a freight
train, or even a passenger train, had been coming up behind
them, he could have heard it in time. But as it happened, a
light engine, which made no noise at all, was coming,--
ordered out to help with the freight that was piling up at
the other end of the division. This engine got no warning,
came round the curve, struck the caboose, went straight
through it, and crashed into the heavy lumber car ahead.
The Kronborgs were just sitting down to breakfast, when
the night telegraph operator dashed into the yard at a run
and hammered on the front door. Gunner answered the
knock, and the telegraph operator told him he wanted to
see his father a minute, quick. Mr. Kronborg appeared at
the door, napkin in hand. The operator was pale and
panting.
"Fourteen was wrecked down at Saxony this morning,"
he shouted, "and Kennedy's all broke up. We're sending
an engine down with the doctor, and the operator at Saxony
says Kennedy wants you to come along with us and bring
your girl." He stopped for breath.
Mr. Kronborg took off his glasses and began rubbing
them with his napkin.
"Bring--I don't understand," he muttered. "How did
this happen?"
"No time for that, sir. Getting the engine out now.
Your girl, Thea. You'll surely do that for the poor chap.
Everybody knows he thinks the world of her." Seeing that
Mr. Kronborg showed no indication of having made up his
mind, the operator turned to Gunner. "Call your sister,
kid. I'm going to ask the girl herself," he blurted out.
"Yes, yes, certainly. Daughter," Mr. Kronborg called.
He had somewhat recovered himself and reached to the
hall hatrack for his hat.
Just as Thea came out on the front porch, before the
operator had had time to explain to her, Dr. Archie's ponies
came up to the gate at a brisk trot. Archie jumped out
the moment his driver stopped the team and came up to
the bewildered girl without so much as saying good-morn-
ing to any one. He took her hand with the sympathetic,
reassuring graveness which had helped her at more than
one hard time in her life. "Get your hat, my girl. Ken-
nedy's hurt down the road, and he wants you to run down
with me. They'll have a car for us. Get into my buggy,
Mr. Kronborg. I'll drive you down, and Larry can come
for the team."
The driver jumped out of the buggy and Mr. Kronborg
and the doctor got in. Thea, still bewildered, sat on her fa-
ther's knee. Dr. Archie gave his ponies a smart cut with the
whip.
When they reached the depot, the engine, with one car
attached, was standing on the main track. The engineer
had got his steam up, and was leaning out of the cab im-
patiently. In a moment they were off. The run to Saxony
took forty minutes. Thea sat still in her seat while Dr.
Archie and her father talked about the wreck. She took
no part in the conversation and asked no questions, but
occasionally she looked at Dr. Archie with a frightened,
inquiring glance, which he answered by an encouraging
nod. Neither he nor her father said anything about how
badly Ray was hurt. When the engine stopped near Saxony,
the main track was already cleared. As they got out of the
car, Dr. Archie pointed to a pile of ties.
"Thea, you'd better sit down here and watch the wreck
crew while your father and I go up and look Kennedy over.
I'll come back for you when I get him fixed up."
The two men went off up the sand gulch, and Thea sat
down and looked at the pile of splintered wood and twisted
iron that had lately been Ray's caboose. She was fright-
ened and absent-minded. She felt that she ought to be
thinking about Ray, but her mind kept racing off to all sorts
of trivial and irrelevant things. She wondered whether
Grace Johnson would be furious when she came to take her
music lesson and found nobody there to give it to her;
whether she had forgotten to close the piano last night and
whether Thor would get into the new room and mess the
keys all up with his sticky fingers; whether Tillie would go
upstairs and make her bed for her. Her mind worked fast,
but she could fix it upon nothing. The grasshoppers, the
lizards, distracted her attention and seemed more real to
her than poor Ray.
On their way to the sand bank where Ray had been car-
ried, Dr. Archie and Mr. Kronborg met the Saxony doctor.
He shook hands with them.
"Nothing you can do, doctor. I couldn't count the
fractures. His back's broken, too. He wouldn't be alive
now if he weren't so confoundedly strong, poor chap. No
use bothering him. I've given him morphia, one and a
half, in eighths."
Dr. Archie hurried on. Ray was lying on a flat canvas
litter, under the shelter of a shelving bank, lightly shaded
by a slender cottonwood tree. When the doctor and the
preacher approached, he looked at them intently.
"Didn't--" he closed his eyes to hide his bitter disap-
pointment.
Dr. Archie knew what was the matter. "Thea's back
there, Ray. I'll bring her as soon as I've had a look at you."
Ray looked up. "You might clean me up a trifle, doc.
Won't need you for anything else, thank you all the same."
However little there was left of him, that little was cer-
tainly Ray Kennedy. His personality was as positive as
ever, and the blood and dirt on his face seemed merely
accidental, to have nothing to do with the man himself.
Dr. Archie told Mr. Kronborg to bring a pail of water, and
he began to sponge Ray's face and neck. Mr. Kronborg
stood by, nervously rubbing his hands together and trying
to think of something to say. Serious situations always
embarrassed him and made him formal, even when he felt
real sympathy.
"In times like this, Ray," he brought out at last, crum-
pling up his handkerchief in his long fingers,--"in times
like this, we don't want to forget the Friend that sticketh
closer than a brother."
Ray looked up at him; a lonely, disconsolate smile played
over his mouth and his square cheeks. "Never mind about
all that, PADRE," he said quietly. "Christ and me fell out
long ago."
There was a moment of silence. Then Ray took pity on
Mr. Kronborg's embarrassment. "You go back for the
little girl, PADRE. I want a word with the doc in private."
Ray talked to Dr. Archie for a few moments, then
stopped suddenly, with a broad smile. Over the doctor's
shoulder he saw Thea coming up the gulch, in her pink
chambray dress, carrying her sun-hat by the strings. Such
a yellow head! He often told himself that he "was per-
fectly foolish about her hair." The sight of her, coming,
went through him softly, like the morphia. "There she
is," he whispered. "Get the old preacher out of the way,
doc. I want to have a little talk with her."
Dr. Archie looked up. Thea was hurrying and yet hang-
ing back. She was more frightened than he had thought
she would be. She had gone with him to see very sick
people and had always been steady and calm. As she came
up, she looked at the ground, and he could see that she had
been crying.
Ray Kennedy made an unsuccessful effort to put out his
hand. "Hello, little kid, nothing to be afraid of. Darned
if I don't believe they've gone and scared you! Nothing
to cry about. I'm the same old goods, only a little dented.
Sit down on my coat there, and keep me company. I've
got to lay still a bit."
Dr. Archie and Mr. Kronborg disappeared. Thea cast a
timid glance after them, but she sat down resolutely and
took Ray's hand.
"You ain't scared now, are you?" he asked affection-
ately. "You were a regular brick to come, Thee. Did you
get any breakfast?"
"No, Ray, I'm not scared. Only I'm dreadful sorry
you're hurt, and I can't help crying."
His broad, earnest face, languid from the opium and
smiling with such simple happiness, reassured her. She
drew nearer to him and lifted his hand to her knee. He
looked at her with his clear, shallow blue eyes. How he
loved everything about that face and head! How many
nights in his cupola, looking up the track, he had seen that
face in the darkness; through the sleet and snow, or in the
soft blue air when the moonlight slept on the desert.
"You needn't bother to talk, Thee. The doctor's medi-
cine makes me sort of dopey. But it's nice to have com-
pany. Kind of cozy, don't you think? Pull my coat under
you more. It's a darned shame I can't wait on you."
"No, no, Ray. I'm all right. Yes, I like it here. And I
guess you ought not to talk much, ought you? If you can
sleep, I'll stay right here, and be awful quiet. I feel just
as much at home with you as ever, now."
That simple, humble, faithful something in Ray's eyes
went straight to Thea's heart. She did feel comfortable
with him, and happy to give him so much happiness. It was
the first time she had ever been conscious of that power to
bestow intense happiness by simply being near any one.
She always remembered this day as the beginning of that
knowledge. She bent over him and put her lips softly to
his cheek.
Ray's eyes filled with light. "Oh, do that again, kid!"
he said impulsively. Thea kissed him on the forehead,
blushing faintly. Ray held her hand fast and closed his eyes
with a deep sigh of happiness. The morphia and the sense
of her nearness filled him with content. The gold mine,
the oil well, the copper ledge--all pipe dreams, he mused,
and this was a dream, too. He might have known it before.
It had always been like that; the things he admired had
always been away out of his reach: a college education, a
gentleman's manner, an Englishman's accent--things over
his head. And Thea was farther out of his reach than all
the rest put together. He had been a fool to imagine it, but
he was glad he had been a fool. She had given him one grand
dream. Every mile of his run, from Moonstone to Denver,
was painted with the colors of that hope. Every cactus
knew about it. But now that it was not to be, he knew the
truth. Thea was never meant for any rough fellow like
him--hadn't he really known that all along, he asked
himself? She wasn't meant for common men. She was
like wedding cake, a thing to dream on. He raised his eye-
lids a little. She was stroking his hand and looking off into
the distance. He felt in her face that look of unconscious
power that Wunsch had seen there. Yes, she was bound for
the big terminals of the world; no way stations for her. His
lids drooped. In the dark he could see her as she would be
after a while; in a box at the Tabor Grand in Denver, with
diamonds on her neck and a tiara in her yellow hair, with
all the people looking at her through their opera-glasses,
and a United States Senator, maybe, talking to her. "Then
you'll remember me!" He opened his eyes, and they were
full of tears.
Thea leaned closer. "What did you say, Ray? I couldn't
hear."
"Then you'll remember me," he whispered.
The spark in his eye, which is one's very self, caught the
spark in hers that was herself, and for a moment they
looked into each other's natures. Thea realized how good
and how great-hearted he was, and he realized about her
many things. When that elusive spark of personality re-
treated in each of them, Thea still saw in his wet eyes her
own face, very small, but much prettier than the cracked
glass at home had ever shown it. It was the first time she
had seen her face in that kindest mirror a woman can ever
find.
Ray had felt things in that moment when he seemed to
be looking into the very soul of Thea Kronborg. Yes, the
gold mine, the oil well, the copper ledge, they'd all got
away from him, as things will; but he'd backed a winner
once in his life! With all his might he gave his faith to the
broad little hand he held. He wished he could leave her
the rugged strength of his body to help her through with it
all. He would have liked to tell her a little about his old
dream,--there seemed long years between him and it al-
ready,--but to tell her now would somehow be unfair;
wouldn't be quite the straightest thing in the world.
Probably she knew, anyway. He looked up quickly. "You
know, don't you, Thee, that I think you are just the finest
thing I've struck in this world?"
The tears ran down Thea's cheeks. "You're too good
to me, Ray. You're a lot too good to me," she faltered.
"Why, kid," he murmured, "everybody in this world's
going to be good to you!"
Dr. Archie came to the gulch and stood over his patient.
"How's it going?"
"Can't you give me another punch with your pacifier,
doc? The little girl had better run along now." Ray re-
leased Thea's hand. "See you later, Thee."
She got up and moved away aimlessly, carrying her hat
by the strings. Ray looked after her with the exaltation
born of bodily pain and said between his teeth, "Always
look after that girl, doc. She's a queen!"
Thea and her father went back to Moonstone on the
one-o'clock passenger. Dr. Archie stayed with Ray Ken-
nedy until he died, late in the afternoon.
