Show WALKING BOSS 1N A lL W TAIL r I BY CY WARM AN Copyright 1897 by Cy Warman Italian laborers object to being called Dagos just as the Irish section men dislike the name of Terries and yet the section man always says the Dagos and the Italian laborer as soon as he can give an imitation of English says Dams ze Jar and he means it The Italians are fairly good workers but hard to herd They are given to the use of red liquor and profanity and delight in the fuss of firearms and the clatter of long knives Out of innate cussedness an Italian shoveling jJ snow will hold the right of way until I your pilot almost touches him and you put your engine over slide her wheels muss her jacket and make an enemy of your fireman then he will step aside If you happen to hit him or spoon him I up on the point of a pilot plow the whole mob will be upon you Rp ore they got the rotary snow machine hen the road was new they used to 1 jp the track clear with a pilot plow that was just as wide as a coach By and by when the road got bigger they bought some new sleepers that were wider and longer than the old ones and they gouged into the walls in the snow cuts and stuck fast To avoid this the company built anew a-new plow that was wider still than the new sleepers Now the Dasos as they were called used to cut out little pockets in the snow hide in them and yell into the ears of the engineers who were falling down the hill blinded by the flying snow and unable to stop his coat and in the meantime the Grate Italian struck him down with the pick handle For a space the doctor who came up to see Terrance thought the head he had would kill him but Terrance sot well When he could sit up in his tent he would look out of his tent door and damn the Dagos One day little Sam McMurtie the engineer en-gineer in charge of the work was shaking shak-ing out a dress suit to wear to the Elks ball in Gunnison It was a new suit that had come up from Denver and Sam tried it on Sam said Terrance What Terrance said Sam Are yez a friend o mine I am that Thin gUY me that coat Will you wear it Ill wear ut After the ball U After tit ball said Terrance and he nodded his head as a resolute man does when he has made up his mind that a thing is a thing It was almost a month after the fight that Terra ce got up one Monday morning and declared his intention togo to-go to work When he had dressed up to his vest he took down the swallowtail swallow-tail coat that Sam McMurtie had given him wrecking a 75 dress suit to do it and put it on He then took a pair of pistols put one in either hip pocket and backed up to McMurties mirror as a woman does dressing for church He twisted his shoulders threw up his arms leaned forward and back but never for a moment did the tail of the r + I i y r g r 44J 1 3 I I i The men marveled much at his strange attire but they were awed nevertheless short of a mile So when High Henry Bradenburg came sailjnc down the hill I one afternoon beneath a mackerel sky the Italians waited until he was closer close-r upon them and then put themselves in the niches in the wall One of the gang a short fat fellow stayed upon the track until High Henry pulled the whistle and then made a dive for his hole His big boot being balled with snow slipped and he was not able to get in to clear and the plow being extra ex-tra wide gathered him up and put him over the telegraph poles and down the mountain in about15 feet of snow and he went to the bottom The rest stood back in their niches the wide plow planed off the walls jammed the surplus sur-plus snow in on top of the Italians and left the face of the two walls smooth and white It was with difficulty that some of the men fought out and helped the others Dama ze Jar said the men when they are all out for Ter J ranee Murphy the walking boss was J laughing in his hand Where is Anton demanded one of the Italians and Terrance pointed with his thumb toward the bottom of the gulch A half hour later they brought the daring Italian out as good as new but they refused to work another lick that day Terrance threatened but it was of no use the men went swearing to their huts That night being Saturday they got very drunk and came up to the water tank to flag the snow plow which they knew would be coming up the hill ahead of 22 They were armed h with clubs and stones that could be seen and knives and revolvers that could not be seen Terrance Murphy saw them gathering about the tank where 22 would stop for water and guessed the cause of it With the help of his cook he put a push car with a handspike bent above one wheel for a brake on the track and slid down the mountain to the nearest telegraph office He flagged High Henry and told him what was on his mind Henry was for stopping and fighting the thing out with the agents rifle and a 45 that he carried in the box for he had a heap of sand Also he had orders to run to the top of the hill regardless and he never had an order that he failed to fill Flnall he agreed not to stop but as he came near the tank where the Italians stood in line on either side of the track he opened the cylinder cocks so that the steam coming out on the cold air blinded the highwaymen He also opened the overflow from the injector in-jector on his side and the fireman took the hot water hose with which he wet the coal and then they ran for the snow brigade Being cocksure the engine would stop some of the men stood on the track beyond be-yond the tank and got off barely in time to save their lives The stream j hot waterhot enough to scare but not to scald hit the men in the face and soaked them in the neck and sent them in confusion down the dump High Henry o from the coal tank thumped them with lumps of coal and scattered them from the Tight of way That was the end of the first trouble at Sbavrana but with a gang like that full of fight and firewater there was sure to be more When spring came the company began be-gan to cut off the corners and fill in the curves in order to straighten out tie track for at that time there were not three straight rails together on the hilL hillIt It was hood to have something for Terrance and his braves to do in summer sum-mer so as to have them when the snow came again so now they went to work to straighten the track Things went fairly smooth until Kelly came down with his Jerries who had nothing to do above but you cant nix < Ireland and Italy One of Kellys men and this same Antoine An-toine who fooled with the snowplow 1 ° got mixed up one day and the Irishman Irish-man hit the Italian properly enough i as an Irishman should hit with his fist whereupon Antoine pulled a carving carv-ing knife from his high boot and began be-gan carving Jerry Then all the Jer l ries joined and there was a fight Eight Irishmen and 20 Italians one of the latter with a long knife could put up a jolly row in short order They fought with picks rocks crowbars clubs and spades Nobody could tell how the fight would end for the Irish fight well with t clubs but Terrance hearing te rumpus rum-pus came out of his tent with two r guns fired a few menacing shots over the heads of the rowdies and ended the I row < rowAbout the time the walking boss began be-gan to breathe easy Antoine watching his chance rushed at the foreman with a pick handle for the foreman had ta Antoines knife away i Terrance tugged at his sixshooter fj ji Vojl tfattan tnrjQIotJ n ha toil n ° t v tip coat come between the guns and day light Thats good said Terrance and he strolled up the track to where the Italians were waiting for time At I first the men marveled at the extravagance extrava-gance of his attire but when Terrance paused turned and stood looking back down the road as though he were inspecting in-specting the work with the ready handles han-dles of his sixshooters sticking up I through the under halfcraps of his coat the men were awed There had been orders from the general gen-eral office that no man should carry arms upon the works and now the Italians Ital-ians said they would not work under Terrance so environed Antoine said they would fight first Terrance threatened and swore but the snow I brigade refused to budge After a lot of talk it was agreed that the men be j searched and if they were all unarmed then Terrance would lay away his shooting irons Sam McMurtie the engineer stood atone at-one rail George Leipp the contractor at the other and Terrance herded the men between McMurtie looked up one side of the men and Leipp looked down the other and in a little while they had three or four old pistols of unknown design and any number of abnormally I large pocketknives The last man to pass between the inspectors was Antoine I An-toine From one of his big boots they brought a spring claspknife a razor I from the other and in the bosom of his padded shirt they found a good 38 I calibre doubleacting revolver Terrance ordered Kellys section men to carry the collection to his tent and turning to his men he bade them busy themselves in the bank and in two minutes min-utes they were all busy for there was gore and the smell of garlic in Terrance Murphys ecu |