Argosy and Railroad Man's Magazine, Vol. 107 No. 3 — page 24: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

366 expected qualities. When the animal’s per- secution ceased, his perversity fled. He grew into a well-cenditioned creature, sleek of coat, beautiful of tail as an Arab barb, bright of eye, handsome to behold. His speed and endurance were matters of as much note as his outlawry had been but a little while before, and his intelligence was something almost beyond belief. Lambert had grown exceedingly fond of him, holding him more in the estimation of a companion than the valuation of a dumb creature of burden. When they rode the long watches at night he talked to him, and Whetstone would put back his sensitive ear and listen, and toss his head in joyful appreciation of his master’s confidence and praise. Few horses had beaten Whetstone in a race since he became the duke’s property. It was believed that none on that range could do it if the duke wanted to put him to his limit. It was said that the duke lost only such races as he felt necessary to the continuance of his prosperity. Racing was one of the main diversions when the cowboys from the surrounding ranches met at Misery on a Sunday after- noon, or when loading cattle there. Few trains. stopped at Misery, a circumstance resented by the cowboys, who believed the _ place should be as important to all the ‘world as it was to them. To show their contempt for this aloof behavior they usually raced the trains, frequently outrun- ’ ning those westward-bound as they labored up the long grade. . Freight-trains especially they took delight in beating, seeing how it nettled the train- crews. There was nothing more delightful in any program of amusement that a cow- boy could conceive than riding abreast of a laboring freight-engine, the sulky engineer crowding every pound of power into the cylinders, the sooty fireman humping his back throwing in coal. Only one triumph would have been sweeter—to outrun the big passenger-train from Chicago with the brass-fenced car at the end. No man ever had done that yet, although many had tried. The engineers all knew what to expect on a Sunday afternoon when they approached Misery, where the cowboys ARGOSY AND RAILROAD MAN’S MAGAZINE. came through the fence and raced the trains on the right-of-way. A long, level stretch of soft gray earth, set with bunches of grass here and there, began a mile beyond the station, unmarred by _ steam-shovel or grader’s scraper. A man could ride it with-his eyes shut; a horse cotild cover it at its best. That was the racing ground over which they had contended with the Chicago-Puget Sound flier for many years, and a place which engineers and firemen prepared to pass quickly while yet a considerable dis- tance away. It was a sight to see the big engine round the curve below, its plume of smoke rising straight for twenty - feet, streaming back like a running girl’s hair, the cowboys all set in their saddles, waiting to go. Engineers on the flier were not so sulky about it, knowing that the race was theirs before it was run. Usually they leaned out of the window and urged the riders on with beckoning, derisive hand, while the fireman stood by grinning, confident of the head of steam he had begun storing for this emer- gency far down the road, Porters told passengers about these wild horsemen in advance, and eager faces lined the windows on that side of the cars as they approached Misery, and all who could pack on the end of the observation-car assembled there. In spite of its name, Misery was quite a comfortable break in the day’s monotony for travelers on a Sunday afternoon. Amid the hardships and scant diversions of this life, Lambert spent his first winter in the Bad Lands, drinking in the noisy revels at Mis riding the long, bitter miles back to the ranch, despising himself for being so mean and low. It was a life in which a man’s soul would either shrink to nothing or expand until it became too large to find contentment within the horizon of | such an existence. | Some of them expanded up to the size for ranch owners, superintendents, bosses; stopped there, set in their mold. Lambert never had heard of one stretching so wide that he was drawn out of himself entirely, his eyes fixed on the far light of a nobler life. He liked to imagine a man so inspired COMICEDOO S CO in