Page:Cy Warman--The express messenger and other tales of the rail.djvu/149

Rh fly runs; I do' want her." And with that Baldy walked out of the round-house and over to the "Place of the Triangle," and shook the man there for a cigar.

When the two engines had been raced around the yards a few days and "limbered up," the 109 was coupled on to the Pacific express one night and introduced to the curves and corners of the Grand Cañon. The road then was not what it is now. The next time you go through there, if you sit on the rear platform, you will notice that the crumbling grade that marks the route of the old narrow gauge, crosses the present standard track one hundred times in fifty miles. It was so crooked, Baldy said, that a new runner was sure, at some of the corners, to shut off for his own headlight. However, the 109 held the rail and made a good record; so good, in fact, that, notwithstanding it was Friday, the 107 was sent out on the following night. She left the house an hour before leaving time, and it was lucky she did, for she ran off the track at the water tank and was got back barely in time to take her train out.

"No man can call me superstitious," said