Chapter IV: Part I: Jim Wainright's Kid (3)

"John," said he, "it isn't every man that can understand what my wife says. Only kindred spirits can read the language of the eyes. _She hasn't spoken an audible word in ten years_, but she talks with her eyes, even her picture talks. We, rather she, is a mystery here; people believe all kinds of things about her and us; but we don't care. I want you to come up to the house some evening and know her better. We'll be three chums, I know it, but don't ask questions; you will know things later on."

Before I ever went to Hopkins' house, he had told her all about me, and when he introduced us, he said:

"Madeline, this is the friend who says your picture talked to him."

I bowed low to the lady and tried to put myself and her at ease.

"Mrs. Hopkins, I'm afraid your husband is poking fun at me, and thinks my liver is out of order, but, really, I did imagine I saw changing expression in your eyes in that picture--in fact, I named you 'My Lady of the Eyes.'"

She laughed--with her eyes--held out her hands and made me welcome.

"That name is something like mine," said Hopkins, "I call her Talking Eyes.'"

Then Hopkins brought in his little three-year-old daughter, who immediately climbed on my knee, captured my watch, and asked:

"What oo name?"

"John," said I.

"Don, Don," she repeated; "my name Maddie."

"That's Daddy's chum," put in Hopkins.

"Tum," repeated Maddie.

"Uncle Chummy," said Hopkins.

"Untle Tummie."

And I was "Untle Tummie" to little Madeline and "Chummy" to Hopkins and his wife from then on.

Mrs. Hopkins wore her veil at home as well as abroad, but it was so neatly arranged and worn so naturally that I soon became entirely used to it, in fact, didn't notice it. Otherwise, she was a well-dressed, handsomely set up woman, a splendid musician and a capital companion. She sat at her work listening, while Hopkins and I "railroaded" and argued about politics, and religion and everything else under the sun. Mrs. Hopkins took sides freely; a glance at her eyes told where she stood on any question.

Between "Scar Face" Hopkins and his handsome wife there appeared to be perfect sympathy and confidence. Sitting in silence, they glanced from one to the other now and again, smiled, nodded--and understood.

I was barred from the house for a month during the winter because little Madeline had the scarlet fever, then epidemic, but it was reported a light case and I contented myself with sending her toys and candy.

One day I dropped into Hopkins' office to make inquiry, when a clerk told me Hopkins had not been to the office for several days. Mrs. Hopkins was sick. I made another round trip and inquired again, and got the same answer; then I went up to the house.

The officious quarantine guard was still walking up and down in front of the Hopkins residence. To a single inquiry, this voluble functionary volunteered the information that the baby was all right now, but the lady herself was very sick with scarlet fever. Hopkins was most crazy, no trained nurses could be had for love nor money, the doctor was coming three times a day, and did I know that Mrs. Hopkins was some kind of a foreign Dago, and the whole outfit "queer?"

Hopkins was in trouble; I pushed open the gate and started up the walk.

"Hey, young feller, where yer goin'," demanded the guard.

"Into the house, of course."

"D'ye know if you go in ye got to stay for the next two weeks?"

"Perfectly."

"Then go on, you darned fool."

And I went on.

Hopkins met me, hollow-eyed and haggard.

"Chum," said he, "you've come to prison, but I'm glad. Help is out of reach. If you can take care of Maddie, the girl will do the cooking and I will--I will do my duty."

And night and day he did do his duty, being alone with his wife except for the few moments of the doctor's calls.

One evening, after my little charge had been put to sleep downstairs by complying with her invariable order to "tell me a 'tory 'bout when oo was a 'ittle teenty weenty boy," the doctor came down with a grave face.

"Our patient has reached the worst stage--delirium. The turn will come to-night. Poor Hopkins is about worn out, and I'm afraid may need you. Please don't go to bed; be 'on call.'"

One hour, two hours, I sat there without hearing a sound from upstairs. I was drowsy and remembering that I had missed my evening smoke I lighted my pipe, silently opened the front door and stepped out upon the porch to get a whiff of fresh air. It was a still dark night, and I tiptoed down to the end that overlooked the city and stood looking at the lights and listening to the music of the switch engines in the yards below the hill. The porch was in darkness except the broad beam of light from the hall gas jet through the open door.

The lights below made me think of home and my wife and little ones sleeping safely, I hoped, close to the coastwise lights of the Old Colony.

I thought I heard a stealthy footfall behind me, and turned around to face an apparition that made the cold chill creep up my back. If ever there was a ghost, this must be one, an object in white not six feet from me.

I'm not at all afraid of ghosts when I reach my second wind, and I grabbed at this one. It moved backward silently and as I made a quick step toward it that specter let out the most blood-curdling yell I ever heard--the shriek of a maniac.

I stepped quicker now, but it moved away until it stood in the flood of light from the doorway, and then I saw a sight that took all the strength out of me. The most awful and frightful face I ever beheld, and,--it was the face of Madeline Hopkins.

The neck and jaw and mouth were drawn and seamed and scarred in a frightful and hideous manner, the teeth protruded and the mouth was drawn to one side in a frightful leer; above that was all the beauty of "My Lady of the Eyes."

For a moment I was dumb and powerless, and in that moment Hopkins appeared with a bound, and between us we captured my poor friend's wife and struggled and fought with her up the long stairs and back to her bed.

Sitting one on either side, we had all we could do to hold her hands. She would lift us both to our feet, she was struggling desperately, and the eyes were the eyes of a tigress.

When this strain was at its worst and every nerve on edge, another scream from behind us cut our ears like a needle, the eyes of the tigress as well as ours sought the door, and there in her golden curls and white "nightie" stood little Madeline. The eyes of the tigress softened to tenderest love, and with a bound, the baby was on her mother's breast, her arms around her neck, and she was saying, "Poor Mama, what they doin' to poor Mama?"

"My darling, my darling," said the mother in the sweetest of tones.

I unconsciously released my hold upon the arm I held, and she drew the sheet up and covered her face as I was wont to see it, and held it there. With the other, she gently stroked the baby curls.

I watched this transformation as if under a spell.

Suddenly she turned her head toward Hopkins, her eyes full of tenderness and pity and love, reached out her hand and said:

"Oh, Steadman, my voice has come back, God has taken off the curse."

But poor Hopkins was on his knees beside the bed, his face buried in his arms, his strong shoulders heaving and pitiful sobs breaking from his very heart.

A couple of months afterward I resigned to go back to God's country, the home of the east wind, and where I could know my own children and speak to my own wife without an introduction, and the Hopkins invited me to a farewell dinner.

"My Lady of the Eyes" presided, looking handsomer and stronger than usual, but she didn't eat with us. But with eyes and voice she entertained us so royally and pleasantly that Hopkins and I did eating enough for all.

After supper, Hop. and I lighted our cigars and "railroaded" for awhile, then "Her Eyes" went to the piano and sang a dozen songs as only a trained singer can. Her voice was wonderfully sweet and low. They were old songs, but they seemed the better for that, and while she sang Hopkins's cigar went out and he just gazed at her with pride and joy in every lineament of his scarred and furrowed face.

Little Maddie was allowed to sit up in honor of "Untle Tummy," but after awhile the little head bobbed quietly and the little chin fell between the verses of her mother's song, and "My Lady of the Eyes" took her by the hand and brought her over to us.

"Tell papa good-night and Uncle Chum my good-bye, dear, and we'll go to bed."

Hopkins kissed the baby, and I got my hug, and another to take to my "ittle dirl," and Mrs. Hopkins held out both her hands to me.

"Good-bye, dear Chum," said she, "my love to you and yours, now and always."

Hopkins put his arm around his wife, kissed her forehead and said:

"Sweetheart, I'm going to tell Chum a story."

"And don't forget the hero," said she, and turning to me, "Don't believe all he says, and don't blame those that he blames, and remember that what is, is best, and seeming calamities are often blessings in disguise."

Hopkins and I looked into each other's faces and smoked in silence for ten minutes, then he turned to his secretary and, opening a drawer, took out a couple of cases and opened them. They contained medals. Then he opened a package of letters and selected one or two. We lighted fresh cigars and Hopkins began his story.

"My father was a pretty well-to-do business man and I his only child. My mother died when I was young. I managed to get through a grammar school and went to college. I wanted to go on the road from the time I could remember and had no ambition higher than to run a locomotive. That was my ideal of life.

"My father opposed this very strenuously, and offered to let me go to work if I'd select something decent--that's the way he put it. He used to say, 'Try a brick-yard, you might own one some day, you'll never own a railroad.' I had my choice, college or something decent,' and I took the college, although I didn't like it.

"The summer before I came of age my father died suddenly and my college life ended."

Here Hopkins fumbled around in his papers and selected one.

"Just to show you how odd my father was, here is the text of his will, leaving out the legal slush that lawyers always pack their papers in:

"'To my son, Steadman Hudson Hopkins, I leave one thousand dollars to be paid immediately on my demise. All the residue of my estate consisting of etc., etc.'--six figures, Chum, a snug little wad--'shall be placed in the hands of three trustees'--naming the presidents of three banks--'to be invested by them in state, municipal or government bonds, principal and interest accruing to be paid by said trustees to my son hereinbefore mentioned when he has pursued one calling, with average success, for ten consecutive years, and not until then. All in the best judgment of the trustees aforenamed.

"'To my son I also bequeath this fatherly advice, knowing the waste of money by heirs who have done nothing to produce it, and knowing that had I been given a fortune at the beginning of my career, it would have been lost for lack of business experience, and knowing too, the waste of time usually made by young men who drift from one employment or occupation to another'--having wasted fifteen years of my own life in this way--I make these provisions in this my last will and testament, believing that in the end, if not now, my son will see the wisdom of this provision, etc., etc.'

"The governor had a long, clear head and he knew me and young men in general, but bless you, I thought he was a little mean at the time.

"I turned to the trustees and asked what they would consider as fulfilling the requirements of the will.

"'Any honorable employment,' answered the oldest man of the trio.

"The next day, I went to see Andy Bridges, general superintendent of the old home road, who had been a friend of father's, and told him I wanted to go railroading. He offered to put me in his office, but I insisted on the footboard, and to make a long story short, was firing inside of three weeks and running inside of three years.

"I was the proudest young prig that ever pulled a throttle. I always loved the work and--well, you know how the first five years of it absorbs you if you are cut out for it and like it and intend to stay at it.

"I had been running about two years, and had paid about as much attention to young women as I had to the subject of astronomy, until Madelene Bridges came out of a Southern convent to make her home with her uncle, our 'old man.'

"The first time I saw her I went clean, stark, raving, blind, drunken daft over her. I tried to argue and reason myself out of it, but it was no go. I didn't even know who she was then.

"But I was in love and, being so, wasn't hardly safe on the road.

"Then I spruced up and started in to see if I couldn't interest her in me half as much as I was interested in her.

"I didn't have much trouble to get a start, for Andy Bridges had come up from the ranks and hadn't forgotten it--most of 'em do--and welcomed any decent young man in his house, even if he was a car hand. Madelene had a couple of marriageable cousins then and that may account for old Andy.

"I got on pretty well at first, for I was first in the field. I got in a theatre or two before the other young fellows caught on. About this time there was a dance, and I lost my grip. I took Madelene but couldn't dance, and all the others could, especially Dandy Tamplin, one of the train despatchers.

"I took private dancing lessons, however, and squared myself that way.

"Singing was a favorite mode of passing the evenings with the young folks at the Bridges's home, and I cursed myself for being tuneless.

"It finally settled down to a race between Tamplin and myself, and each of us was doing his level best. I was so dead in earnest and so truly in love that I was no fit company for man or beast, and I'm afraid I was twice as awkward and dull in Madelene's presence as in any other place.

"Dandy Tamplin was a handsome young fellow, and a formidable rival, for he was always well-dressed, a good talker and more or less of a lady's man. Besides that, he was on the ground all the time and I had to be away two-thirds of the time on my runs.

"I came in one trip determined to know my fate that very evening--had my little piece all committed to memory.

"As I registered I heard one of the other despatchers, behind a partition, telling some one that he was going to work Dandy's trick until eleven o'clock, and then the two entered into a discussion of Dandy's quest of the 'old man's' niece, one of them remarking that all the opposition he had was Hopkins and that wasn't worth considering. I resolved to get to Bridges's ahead of Tamplin.

"But man--railroad man, anyway--proposes and the superintendent disposes. I met Bridges at the door.

"'Hopkins,' said he, 'I want you to do me a personal favor.'

"'Yes, sir,'

"'I want you to double out in half an hour on some perishable freight that's coming in from the West; there isn't one available engine in. Will you do it?'

"'Yes,' I answered, slowly, showing my disappointment. 'But, Mr. Bridges, I was particularly anxious to go up to your house to-night; I intend to ask--'

"'I know, I know,' said he kindly, taking my hand; 'It'll be all right I hope; there ain't another young chap I'd like to see go up _and stay_ better than you, but my son, _she will keep_, and this freight wont. You go out, and I'll promise that no one shall get a chance to ask ahead of you.' This was a friend at court and a strong one.

"'It means a lot to me,' said I

"'I know it my boy, and I'm proud to have you say so right out in meeting, but--well, you get those fruit cars in by moonlight, and I'll have you back light, and you can have the front parlor for a week.'

"On my return trip, I found a big Howe truss bridge on fire and didn't get in for two days. The road was blocked, everything out of gear and I had to double back again, whether or no.

"I was 'chewing the rag' with a roundhouse foreman about it when Old Andy came along.

"'Go on, Hopkins,' said he, 'and you can lay off when you get back. I'm going South with my car _and will take the girls with me_!'

"That was hint enough, and I said yes.

"It was in the evening, and while the fireman and I got our supper, the hostler turned my engine, coaled her up, took water and stood her on the north branch track, next the head end of her train, that had not yet been entirely made up.

"This north branch came into the south and west divisions off a very heavy grade and on a curve, the view being cut off at this point by buildings close to the track. The engine herself stood close to the office building, and after oiling around, I backed on to the train, bringing my cab right opposite a window in the despatcher's office. Just before this open window and facing me sat Dandy Tamplin at his key. I hated Dandy Tamplin.

"It was dark outside and in the cab, the conductor had given me my orders and said we'd go just as quick as the pony found a couple of cars more and put them on the hind end. Dennis had put in a big fire for the hill, and then gone skylarking around the station, and I was in the dark glaring at Dandy Tamplin in the light.

"The blow-off cock on this engine was on the right side and opened from the cab. Ordinarily, you pulled the handle up, but the last time the boiler was washed out they had turned the plug cock half over and the handle stuck up through the deck among the oil cans ahead of the reverse lever, and opened by pushing it down. I remember thinking it was dangerous, as a man might accidentally open it. On the cock was a piece of pipe to carry the hot water away from the paint work, and this stuck straight out under the footboard, the cock leaked a little and the end of the pipe dripped hot water and steam.

"While I glared at Tamplin, old man Bridges and the girls came into the room. Bridges went up to the narrow, shelf-like counter, looked at the register and asked Tamplin a question.

"Tamplin went up to the group, his back to me, and spoke to one after the other. Madelene was the last in the row and, while the others were talking, laid her gloves, veil and some flowers on the counter. Tamplin spoke to her and I could see the color change in her face. Oh! if I only had hold of Dandy Tamplin.

"Bridges hurried out into the hall behind the passage way, the girls following. Tamplin turned around and espied Madelene's belongings. He went up to them, smelled the flowers, then hurriedly took a note out of his pocket and slipped it into one of the gloves. The other glove he put in his breast pocket. It was well for Dandy Tamplin I didn't have a gun.

"Remember, all this happened quickly. Before Tamplin was fairly in his seat and at work, Madelene came tripping back alone and made for her bundle, but Tamplin left his key open and went over to her. I couldn't hear what was said for by this time the safety valves of my engine were blowing and drowned all sound. She evidently asked him what time it was and leaned partly over the counter to hear his reply. He put his hand under her chin and turned her face toward the clock, this with such an air of assurance that my heart sank--but murder was in my soul. Then quickly putting his hand behind her neck, he pulled her toward him and kissed her. I was a demon in an instant.

"She sprang away from him and ran into the hall and he came back to his chair with a smile of triumph on his thin lips.

"Somehow or other, just at this moment, I noticed the steam at the end of that blow-off pipe, and all the devils in hell whispered at once 'One move of your hand and your revenge is complete.' I wasn't Steadman Hopkins then, I was a madman bent on murder, and I reached down for that handle, holding on by the throttle with my left hand. The cock had some mud in it and I opened it wide before it blew out and then with a roar and a shriek it burst--and the crime was done.

"All the devils flew away at once and left me alone, naked with my conscience. Murderer, murderer!' resounded in my ears; hisses, roars and screams seemed to come to fill my brain and dance around my condemned soul; voices seemed shrieking and crash upon crash seemed to smite my ears. I thought I was dying, and I remember distinctly how glad I was. I didn't let go of that valve, I couldn't--I'd go to hell with it in my hand and let them do their worst.

"Then remorse took possession of me. Wasn't it enough to maim and disfigure poor Tamplin, why cook him to death--I'd shut off that cock. I fought with it, but it wouldn't close, and I called Dennis to help me.

"Some one stood behind me and put a cool hand on my brow, and a woman's voice said, 'Poor brave fellow, he's still thinking of his duty; all the heroes don't live in books.'

"I opened my eyes, and looked around. I was in St. Mary's Hospital, and a nun was talking to herself.

"Well, John, I'd been there for more than six weeks, and it took six more before I understood just what had happened and could hobble around, for I had legs and ribs and an arm broken.

"It must have been at the moment I opened that blow-off cock that part of a runaway train came down the north grade, backward, like a whirlwind and buried my engine and myself, piling up an awful wreck that took fire. I was rescued at the last moment by the crowd of railroad men that collected and bodily tore the wreck apart to get at me. Every one thought I tried to close that blow-off cock and hold the throttle shut. I was a hero in the papers and to the men, and I couldn't get a chance to tell the truth if I dared, and I was afraid to ask about Dandy Tamplin.

"No word came from Madelene. One day Bridges came to see me, and brought me this watch I wear now, a present from the company. I determined to tell Bridges--but he wouldn't believe me. Looked, too, as if he thought I was off in my head yet and I must have looked crazy, for most of these brands I got that night. To be sure I've added to the collection here and there, but I never was pretty after that roundup.

"At last I mustered up courage and asked: 'How is Tamplin?' 'All right, working right along, but takes it hard,' said Bridges.

"'Was he laid up long? Is he as badly disfigured as I am?'

"'Why, man, he wasn't touched. He had gone to the other end of the room for a drink of water. I'm afraid, my boy, its Madelene he's worried about.'

"'She has refused him then?'

"'Well, I don't know that. She is still in bed, badly hurt. She has not seen a soul but her nurse, the doctor and my wife, and denies herself to all callers, even her best friends, even to me.'

"Chum, I won't tell you what I said or suffered. Madelene had come into the room again for her belongings, and had faced the dagger of steam sent by the hand of a man who would give his immortal soul to make her well again.

"I couldn't get around much, but I wrote her a brief note asking if I might call and sent it by a messenger.

"She replied that she could not see me then. I waited. I hadn't the heart to write a confession I wanted to make in person, so after a week or two I went to the house.

"Madelene sent down word that she couldn't see me then and could not tell when she would see me.

"I thought the nurse, who acted as messenger, did not interpret either my message or hers as they were intended--I would write a note.

"I stepped into the library on one side of the hall, made myself at home and wrote Madelene a note, a love letter, begging for just one interview. Taking blame for all that had happened and confessing my love and devotion to her.

"It was a long letter and just as I finished it, I heard some one in the hall. I thought it was a servant and started for the doorway to ask her to carry my message. It was the nurse.

"I was partly concealed by the portieres. She was facing the door, her finger on her lips, and before her stood Dandy Tamplin.

"'It's all right' she whispered, 'be still,' and both of them tiptoed upstairs.

"This, then was why I could not see Madelene. Dandy Tamplin was her accepted lover.

"That night I left the old home for good to seek my fortunes and forgetfulness far away. I didn't care where, so long as it was a great way off.

"At New York I found some engineers going out to run on the Meig's road in Peru. I signed a contract and in two days was on the Atlantic, bound for the Isthmus of Panama.

"I ran an engine in Peru until the war broke out with Chili. I was sent to the front with a train of soldiers one day and got on the battle field. Our side was getting badly worsted, and I got excited and jumping off the engine, armed myself and lit into the fight. A little crowd gathered around me and I found myself the leader, no officer in sight. There was a charge and we didn't run--surprised the Chilians. I got some of these blue brands on my left cheek there and made a new reputation. Before I knew it, I had on a uniform and dangled a sword. They nicknamed me the 'Fighting Yankee.'

"Peru had lots of trouble and I saw a good deal of it. When it was all over, I found myself in command of a gun boat, just a tug, but she was alive and had accounted for herself several times.

"The president sent me on a special mission to Chili just after the close of the war, and, all togged out in a new uniform, I went on board of an American ship at Callao bound for Valparaiso. I thought I was some pumpkins then. I'd lived a rough and tumble life for about three years and was beginning to like it--and to forget.

"I used to do the statuesque before the passengers, my scars attested my fighting propensities, and there were several Peruvian liars aboard that knew me by reputation, and enlarged on it.

"We touched at Coquimbo and an American civil engineer and family came aboard, homeward bound.

"That afternoon I was lolling in the smoking-room on deck, when I was attracted by the sound of ladies talking on the promenade just outside the open port where I sat. It was the engineer's wife and daughter.

"'Mamma,' said the young lady. 'I must read you Madelene's letter. Poor, dear Madelene, it's just too sorrowful and romantic for anything.'

"Madelene! I hadn't heard that name pronounced for three years. It was wrong, I knew it, but I listened.

"'Poor dear, she was awfully hurt and disfigured in a railroad wreck.'

"It was _my_ Madelene they were talking about. Wild horses could not have dragged me from the spot.

"The girl read something like this. I know for I've read that letter a hundred times. It's in this pile here.

"'Dear Lottie: Your ever welcome'--'no, not that.'

"'Uncle Andrew is going'--'let me see, Oh! yes, here it is, now listen Mamma,' said the girl.

"'Dear Schoolmate. I have never told a soul about my troubles or my trials, for long I could not bear to think of them myself. But lately I have seen it in its true light, and have come to the conclusion that I have no right to moan my life away. I'm past all that, there is nothing for me to live for in myself, but my life is spared for some purpose, and I propose to devote it to doing good to others'--'isn't she a sweet soul, mamma?'

"'After I came to live with Uncle Andrew, I was very happy, it seemed like a release from prison. I saw much company, and in six months had two lovers--more than I deserved. One of these was a plain, honest manly man; he was one of Uncle Andrew's engineers. He wasn't handsome, but he was the kind of man that sensible women love. The other was a handsome, showy, witty man, also an employee of the railroad, considered 'the catch' among the girls. Really, Lottie, both of them tried to propose and I wouldn't let them, I didn't know which one of them I liked best. But if things had taken the usual course, I should have married the handsome one--and been sorry forever after.'

"My heart stood still--she hadn't married Dandy Tamplin after all."

"'The night of the wreck, I was going out on Uncle Andrew's private car. The handsome man was on duty in the office. The plain man on an engine that stood before the open window, I didn't know that then.

"'A runaway train crashed into the engine and something exploded and a stream of boiling water came into the room and scalded me beyond recognition. You would not know me, Lottie, I am so disfigured.

"'The handsome man did nothing but wring his hands; the plain one staid on the engine and tried to stop the steam from coming out, and was himself terribly injured.

"'I was for weeks in bed and suffered mental agony much beyond the merely physical pain. I was so wicked I cursed my life and my Maker and prayed for death--yet I lived. I was so resentful, so heartbroken, so wicked, that I refused to speak for weeks, then, when I tried, I couldn't, God had put the curse of silence on my wickedness.'

"Think of Madelene being wicked, Chum.

"'When I was getting well enough and reconciled to my own fate, enough to think of others, I thought of my two lovers. Then I asked my nurse for a glass. One look, and I made up my mind never to see either of them again.

"'Both of them were clamoring to see me, and I refused to see either. The plain man wrote me the only love letter I ever received. I have worn it out reading it. It was so manly, so unselfish! He blamed himself for the accident, and offered me his devotion and love, no matter in what condition the letter found me. This letter he wrote in Uncle Andrew's library, left it open on the desk and--disappeared.

"'I have never heard from him from that day to this. I never could understand it. A man that could write that letter, couldn't run away. The last sentence in his letter proved that. It said: "Remember, dear Madelene, that somewhere, somehow, I am thinking of you always; that whether you see me or not, you will some day come to know that I love your soul, not your face; that your life is dear to me, and no calamity can make any difference."

"'Those were brave words, and after I read them, I knew for the first time that this was the man I loved. They told me he was frightfully disfigured, too, but that made no difference to me, I loved him. But he was gone, no one knew where. Why did he go?

"'The handsome man disappeared the same day, and he never came back, but he left no letter.

"'Dear Lottie, I have only now solved the mystery. My sometime nurse has just confessed that the night the letter was written the other man came to the house, like a thief, he had bribed her to give me drugs to make me sleep and then she led him into my room and showed him my scars. If he ever loved me at all, he was in love with my face; the other man loved me. One went away because he saw me, the other one because he saw his rival apparently granted the interview refused to him. My true lover must have seen that man sneaking up to my room.'

"John, every fibre of my being danced for joy. I didn't hear the rest, and she read several pages. I had heard enough.

"I went right out on the deck, begged pardon to begin with, introduced myself, confessed to eavesdropping, told who I was, where I had been and asked for that letter.

"I got it and Madelene's picture; the one you have seen on my clock.

"I finished my task at Valparaiso while the vessel lay there, reported by mail, and came home on the same ship.

"I took that letter and photograph to Andy Bridges's house and wrote across the envelope 'Madelene Bridges, I demand your immediate and unconditional surrender, signed, Steadman H. Hopkins.'

"And I got it in five minutes. Chum, that is the only case on record where something worth having was ever surrendered to an officer of the Peruvian government.

"In six months I was back on an engine in a new country, with my silent, loved and loving wife, in a new home. Three times before now someone has seen Madelene's face, twice I told this story, and then we moved away; once I told it and trusted, and it was not repeated. Madelene can stand being a mystery and wondered at, but she cannot stand pity and curiosity. As for you, old Chum, I haven't even asked you not to repeat what I have told you--I know you won't."

After a long while, I turned to Hopkins and said: "And yet, Hopkins, fools say there is no romance in railroad life. This is a story worth reading, and some day I'd like to write it."

"Not in Madelene's time, or in mine, Chum, but if ever a time comes, I'll send you a token."

"Send me your picture, Hop."

"No, I'll send you Madelene's. No, I'll send you the clock with the 'talking eyes.'"

And standing at Hopkins's gate, the scar-faced man with the romance and I parted, like ships that meet, hail and pass on, never to meet again. Hopkins and I moved away from one another, each on his own course, across the seven seas of life.

And all this happened almost twenty years ago.

The other day, my office boy brought me a card that read, "Mrs. Henry Adams, Washington, D. C." "Is she a book agent?" I asked.

"Nope, don't look like one."

"Show her in."

A young woman came in, looked at me hard for a moment, laid a package on my desk and asked,

"Is this the Mr. Alexander who used to be an engineer?"

I confessed.

"I don't suppose you remember me," she asked.

I put on my glasses and looked at her. No, I never--then she put her handkerchief up to her lips covering the lower part of her face; it was the face of Madelene Hopkins.

"Yes," said I, "I remember you perfectly, seventeen or eighteen years ago you used to sit on my knee and call me 'Untle Tummy.' and I called you Maddie."

Then we laughed and shook hands.

"Mr. Alexander," said she, "In looking over some of father's papers, we came across a request that under certain conditions you were to be sent an old keepsake of his, a clock with mother's picture on it. I have brought it to you."

"And your father and mother, what of them, my friend?" I asked, for the promise of that clock "under certain conditions" was coming back to me.

"Haven't you heard, sir, poor papa and mama were lost in that awful wreck at Castleton, two years ago."

And as I write, from the dial of "Scar Faced" Hopkins's clock "My Lady of the Eyes" looks down at me from across the mystery of eternity. The eyes do not change as once they did, or has age dimmed my sight and imagination? Long I look into their peaceful depths thinking of their story, and ask, "Dear Eyes, is it well with thee?"--and they seem to answer, "It is well."

SOME FREAKS OF FATE

I am just back from a visit to old scenes, old chums and old memories of my interesting experience on the western fringe of Uncle Sam's great, gray blanket--the plains.

If some of these fellows who know more about writing than about running engines would only go out there for a year and keep their eyes and ears and brains open, and mouths shut, they could come home and write us some true stories that would make fiction-grinders exceedingly weary.

The frontier attracts strong characters, men with pioneer spirit, men who are willing to sacrifice something, in order to gain an end; men with loves and men with hates. Bad men are there, some of them hunted from Eastern communities, perhaps, but you will find no fools and mighty few weak faces--there's character in every feature you look at.

Every one is there for a purpose; to accomplish something; to get ahead in the world; to make a new start; perhaps to live down something, or to get out of the rut cut by ancestors; some may only want to drink, and shout, and shoot, but even these do it with a vim--they mean it.

Of the many men who ran engines at the front, with me in the old days, I recall few whose lives were purposeless; almost every one had a life-story.

If there's anything that I enjoy, it's to sit down to a pipe and a life-story--told by the subject himself. How many have I listened to, out there, and every one of them worthy the pen of a Kipling!

The population of the frontier is never all made up of men, and the women all have strong features, too--self-sacrifice, devotion, degradation, or _something_, is written on every face. There are no blanks in that lottery--there's little material there for homes of feeble-minded.

It isn't strange, either, when you come to think of it; fools never go anywhere, they are just born and raised. If they move it's because they are "took"--you never heard of a pioneer fool.

One of the strongest characters I ever knew was a runner out there by the name of Gunderson--Oscar Gunderson. He was of Swedish parentage, very light-complexioned, very large, and a splendid mechanic, as Swedes are apt to be when they try. Gunderson's name was, I suppose, properly entered on the company's time-book, but it never was in the nomenclature of the road. With the railroaders' gift for abbreviation and nickname, Gunderson soon came down to "Gun," his size, head, hand or heart furnished the prefix of "Big," and "Big Gun" he remains to-day. "Big Gun" among his friends, but simple "Gun" to me. I think I called him "Gun" from the start.

Gun ran himself as he did his engine, exercised the same care of himself, and always talked engine about his own anatomy, clothes, food and drink.

His hat was always referred to as his "dome-casing;" his Brotherhood pin was his "number-plate;" his coat was "the jacket;" his legs the "drivers;" his hands "the pins;" arms were "side-rods;" stomach "fire-box;" and his mouth "the pop."

He invariably referred to a missing suspender-button as a broken "spring-hanger;" to a limp as a "flat-wheel;" he "fired up" when eating; he "took water," the same as the engine; and "oiled round," when he tasted whisky.

Gun knew all the slang and shop-talk of the road, and used it--was even accused of inventing much of it--but his engine talk was unique and inimitable.

We roomed together a whole winter; and often, after I had gone to bed, Gun would come in, and as he peeled off his clothes he would deliver himself something as follows:

"Say, John, you don't know who I met on the up trip? Well, sir, Dock Taggert. I was sailin' along up the main line near Bob's, and who should I see but Dock backed in on the sidin'--seemed kinder dilapidated, like he was runnin' on one side. I jest slammed on the wind and went over and shook. Dock looks pretty tough, John--must have been out surfacing track, ain't been wiped in Lord knows when, oiled a good deal, but nary a wipe, jacket rusted and streaked, tire double flanged, valves blowin', packing down, don't seem to steam, maybe's had poor coal, or is all limed up. He's got to go through the back shop 'efore the old man'll ever let him into the roundhouse. I set his packin' out and put him in a stall at the Gray's corral; hope he'll brace up. Dock's a mighty good workin' scrap, if you could only get him to carryin' his water right; if he'd come down to three gauges he'd be a dandy, but this tryin' to run first section with a flutter in the stack all the time is no good--he must 'a flagged in."

Which, being translated into English, would carry the information that Gun had seen one of the old ex-engineers at Bob Slattery's saloon, had stopped and greeted him. Dock looked as if he had tramped, had drank, was dirty, coat had holes, soles of his boots badly worn, wheezing, seemed hungry and lifeless, been eating poor food, and was in a general run-down condition. Gun had "set out his packing" by feeding him and put him in a bed at the Grand Central Hotel--nicknamed the "Grayback's Corral." Gun thought he would have to reform, before the M. M. put him into active service. He was a good engineer, but drank too much, and lastly, he was in so bad a condition he could not get himself into headquarters unless someone helped him by "flagging" for him.

Gun was a bachelor; he came to us from the Pacific side, and told me once that he first went west on account of a woman, but--begging Mr. Kipling's pardon--that's another story.

"I don't think I'd care to double-crew my mill," Gun would say when the conversation turned to matrimony. "I've been raised to keep your own engine and take care of it, and pull what you could. In double-heading there's always a row as to who ought to go ahead and enjoy the scenery or stay behind and eat cinders."

I knew from the first that Gun had a story to tell, if he'd only give it up, and I fear I often led up to it, with the hope that he would tell it to me--but he never did.

My big friend sent a sum of money away every month, I supposed to some relative, until one day I picked up from the floor a folded paper dirty from having been carried long in Gun's pocket, and found a receipt. It read:

"MISSION, SAN ANTONIO, Jan. 1, 1878.
"Received of O. Gunderson, for Mabel Rogers, $40.00.
"SISTER THERESA."

Ah, a little girl in the story! I thought; it's a sad story, then. There's nothing so pure and beautiful and sweet and joyous as a little girl, yet when a little girl has a story it's almost always a sad story.

I gave Gun the paper; he thanked me; said he must look out better for those receipts, and added that he was educating a bit of a girl out on the coast.

"Yours, Gun?" I asked kindly.

"No, John; she ain't; I'd give $5,000 if she was."

He looked at me straight, with that clear, blue eye, and I knew he told me the truth.

"How old is she?" I asked.

"I don't know; 'bout five or six."

"Ever seen her?"

"No."

"Where did you get her?"

"Ain't had her."

"Tell me about her?"

"She was willed to me, John, kinder put in extra, but I can't tell you her story now, partly because I don't know it all myself, and partly because I won't--I won't even tell her."

I did not again refer to Gun's little girl, and soon other experiences and other biographies crowded the story out of my mind.

One evening in the spring, I sat by the open window, enjoying the cool night breeze from off the mountains, when I heard Gun's cheery voice on the porch below. He was lecturing his fireman, in his own, unique way.

"Well, Jim, if I ain't ashamed of you! There ain't no one but you; coming into general headquarters with a flutter in the stack, so full that you can't whistle, air-pump a-squealing 'count of water, smeared from stack to man-hole, headlight smoked and glimmery, don't know your own rights, kind o' runnin' wildcat, without proper signals, imagining you're first section with a regardless order. You want to blow out, man, and trim up, get your packing set out and carry less juice. You're worse than one of them slippin', dancin', three-legged, no-good Grants. The next time I catch you at high-tide, I'll scrap you, that's what I'll do, fire you into the scrap-pile. Why can't you use some judgment in your runnin'? Why can't you say, 'Why, here's the town of Whisky, I'm going to stop here and oil around,' sail right into town, put the air on steady and fine, bring her right down to the proper gait, throw her into full release, so as to just stop right, shut off your squirt, drop a little oil on the worst points, ring your bell and sail on.

"But you, you come into town forty miles an hour, jam on the emergency and while the passengers pick 'emselves out of the ends of the cars, you go into the supply house and leave the injector on, and then, when you do move, you're too full to go without opening your cylinder cocks and givin' yourself dead away.

"Now, I'm goin' to Californ', next month, and if you get so as you can tell when you've got enough liquor without waiting for it to break your injectors, I'll ask the old man to let you finger the plug on Old Baldy whilst I'm gone. But I'm damned if I don't feel as if you was like that measly old 19--jest fit to be jacked up to saw wood with."

While Gun was in California, I was taken home on a requisition from my wife, and Oscar Gunderson and his little girl became a memory--a page in a book that I had partly read and lost, but not entirely forgotten.

One day last summer I took the westbound express at Topeka, and spreading my grip, hat, coat and umbrella, out on the seats, so as to resemble an experienced English tourist, I fished up a Wheeling stogie and a book and went into the smoking-pen of the sleeper, which I had all to myself for half-an-hour.

The train stopped to give the thirsty tender a drink and a man came in to wash his hands. He had been riding on the engine.

After washing, he stepped to the door of the "smokery," struck a match on the leg of his pants, held both hands around the end of his cigar while he lighted it, then waving the match to put it out, he threw it down and came in.

While he was absorbed in all this, I took a glance at him. Six-foot-four, if an inch; high cheek bones; yellow beard; clear, blue eyes; white skin, and a hand about the size of a Cincinnati ham. I knew that face despite twelve years of turkey-tracks about the eyes.

"Gunderson, old man, how are you?" I said, offering my fin.

"Well, John Alexander, how in the name of thunder did you get away out here on the main stem, without orders?"

"Inspection-car," said I; "how did you get here?"

"Deadheading home; been out on special, a gilt-edged special, took her clean through to New York."

"You did!" I exclaimed; "why, how was that?"

"Went up special to a weddin', don't you see? Went up to see a new compound start off--prettiest sight I ever saw--working smooth as grease; but I'm kind of dubious about repairs and general running. I'm anxious to see how the performance sheet looks at the end of the year, John."

"Who's been double-heading, Gun?"

"Why--why, my little girl, trimmest, neatest, slickest little mill you ever saw. Lord! but she was painted red and white and gold-leaf, three brass bands on her stack, solid nickel trimming, all the latest improvements, corrugated fire-box, high pressure smoke consumer and sand-jet--jest made a purpose for specials, and pay-car. But if she ain't got herself coupled onto a long-fire-boxed ten-wheeler, with a big lap and a Joy gear, you can put me down for a clinker. Yes, sir; the baby is a heart-breaker on dress-parade, and the ten-wheeler is a whale on business, and if they don't jump the track, you watch out for some express speed that will make the canals sick, see if they don't."

Without giving me time to say a word, he was off again.

"You ought to seen 'em start out, nary a slip, cutting off square as a die, small one ahead speaking her little piece chipper and fast on account of her smaller wheels, and the ten-wheeler barking bass, steady as a clock, with a hundred-and-enough on the gauge, a full throttle, and half a pipe of sand. You couldn't tell to save you whether the little one was pulling the big one or the big one shoving the little--never saw a relief train start out in such shape in my life."

Gunderson was evidently enthusiastic over the marriage of his little girl.

We talked over old times and the changes, and followed each other up to date with a great deal of mutual enjoyment, until the porter demanded the "smokery" for his bunk.

As we started for bed, Gun laid his hand on my shoulder and said:

"John, a good many years ago, you asked me to tell you the story of my little girl. I refused then for her sake. I'll tell you in the morning."

After a hearty breakfast and a good cigar, Gunderson squared himself for the story. He shut his eyes for a few minutes, as if to recall something, and then, speaking as if to himself, he said:

"Well, sir, there wasn't a simmer anywhere, dampers all shut; you wouldn't'a suspected they was up to the popping point, but the minute they got their orders, and the con. put up his hand, so, up went--"

"Say," I interrupted, "I thought I was to have the story. I believe you told me about the wedding, last night. The young couple started out well."

"Oh, yes, old man, I forgot, the story; well, get on the next pit here," motioning to a seat next to him, "and I'll give you the history of an old, hook-motion, name of Oscar Gunderson, and a trim, Class "G" made of solid silver, from pilot to draft-gear.