Page:Cy Warman--The express messenger and other tales of the rail.djvu/141

Rh "Did you see anything on your side?" asked the Colonel, who was determined to unlock the lips of the fireman.

"Not a thing," said Harry. "I don't believe in ghosts."

"It will not be necessary for you to take out 63 [an accident report], but I wish you would tell me what you saw and how it affected you," said the general manager to the engineer."

"May I ask you first if you saw anything, Colonel?" said the driver.

"I saw a locomotive standing on a spur or siding just east of Coyote."

"When I see her first," said Sam, taking courage from the Colonel's confession, "she was bang in front of us, coming out of a cut like a ball out of a cannon. I saw it was all up with us, but I naturally shut off—mechanically, so to speak. I think I hooked her over, but I did n't whistle, open the sand valve, or set the air—they wa n't no use—no time; but just then I thought of little Sammie as I saw him last, hangin' on the fence by the seat of his pants, an it seemed to me that I never see anything quite so funny, and I laughed that