road.  The train was made up with a heavy ‘hog’ engine, a baggage car, express car and two sleepers.  The first train down jumped the track twice, and the up train from Salt Lake was wrecked and nearly thrown into the Snake River.  Then the trains ran from four to six hours behind time, and the people and the papers began to jest about the ‘Mormon Flyer,’ and ask for a return of the old Salisbury coach line.  The manager complained from time to time, and said it was all the fault of the engineers; said that we did not know our business, and that he would get some men from the East who would make the ‘Mormon Flyer’ fly on time.

“Well, one evening in Butte I had made up my train and was waiting for orders, when the station-master handed two telegrams to me.  One was from the manager at Salt Lake, and read:  ’You bring the ‘Flyer’ in on time to-morrow, or take two weeks’ notice.’  The other was from the Wells, Fargo & Co. agent, at Salt Lake, and read:  ’No. 3 (the north-bound ‘Flyer’) held up this afternoon near Beaver Canon.  Treasure box taken and passengers robbed.’  The best description of the robbers that could be had, was given.  I showed both telegrams to the conductor, who held the train until he could get a dozen Winchesters from the town.  In the meantime I had put the fireman on, and we put the finishing touches on the engine, No. 38—­a big, new machine, with eight drivers, and in the pink of condition.  I told my fireman that if we couldn’t pull her through on time we would leave the train on the side of the road, and thus teach a trick or two to the man who wanted to run a mountain road on Eastern methods.  I pulled that train out of Butte as though it had been shot out of a gun, and when we reached the flat below Silver Bar Canon I had her well set and flying like a scared wolf.  The train was shaking from side to side like a ship at sea, and we were skipping past the foothills so fast that they looked like fence posts.  The cab shook so that my fireman couldn’t stand to fill the fire-box, so he dumped the coal on the floor and got down on all fours and shoveled it in.  No. 38 seemed to know that she was wanted to hold down my job, and quivered like a race horse at the finish.  We made up the lost time in the first 100 miles, and got to Beaver Canon with a few minutes to spare.

“It was when I slowed her up a bit in the canon that I noticed something the matter with her.  She dropped her steady gait and began to jerk and halt.  The fire-box clogged and the steam began to drop, and when I reached a fairly long piece of road in the dark and silent canon, she refused to recover.  She spit out the steam and gurgled and coughed, and nothing that I could do would coax her along.  I told the fireman that the old girl was quitting us, and that we might as well steer for new jobs.  He did his best to get her into action, but she was bound to have her own way.  She kept losing speed every second, and wheezed and puffed like a freight engine on a mountain grade, and moved about as fast.  Finally, we came to a corner of a sharp turn, almost at the mouth of the canon, and then No. 38 gave one loud, defiant snort and stopped. “’She’s done for now,’ I said to the fireman, and we got out of the cab with our lanterns.