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Show LOST AN EXTliA TRAIN. A Very Suspioious Story of Eailroad Life in the Great North-West. North-West. THE ENGINE THAT NEVEE CAME. An Old Farmer Furnishes a Clue That Never Was Worked Out -A Great Tale. ' "Yew, that' considerable of a story, if it's true; but you can calculate with a Wonderful degree of accuracy that anything any-thing a printer says is considerably warped. Now I think I can see you and go you a few better in the story line, and what I am going to tell you is absolutely ' true." It was a picturesque group of old timers The Hawkeye reporter had stumbled on lb the course of a news gathering ramble down in the "Q" yards. They were wated about an old stove in the round house, and had been swapping various railroad experiences. The conversation had tirifted around to suow blockades in the west. The reporter had just finished an elaborate account of his experiences In a bloceade on the Rockies which called forth the above remarks from one of the eld engineers whom we will call Higbie, (Hit of respect to his feelings. The reporter hastily sharpened a freBh (lead pencil and selected a fresh spot on Jiis cuff. Higbie knocked the ashes from his cigar and continued: THE "EXTRA" ANNOUNCED. ' "It happened this way. I was doing Bight duty for Bob Carew at Little Jim-ville, Jim-ville, fifty miles west of Limestone, on the Northwestern. It was during the (winter of 1878-79, and of all the dreary places Jimville was the dreariest in winter win-ter time. It had been raining and snowing snow-ing and sleeting all that week, and the ground was covered with a sheet of ice. Night operating Is nothing to passionately passionate-ly long for. I prefer hod carrying. I at in the desolate box of a depot, the cold winter wind howled around the comers with a drearisomeness and rattled rat-tled and slammed the shutters in a way that would give some people a fit of the blue shivers. But I had got used to that, bo didn't Mind it much. I had stirred up the fire, for it was bitterly cold out-aide, out-aide, with the frost an inch thick on the windows, and sat watching the flames flash and roar up the chimney. I must have fallen asleep, for soon I began to hear the most infernal racket, like death dancing a double shuffle on the roof, and I started up with a jerk that nearly dislocated dis-located my backbone, to find the train dispatcher calling me. I answered and received the following order: " 'Hold No. 3 till extra passes you.' i "Just then I heard the whistle of the passenger. It was 10:80 when I sidetracked side-tracked here. At 10:45 1 received a dispatch dis-patch from Bunker Hill saying that the extra had just pulled out. It would probably take her thirty minutes to make the run from Bunker Hill. I waited 11:80, no extra; 13, no extra. What could it mean? I telegraphed to Bunker Hill and received the following: " 'Extra left here at 10:43 O. K. "The train could be heard from nowhere no-where else along the line. I awoke the section hands and sent them over the truck to Bunker Hill to see if they could Mud anything of the extra. At 2:80 I received re-ceived a dispatch from them at Bunker Hill: " 'Track clear. No trace of extra.' 4 "Before I could express my astonish ment I was joined by the conductor of No. 8, who was swearing fluently. '"What does it mean, Higbie? he asked. "I was nonplussed, but finally told him to pull cautiously down to Bunker Hill, and if he saw nothing to go on as usual, and make up as much time aa possible. At 8:40 I received the following follow-ing from the conductor at Bunker Hill: ; " 'Just arrived. Could find nothing of rtra.' "I ordered a track walker to search closely between Jimville and Bunker HilL He found nothing except what looked like traces of the train having jumped the track. But nothing further. THK FARMER'S STORY. "Days passed into weeks, until the Rveary months dragged their slow lengths along, leaving the tantalising mystery wrapped in still more impenetrable gloom, until one day an old farmer drifted into the depot and asked if I had keen losing any trains lately, 'For,' the old man chuckled, 'I saw one runnin' 'round loose last winter. It ran up to my farm yard and the engineer axed me if he might fill his biler tank at my well. I eaid he might and got him a bucket After he had filled up he axed me the road to the nearest town, borried a chaw o' tobacky and lit out. I never seed him tence,' and the honest farmer shuffled away. "Well, that was three years ago, I have not seen the lost extra, but I have heard from it several times. It was seen by a belated hunter one stormy night, when it rushed by him like the wind, its headlight gleaming like the evil eye of some demon. Others have heard its unearthly un-earthly shriek mingling with the howling, howl-ing, storm. Sometimes it startled the 'lonely farmer in the dead of night, when the engineer will ask permission to take water, and inquire the direction to the nearest town. It is seldom seen by railroad rail-road men, who call it the Flying Dutchman Dutch-man of the plains, and consider it an evil.omon when seen by one of them. It is said that poor Billy Yates saw the opecter train coming down the track just before he struck the broken rail that hurled him and two others into I'ternity," Higbie threw the stub of his cigar into the stove and ceased talking. There was a dreary silence for a few moments, and then a tall, gaunt figure arose out of the shadow in the corner and remarked in a sepulchral voicei "I believe that's a prevarication." Burlington Hawkeye. |