A DANGEROUS RIDE 319 



ator, when he falls into the clutches of Cupid, is as un- 

 reliable as any other mortal in a like fix. His appetite 

 is so squandered on his " duck " he has none of it left 

 for orders, calls, messages, and instructions ; and, like 

 a watch without a balance wheel, all his regulations 

 are knocked into a cocked-hat. 



Now for my story. 



My son and myself were out in Northwestern Penn- 

 sylvania, rabbit and pheasant-hunting, taking with us 

 a couple of beagle hounds for running the rabbits. 

 We had reached a station where three railroads inter- 

 sect, and we soon discovered that no two of them 

 work together in harmony. If you arrive there at 

 any time of the day and expect to make train-connec- 

 tion with one of the other roads you will be disap- 

 pointed. Their managers, however, all harmonize on 

 one point — " the way to run a railroad is to let one 

 man do the work of six." There is a frame station 

 with one ticket seller who acts as station agent, bag- 

 gage-master, telegraph operator, signal man, freight 

 agent, and, moreover, is expected to do anything else 

 that is waiting to be done. 



There is another frame house a short distance away 

 in which a section boss lives with his wife and family. 

 The boss is a man of some enterprise and he confines 

 it chiefly to squeezing a livelihood out of the passen- 

 gers by feeding them on " a square meal for a quar- 

 ter." A big sign is posted in front of his establish- 



