be a level stretch, but we never reached that place.
The engineer was a surly fellow, one of those men that you would not know if you lived with him a hundred years. We were dashing down the grade and rounding curves at a high rate of speed. The bell rang constantly, caused by the vibration of the engine. I looked across the cab at the engineer and wondered if that dumb bell knew how fast we were going. His poker face told nothing. We dashed around a sharp curve and there, ahead of us on the track was a child.
My blood froze and I looked at the engineer with his hand on the air valve. The air was gone. I dashed through the cab window, onto the running board. My hand was on the dome of the engine and unconsciously, my fingers touched the lariat. Frantically, I unwound it, not realizing what I was doing, proving that a habit formed is hard to conquer.
With the coil in my right hand and grasping the dome with my left hand, to keep from being blown off the engine, I saw the shoulder of a rock that stood close to the track. I swung the noose of the lariat and
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dropped to the running board. The rest was a blank. Later, I found myself lying on the ground and a fat woman was bathing my face and kissing me. I noticed that her breath smelled of onions.
I managed to sit up and incomprehensible as it may seem, I had no broken bones, although I was badly bruised and shaken up. I found that I was able to stand up. The fat woman was gesticulating and crying. I could not understand her and did not want to. She thrust a dirty baby into my arms and gave me another smothering kiss, reeking so with onions that it staggered me.
I pushed the infant into her arms and staggered towailds the wreck. A twisted mass of iron and steel greeted my shocked eyes. The locomotive, its drivers sticking up in the air, the coaches, an indescribable mass of wreckage lay before me. Not one soul of the one hundred and seventy-six passengers and members of the crew was left to tell the tale. As the only survivor of that terrible accident, I stumbled back to what was left of the engine.
My lariat was still taut, one end buried under the engine and the other end firmly looped about that jutting rock. I cut
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