"Mr. Reed," said he, officiously, "we've come to notify you not to run any more trains through here till this strike's settled. The boys won't stand it; that's all." With that he turned on his heel to leave with his following.
"Hold on, Cameron," I replied, raising my hand as I spoke; "that's not quite all. I suppose you men represent your grievance committee?"
"Yes, sir."
"I happen to represent, in the superintendent's absence, the management of this road. I simply want to say to you, and to your committee, that I take my orders from the president and the general manager not from you nor anybody you represent. That's all."
Every hour the bitterness increased. We got a few trains through, but we were terribly crippled. As for freight, we made no pretence of moving it. Trainloads of fruit and meat rotted in the yards. The strikers grew more turbulent daily. They beat our new men and crippled our locomotives. Then our troubles with the new men were almost as bad. They burned out our crown sheets; they got mixed up on orders all the time. They ran into open switches and into each other continually, and had us very nearly crazy.
I kept tab on one of the new engineers for a week. He began by backing into a diner so hard that he smashed every dish in the car, and ended by running into a siding a few days later and setting two tanks of oil on fire, that burned up a freight depot. I figured he cost us forty thousand dollars the week he ran. Then he went back to selling windmills.
After this experience I was sitting in my office one evening, when a youngish fellow in a slouch-hat opened the door and stuck his head in.
"What do you want?" I growled.
"Are you Mr. Reed?"
"What do you want?"
"I want to speak to Mr. Reed."
"Well, what is it?"
"Are you Mr. Reed?"
"Confound you, yes! What do you want?"
"Me? I don't want anything. I'm just asking, that's all."
His impudence staggered me so that I took my feet off the desk.
"Heard you were looking for men," he added.
"No," I snapped. "I don't want any men."
"Wouldn't be any show to get on an engine, would there?"
A week earlier I should have risen and fallen on his neck. But there had been others.
"There's a show to get your head broke," I suggested.
"I don't mind that, if I get my time."
"What do you know about running an engine?"
"Run one three years."
"On a threshing-machine?"
"On the Philadelphia and Reading."
"Who sent you in here?"
"Just dropped in."
"Sit down."
I eyed him sharply as he dropped into a chair.
"When did you quit the Philadelphia and Reading?"
"About six months ago."
"Fired?"
"Strike."
I began to get interested. After a few more questions I took him into the superintendent's office. But at the door I thought it well to drop a hint.
"Look here, my friend, if you're a spy you'd better keep out of this. This man would wring your neck as quick as he'd suck an orange. See?"
"Let's tackle him, anyhow," replied the fellow, eying me coolly.
I introduced him to Mr. Lancaster, and left them together. Pretty soon the superintendent came into my office.
"What do you make of him, Reed?" said he.
"What do you make of him?"
Lancaster studied a minute.
"Take him over to the round-house and see what he knows."
I walked over with the new find, chatting warily. When we reached a live engine I told him to look it over. He threw off his coat, picked up a piece of waste, and swung into the cab.
"Run her out to the switch," said I, stepping up myself.
He pinched the throttle, and we steamed slowly out of the house. A minute showed he was at home on an engine.
"Can you handle it?" I asked, as he shut off after backing down to the round-house.
"You use soft coal,"
he replied, trying the injector. "I'm used to hard. This injector is new to me. Guess I can work it, though."
"What did you say your name was?"
"I didn't say."
"What is it?" I asked, curtly.
"Foley."
"Well, Foley, if you have as much sense as you have gall you ought to get along. If you act straight, you'll never want a job again as long as you live. If you don't, you won't want to live very long."
"Got any tobacco?"
"Here, Baxter," said I, turning to the round-house foreman, "this is Foley. Give him a chew, and mark him up to go out on 77 to-night. If he monkeys with anything around the house kill him."
Baxter looked at Foley, and Foley looked at Baxter; and Baxter not getting the tobacco out quick enough, Foley reminded him he was waiting.
We didn't pretend to run freights, but I concluded to try the fellow on one, feeling sure that if he was crooked he would ditch it and skip.
So Foley ran a long string of empties and a car or two of rotten oranges down to Harvard Junction that night, with one of the dispatchers for pilot. Under my orders they had a train made up at the junction for him to bring back to McCloud. They had picked up all the strays in the yards, including half a dozen cars of meat that the local board of health had condemned after it had laid out in the sun for two weeks, and a car of butter we had been shifting around ever since the beginning of the strike.