Page:Cy Warman--The express messenger and other tales of the rail.djvu/115

 A LOCOMOTIVE AS A WAR CHARIOT

MOKY HILL was the end of the track at that time," said the old engineer, shifting his lame foot to an easy position. "'We had built a round-house,—a square one, with only two stalls and room at the back for three or four bunks and a work bench. To protect ourselves against the Sioux we had lined the house up to about five feet from the ground, and filled in behind the lining with sand.

"Indians were thicker than grasshoppers in Kansas in the days of the building of the Kansas Pacific, and scarcely a day—never a week—went by without a fight. At first they appeared to be awed by the locomotives, but in a little while their superstitious fear had vanished, and they were constantly setting lures to capture the 'big hoss', as they called the engine.