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THE STORY OF "DOC."

OAL-DUST, cinders, oil, and smoke, usually make 'firemen’ (stokers) on duty rather grimy-looking personages. Perhaps few among the thousands of passengers who ride in the railroad cars behind us would care for our acquaintance. But we are useful as useful perhaps as any other class of men; and certainly we have our full share of the hard disagreeable things in life, including frequent peril and much exposure to weather.

Working up from fireman to engine-driver-or engineer, as we are usually

called in America-is often a slow process. There are men on our line-the Hudson River R. R.-who have been firing eleven years with no promotion yet, though they are no doubt fully competent to run an engine; for promotion depends almost wholly upon vacancies occurring, or some special influence at headquarters.

"A man ought to be thoroughly familiar with a locomotive in eleven years. I thought that I knew every screw of mine after firing two years. Yet it takes

a good deal of time to learn to fire well, so as to get the most steam out of the least fuel, and have the highest pressure at the grades where it is most needed. To do this, a man should know the road, every rod of it, as well as the engine.

'

"It is while firing' that the practical knowledge of running an engine is gained. A fireman is the groom, so to speak, of the iron horse.' He must, morning or evening, have the engine polished, 'fired up,' and ready for his superior, the engineer, to step into the cab and start off. Usually the engineer does not make his appearance till the moment of connecting with the train.

When I began to fire under 'Doc'. Simmons, I scarcely knew enough to build a good fire in a cook-stove, and could not have found a quarter of the oil-caps. I must have been a trial to him the first week or two. But he never gave me a sharp word, though he often had to tell me things again.

over and over

"Doc,' as the railway men all called him, was a superior engineer. He knew every pound of metal in a locomotive; just where it lay, and how much it was good for. He was one of those men who seemed to feel just what there is in a locomotive the moment he takes hold of the levers and starts up. He was a good-hearted fellow, and always had a pleasant word or joke all along the line; and it is generally the case that such men do not fail the company or the public at a critical moment.

"I went home and cried like a baby the day 'Doc' was killed. If it had been my own father, I could not have felt half as badly. I actually wished that I had gone to the bottom of the river with him.

"It was the night of the 6th of February, and fearfully cold. We had 'No. 117' then, and took out the Pacific Express, as it was called, from New York City up the line to Albany. It was a bitter night, and the line was frosty and slippery.

"The express was always a heavy train. That night we had three baggage and express cars, and eight passenger coaches; and we were late out of New York, to begin with--about fifteen minutes, I think.

"Such cold weather is always demoralising to a railroad. It is much harder to make time; all metal works badly; and though the fire appears to burn brighter, it takes more coal to make steam. The train seems to hang to the line. Then, too, the cutting wind is enough to freeze the marrow in a man's bones.

'It might have been mostly fancy on my part, but I thought 'Doc' had an odd look in his face that night as he got into the cab. He was more serious than usual, for we both knew that we had a hard run before us, and a cold one. Both of us were muffled up in fur caps and old overcoats. "Shove in the coal, Nick, and shake her down smart. We want every ounce of steam to-night,' says Doc. Fifteen minutes behind, and eleven cars

on! Those sleeping-coaches are as heavy as a whole block, too. I'm glad this is a double-track line, and all clear ahead.""

We pulled out, and from the way Doc handled her I knew that he meant to pick up that fifteen minutes if it was in the old machine to do it. I suppose we made thirty-five miles an hour, perhaps forty, on the level stretches.

"On we went, reeling off the dark bleak miles, with the sharp wind cutting into the cab, till near New Hamburg Station, where the line then crossed Wappinger Creek on a trestle-bridge which had a draw' in it. It was a comfort to think that the draw would certainly not be open on such a night-for the creek was frozen up-and that there would be no delay there.

"Ah! if it were only permitted to train-men to know just what is ahead on the tracks on these bitter black nights! But we can only see what the head-lights show us; and often the signals seem strangely obscure in a fog, or in the driving rain and snow.

"One of those always possible breaks' which may not occur for years, but are yet constantly liable to happen, had occurred that night. One of the south-bound night freight-trains, running down to New York, broke an axle, and got one of its middle cars off the rails before reaching the bridge.

"How far they dragged the car in that condition no one knows, for it was so cold that the conductor and all the brakemen were huddled in the caboose behind. But they found it out after a time, and slowed down just as the train got on to the bridge.

"As they came to a standstill, two or three other cars jumped the track; and one of these, an oil-car, with a long tank on it, broke its couplings and was shoved over on the up-line of track-our line-where it stood sidewise across the rails.

"The accident made great confusion with the men on the freight, but they claimed that they got out their signal lanterns as soon as they could, and that it was not a minute before we came up.

"As we shot along past the dark station, and out towards the bridge, I saw the white steam of the freight train.

"We shall pass No. 19 right by the bridge,' Doc said.

"Both of us were looking, Doc on his side and I on mine.

"Suddenly, right ahead, we saw a red lantern swinging on our track, at the end of the bridge.

"God save us, Doc!' I shouted; the draw's open!"

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Spring the patent brake,' he said to me-that was what we called the airbrake then-and in a moment we had shut off, reversed, and whistled for the hand-brakes.

But we were going at a great speed. In a moment more we had come alongside the freight engine, and out on the bridge we saw the oil-car right across our rails. It had a look of death in it. "Shan't you jump, Doc?' I cried.

I swung out on the step.

"He stood with his back to me, looking ahead, but turned when I called out. I never shall forget that last look he gave me. He did not speak, but his look seemed to say, 'Yes, you may as well jump, but I must stick to my post.

He barely looked round to me, but made no answer, then looked ahead again.

Then I jumped, went heels over head along the side of the embankment leading to the bridge, rolled over and over, and landed down on the ice of the creek near the abutment, which I had scarce touched when I heard the crash as our engine struck the oil-car.

With the collision came a sudden brilliant flash of light.

Everything above me, the whole bridge and the cars on it, seemed wrapped in a blaze of fire!

"At the same instant, too, there was a dull, long, tearing crash! The trestle had given way beneath the strain.

"Down came our engine, the three baggage-cars, a passenger-car, and 1 don't know how many freight-cars of the other train, on to the ice. The whole wreck, as it fell down, seemed enveloped in flames; for the oil had splashed over everything, and the blazing coals from the fire-box exploded it on the instant.

When the engine struck the ice, it broke through, and with a hiss went to the bottom of the deep water there, and on top of it came tumbling down all the other cars.

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For a moment following the crash there was an almost complete silence, then agonising screams and prayerful cries for help from the imprisoned pas

sengers.

"We who were not disabled did what we could. The seven rear cars did not run into the chasm, but two of them burned on the track, along with a number of freight-cars. Twenty-one of the passengers were killed outright, and a still greater number were injured.

"As we worked there in the noise, heat, and awful confusion of that night, I cast many an anxious glance round for Doc, hoping and half expecting that he had got clear and would be at work with us trying to get out the passengers. But I saw nothing of him, and by daybreak I felt sure that he had gone down with his engine.

"The locomotive was not hauled up out of the water till the next week. Then we found his body, jammed down under the engine on the bed of the creek. His hands, face, and clothes had been scorched, but whether he was drowned or burned to death we could not tell.

"He had met death at the post of duty, gone out of the world with his hand on the lever, giving his own life that the lives of others might be saved a man of whom any people may be proud."

T is not often that the newspaper-reader is deeply moved by the heading "Terrible Catastrophe in America." Our sentiments have a perspective of distance, and we are selfishly, but very naturally -apt to be stirred by a fit of hysterics next door far more acutely than by the engulfing of a town or swamping of a territory on the other side of the Atlantic. We lazily put down our Times or Daily News and remark that "they do things on a big scale over there;' which tribute being paid, we dismiss the subject. Now and then, however, an appalling catastrophe wakens us out of this state of easy acquiescence. The burning of Chicago is a notable instance; and we can all remember the awful tale of Johnstown. It may be that some melancholy interest will attach to the story of another great flood; or, rather, to a re-read page in the history of the wide ruin which in 1881 swept down the valley of the Missouri.

Imagine, then, on the Nebraska bank of that wide stream a slight framehouse standing in a grove of large trees that spread beside the river. Behind, a level stretch of cultivated fields, which, dark brown at the time of ploughing, and deep in corn towards the summer, reach up the valley not far above high-water mark. The pastures by the water-side are green and well stocked, and nothing troubles the prosperous farmer but the thought of the spring