Page:Cy Warman--The express messenger and other tales of the rail.djvu/126

114 with a train load of material, but the officials, fearing that something might arise which would cause us to want to come in, had very wisely abandoned all trains the moment the wires went down, and so we reached Lawrence just before day without a mishap.

"My first thought was of our captive, Bear Foot, who had made track laying dangerous business for our people for the past three or four weeks, but upon looking about I saw only four Pawnees, and concluded that the fierce fellows had killed the chief and rolled him off.

"'Where's Bear Foot?' I demanded.

"'Here,' said a Pawnee, who was quietly seated upon the manhole of the engine tank, and he pointed down. During the excitement in the round-house at Smoky Hill the Sioux had made a desperate effort to escape, and had been quietly dropped into the tank where he had remained throughout the entire run.

"Now, it's one thing to stay in a tank that is half filled with water when the engine is in her stall, and quite another thing to inhabit a place of that kind when a locomotive is making a fly run over a new track. After much time