The Crest of the Continent: A Summer's Ramble in the Rocky Mountains and Beyond. Ernest IngersollЧитать онлайн книгу.

      Toward the middle of one bright afternoon we were pulled out of Pueblo, our three cars having been attached to the regular south-bound express. We had fully discussed the matter, and determined to go on to the end of the track, or, more literally, to one end—for there are many termini to this wide-branching system—on to the warm old plazitas and dreamily pleasant pueblos of New Mexico. Why not?

      But so inconsequential and careless an “outfit” was this, that no sooner had our minds been fairly settled to the plan (while the shadow of the Greenhorn came creeping out toward Cuchara and we were heading straight into its gloom) than somebody proposed our spending the night quietly in Veta Pass.

      This mountain pass and its “Muleshoe,” dwarfing in interest the celebrated “Horseshoe curve” in Pennsylvania, because occupying far less space, just as the foot of a mule may be set within a horse’s track—these have been famous ever since railroading in southern Colorado began, and naturally we did not like to go past them in the darkness. We wanted to see how the track was laid away around the head of the long ravine, whether it doubled upon itself in as close a loop as they said it did; and whether the train really climbed through the clouds about the brow of Dump Mountain, as the pictures represented. So we told the conductor to drop us.

      It was dark by the time we had been left in good shape on the terrace-like siding in Veta Pass, and, weary with our swift run, we were quite ready to shut out the gathering shades and be merry over our dinner; but first, all eyes must watch the departing express begin its climb up Dump Mountain. Think of swinging a train round a curve of only thirty degrees, on a very stiff grade, and with a bridge directly in the center of the turn! That is what this audacious railway does every few hours in the “toe” of the Muleshoe. From our lonely night-gripped dot of a house on the wild hill side, we could see squarely facing us both the Cyclopean blaze of the fierce headlight, and the two watchful red eyes glaring scornfully from the rear platform; by that we knew that the train had doubled on its own length of only six cars. Then, with hoarse panting and grinding of tortured wheels and rails, the two powerful locomotives began to force their way up the hill side right opposite us, the slanting line of bright windows showing how amazingly steep a grade of two hundred and seventeen feet to the mile really is. The beam of the headlight thrust itself forward, not level, as is its wont, but aimed at a planet that glimmered just above a distant ghostly peak.

      “Do you remember,” murmurs the Madame in a low voice, as she stands with bated breath beside me; “do you remember how Thoreau advises one of his friends to ‘hitch his chariot to a star’? Doesn’t this scene come near his splendid ambition? Will that train stop short of the sky, do you think?”

      Surely it seemed that it would not, for only when the stokers opened the doors of the laboring furnaces, and volumes of red light suddenly illumined the overhanging masses of smoke, touching into strange prominence for an instant the rocks and trees beside the engines, could we see that the train stood upon anything solid, or was moving otherwise than as a slow meteor passes athwart the midnight sky. It was easy to imagine that long line of uncanny lights a fiery motto emblazoned upon the side of the dark mountain, and to read in it, Per aspera ad astra.

      Yet the scene was far from fanciful. It was very real, and a fine sight for a man interested in mechanical progress, to watch those great machines walk up that hill, spouting two geysers of smoke and sparks, and dragging the ponderous train slowly but steadily along its upward course. Now and again they would be lost behind the fringe of woods through which the track passed, and then we would see the cone-like, rugged spruces sharply outlined against the luminous volumes of smoke. A moment later and the train disappeared around Dump Mountain, with a sardonic wink of the red guard-lights at the last; but presently we had knowledge of it again, for a fountain of sparks and black smoke from the engines blotted out the scintillating sky just above the highest crest of the ridge.

      “Suppose it had broken in two on that hill-side,” remarks the Artist, as I am carving the roast, five minutes later.

      “It wouldn’t have mattered,” is the reply. “I once saw a heavier train than that break on this very mountain, the three rear coaches parting company with the forward portion of the train.”

      “But wasn’t that criminal carelessness?” cries the Madame, who is death on inattention to railway duties. I should hate to be a neglectful brakeman before her gray eyes as judge!

      “Not at all,” she is informed. “The cars were properly coupled with what, for all any one could see, was a sufficiently strong link, but the strain proved too great for the tenacity of the iron.”

      “Well, I suppose they went down the track a-flying, or else over the precipice.”

      “Not a bit of it. The two parts of the train stopped not more than twenty feet apart. When the accident occurred the engineer knew it instantly by the jerking of the bell-rope, and stopped short. As for the rear cars, they were brought to a standstill at once by means of the automatic brakes. I tell you they are a great institution, and indispensable to success on any road which has heavy grades to overcome.”

      “How do they operate?”

      “Well, it is the Westinghouse patent and rather complicated. Better go out to-morrow and see the apparatus on the engine. It works somewhat in this manner: When the valve on the retort under each car is set in a particular way, the letting off of the ‘straight’ or ordinary air-brakes causes the compression of an exceedingly powerful spring on each set of brakes. If, however, you destroy the equilibrium by forcibly parting the air connection between that car and the locomotive, as of course occurs when a train breaks in two, the great springs are released and jam the brake-shoes hard against the wheels, gripping them with tremendous force. That’s what happened instantly in this case, and those heavy cars, which otherwise would have carried their cargoes to almost certain destruction, halted in a single second.”

      ALABASTER HALL.

      “But—what if—” began our lady member in an alarmed tone; whereupon she was speedily interrupted by the learned gentleman who was dividing his time between dinner and lecture:

      “My dear Madame, our cars, like all the rest on this admirably-guarded railway, are provided with the automatic apparatus I have described. Since it is useless to pretend to one’s-self, or anybody else, that an accident will never happen, it is well to understand that every precaution known to intelligent management has been provided against any serious harm resulting when things do go wrong. In consideration of all which profound explanations I think we deserve a second glass of claret. My toast is: The Automatic Brake!”

      And we all responded, “May it never be broken!”

      Sleep that night was deep and refreshing. The next morning broke cool and clear, and the Photographer proposed, with nearly his first words, that we all go to the top of Veta Mountain. Only the crest of one of the spurs could be seen, and this did not appear very far away, so that those who had never climbed mountains afoot were enthusiastic on the subject. Now in the humble, but dearly experienced opinion of the present author, the old saw—

      “Where ignorance is bliss

      ’T were the height of folly to be otherwise,”

      fits no situation better than mountain climbing. I have said in the bitterness of my soul, on some cloud-splitting peak, as I tried to gulp enough air to fill a small corner of my lungs, that the man who belonged to an Alpine Club