Page:Cy Warman--The express messenger and other tales of the rail.djvu/155

Rh in the field at the company's shops near Denver, where all the old relics were side tracked, and the employees began to hope that she might be allowed to remain there; but the company, if for no other reason than to prevent the employees from becoming hopelessly superstitious, put her into the shops, rebuilt and repainted her, so that when she came out again to be limbered up she looked better than ever before. When she had "found herself" again, as Mr. Kipling would say, she was sent back to the mountain division, the scene of her last escapade. Her coming was not regarded as a joyful event by the trainmen and enginemen of the fourth division, and the division master mechanic knew it, and for some time she stood in the round-house with the dust and ashes on her jacket, until her rods rusted and her bell began to corrode. Then, for the same reason that she had been brought out of the field at Denver, she was taken from the round-house and put in order.

One of the regular engines on what in the early days had been called "The Death Run" having been disabled, the Rockaway was ordered