Johnstown High School - Spectator Yearbook (Johnstown, PA)

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4 THE SPBCTATOR west-bound train would crash into the east end of the cut and so would not endanger his friend's life. Hurry, Walt! cried Nlitchell, seeing what was pas- sing in Campbell's mind. It is a sure loss of a hundred lives against the possible loss of one. Still Campbell hesitated. For God's sake, pleaded Mitchell, do vi hat is right. Go! Campbell went. By this time the rain was falling in sheets and the blinding flashes of lightning and deafening crashes of thunder all combined to make the situation more terrible. Thru the rain Campbell dashed up along the path that led to the sig- nal tower. Half way up the ridge a new sound forced itself upon his blurred senses. Unconsciously holding his breath, he turned to look behind him. A flash of lightning lit up the valley below. A fast freight, east-bound, had passed the signal bridge and was running at full speed toward the cut. He was too late to save his friend's life. But No. 29 might yet be stopped. With a groan he turned and ran on toward the top of the ridge. A hundred yards from the tower, he slipped on the wet clay and fell. Blind- ly he staggered to his feet and ran on. What if No. 2Q had already passed the signal on the other side of the ridge? Throwing open the door of the shanty he rushed to the electric switch that controlled the signals. A twist of the wrist and the lights on both east and west-bound sema- phores changed from white to red. Glancing from the east window he saw No. 29 with her two mighty engines and eleven long Pullmans slide to a stop beneath the semaphore arm, every wheel locked and a stream of sparks shooting from every brake-shoe. Turning again to the west side he looked down along the ridge. To his dying day that scene will remain as clear as a photograph in Campbell's mind. The lightning had become almost continuous and its wavering, blinding glare lighted up the whole mountain side, The rain-soaked, wind-lashed forest along the sides of the valley, the gray sheets of rain swirlingin the eddying gusts of the wind, the Clearwater foaming thru the piers and false-work of the bridge, the crowd of laborers and engineers, roused by the

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THE SPECTATOR 3 changed from a breeze to a gail while distant flashes oflight- ning and low rumble ofthunder showed the coming of a storm. The sighing of the wind through the firtrees on East Cariboo had increased to an ominous roaring. A quarter of a mile east the lights on the signal bridge gleamed through the darkness like small diamonds. As the two friends entered the cut the first scattering drops of rain fell. When they had reached the center of the cut, disaster began, a bolt of lighting struck ahuge fir standing near the edge of the cut. For a moment the old monarch tottered uncertainlyg then slowly but with quickly increasing speed it plunged over the edge of the cut to the tracks sixty feet below, carrying with it the bracing along the sides. Run cried Mitchell the moment he heard the fir be- gin to crackle. They were but a hundred yards from the west end of the cut, but the footing was uneven and danger- ous. Straining every muscle they had reached a point only a rod from the end of the cut, when Mitchell, who was a few steps in the rear, set his foot on a round piece of ballast and sprained his ankle. As he fell, he cried out but his call was drowned in the terrihc crashing and rending of the fal- ling mass behind him. A moment later a huge beam crashed down over him, pinning him into a slight hollow between two ties. - Are you hurt? cried Campbell, who came running back as soon as he discovered that he was alone. No more than the wind knocked out of me and an ankle sprained, answered Mitchell, vainly striving to re- lease himself. Campbell secured a heavy pry and endeav- ored to raise the beam, but even by almost superhuman effort, he was unable to extricate his friend Walt! sud- denly exclaimed Mitchell in intense excitement. No. 29 will come along any minute and butt into the other end of this pile. Change those signals. You can get me out of here any time, l'm not suffering any . To change the signals Campbell would have to run up a path to a shanty on top of the ridge. There, by electric con- nections he could change the signals to stop all trains,-but if an east-bound train should pass the signal bridge before he could reach the top of the ridge, he could not stop it from running into the cut and killing his friend. No. 29, being a

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THB SPECTATOR - 5 fall of the bracing, running toward the cut, the long heavy train rushing swiftly on over the glistening rails, all lit up by the weird, white glare of the flashing sky,-nature could not have provided a hmore terrible setting for the last act in the assistant engineer's life. Nor was the scene silent. The droning of the rain on the roof of the shanty, the swish of the whirling wind as it lashed the dripping trees, the rumble of the on-rushing train, and above it all the uneven roar of thunder, punctuated by crashes so terrific in force that it seemed the earth itself must be shattered by the concussion, all the forces of nature joined in one wild pan- demonium of sound. Suddenly above the roar of the tempest there came the shrill cry ofthe engine-whistle and the scream of the brake- shoes. The engineer had seen the wreckage in the cut, but too late. No power on earth could have stopped that train then. ln the crash that followed the great stone bridge and even the mountains themselves trembled. And at the point where the train crashed into the wreckage, Mitchell lay. I did-what was right, groaned Campbell, as he sank into a chair before the operator's desk. Outside the tempest still raged, the open door banged in the force of the wind, and on the desk a telegraph sounder clattered unheeded. From Sunnyside to a Texas Ranch BY F. L. M. '10 ASHINGTON IRVING, if he should revisit this world to-day, would be greatly surprised to see the present surroundings of the furnishings of his home at Sunnyside. In order to find much of his silver and china- ware, he would have to travel from his seat on the Hudson, over miles and miles of Texas prairie owned in his day, not by the United States, but by Mexico. He would find himself not in the midst of culture and refinement, but with men of a much wilder and more restless nature.