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A THOUSAND MEN MILLED ABOUT THE CUTOFF CONSTRUCTION camp at daenty cars of wooden benches stood e excess stea the cold and wet to shelter on the work train

“Stubborn bastards!” Hennessy raged, watching from his private car “Wire the Governor, Lillian This is insurrection”

Lillian Hennessy placed her fingers on the telegraph key Before she tapped, she said to Isaac Bell, “Is there nothing else you can do?”

In Bell’s opinion, the men bunched in the rain did not look stubborn They looked afraid And they looked ee The Wrecker had erased innocent lives by dynamite, train wreck, collision, and fire Death and injury had attended attack after attack Men had died in derailments, the tunnel collapse, the ditched Coast Line Limited, the runaway railcar, and the terrible explosion in New Jersey

“The patrols have inspected every inch of rail,” he answered Lillian “I don’t knohat I can do that they haven’t done already Short of riding on the cowcatcher to check it myself …”

The detective spun on his heel, strode from Hennessy’s car, crossed the rail yard at a rapid pace, and shouldered through the crowd He climbed the ladder on the back of the work train’s tender, nimbly crossed the heaped coal, and jue of the pulsing machine, he could see sullen track layers and hard-rock miners spread from one end of the yards to the other They fell silent A thousand faces were rising toward the incongruous sight of aon the locomotive

Bell had once heard Willias Bryan address a crowd at the Atlanta Exposition Standing in front near Bryan, he had been struck by holy the famous orator spoke The reason, Bryan told hi, was that words bunched up as they h the air When they reached the back of the crowd, they arrived at a normal cadence

Bell now raised his hands He brought his voice up from deep within He spoke slowly, very slowly But every as a challenge thrown in their faces

“I will stand watch”

Bell reached slowly into this coat

“This locomotive will steam slowly to the railhead”

Slowly, he drew his Browning pistol

“I will stand on the cowcatcher on the front of this locomotive”

He pointed the pistol at the sky

“I will fire this pistol to signal the engineer to stop the train the instant I see danger”