Men - hot and
angry - crawled among and between and under the thousand wheels; men
took flying jumps through his cab, when he halted for a moment; men
sat on his pilot as he went forward, and on his tender as he
returned; and regiments of men ran along the tops of the box-cars
beside him, screwing down brakes, waving their arms, and crying
curious things.
He was pushed forward a foot at a time; whirled backward, his rear
drivers clinking and clanking, a quarter of a mile; jerked into a
switch (yard-switches are very stubby and unaccommodating), bunted
into a Red D, or Merchant's Transport car, and, with no hint or
knowledge of the weight behind him, started up anew. When his load
was fairly on the move, three or four cars would be cut off, and
.007 would bound forward, only to be held hiccupping on the brake.
Then he would wait a few minutes, watching the whirled lanterns,
deafened with the clang of the bells, giddy with the vision of the
sliding cars, his brake-pump panting forty to the minute, his front
coupler lying sideways on his cow-catcher, like a tired dog's tongue
in his mouth, and the whole of him covered with half-burnt coal-dust.
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