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Show -B , , 1 , I, ! Illl HERE'S MYSTERY MAN OF THE PRAIRIES A ( Kansas Hermit Building Railroad All By Himself RY M MH I, VBBOTT. 1 staff Correspondent, JBTMORE, Kan.. Sept. 18. All alone on the shadeless prairie, miles 1 rum .my town, 1 man, a team of mules and a scraper are nibbling, mouselike, at the Immensity of the landscape Behind them, across the rolling plain, runs a long scar, Its cuts and fills level and true. Its sides raw With fresh-turned earth near the si raper, but weed-grown as it stretches backward, Uhtll It vanishes in the prairie grass. The man talks to hltns. If as he works Sometimes he laughs. He Is bearded, and dark as a negro with sunburn and dirt, and his patched overalls arc almost falling from his I ban body, but his mules are fat and sleek. It is Rudolph Myers, building his railroad. For 12 years My or a has been the puzzle of this part of Kansas. Working alone, he has constructed about three miles of railroad grade jfiround the base of some low bluffs several miles from Jetmore, and has I bought about 12 miles of right of way from nowhere to nowhere, in u general gen-eral southwest direction. Summer and winter he lives alone on the right of way. In a shack of corrugated iron rusted to a uniform brick -red- In a sort of coxered pen of broken hoards nearby live his mules. MILE AT A TIME. ear after year ho has lived and I w orked thus, buying another mile of right of way now and then by paying for 11 wit h 1 hi cks on b nh In K-.r - sas City. The checks are always honored. hon-ored. Jetmore residents remember that when he appeared In the village, 12 or 13 years ago, bids were being called for on the grading of approaches to a l-ridse. Bids of ssoo and 11000 had been made. "I'll do It foi $500." offered of-fered Myers, and the city, smiling In Its sleeve, gave him the contract He finished It In 10 days, making a Rood profit and doing a Job that still testi-iie.) testi-iie.) to his expertness Then he set about his railroad BECOMES HERMIT. Prom thai time he became practically prac-tically ;i hermit As the years have 1,'one by he seems to have lost track of time, and sometimes comes to town on n Sunday for his meager supplies, forgetting that the stores are closed IK has steadily refused to talk about himself or what he Is doing In what Is declared In Jetmore to have been an unparalleled fit of communicativeness, com-municativeness, however, he told me yesterday that he was building a rail-load rail-load from Jetmore to "somewhere north of Garden "lty; I dunno Just v, here " "It's the best route for a railroad anywhere round here," he said, sitting on the handle of his scraper and looking look-ing wistfully to the south w estward. "I figured I'd have money enough to buy the right of way, and 1 could do all the work myself, me and the mules. I thought maybe I could sell stock and be a stockholder I've got about all the grading done now, the rest will b level ground Hut I won't have money enough to put down the tics and rails and get the trains running. And nobody seems to take an Interest. Inter-est. They come round and ask a lot of questions, but thev don't do nothing noth-ing Some railroad fellows came and looked at It once, but they never came back." SHREWDLY CHOSE I The route Is shrewdly chosen, resl- I Ji:T.MiRE, Kan., Sept IS Here's I I the mystery man of the Kansas prai- H I ties. "What's he doing out there7" H I Everyone w ho sees Rudolph Myers fl working alone day utter day asks that fl inuestlon. He'l building a railroad! fl I That's about all anyone ever got from IB I him In the way of an answer. Upper H I picture shows Rudolph at work with JR his team on the right of way stretch- m ing om?i- the prairie from here to SH nowhere! liwer picture shows the B hermil railroad builder, Rudolph My- era who h..s been on bis puzzling job jj-Jr ol the county say. R would 1 -dsfl Me Jetmore a connection with Gmt- 'H den City, which It has not now and IftH would shorten the route of the Santa aH I e l .1 number of miles. But ' Rudolph Myers" right of way deeds provide thai the land shall revert to its original owners when work ceases, or it becomes evident that there is 10 prospect of a railroad being com- mSSa |