CHAPTER X.
THE MARCH TO FORT DUQUESNE.
The train man was as good as his word. Ere they climbed the mountains to the pretty town of Alatoona, that sits perched like a crow's nest, on the summit of the Alleghanies, he transferred Ben to another car. And when they reached Alatoona, and the train changed crews, he not only gave him into the care of another brakeman of the new crew, but, as the train would stop there half an hour, he took him to his own home and made him eat a substantial meal.
Daylight was fading out of the west when the train drew out of Alatoona. The car with the barrels in had been left, and our hero was now safely stowed in one loaded with pig iron that had been brought off of the Williamsburg branch. Darkness prevented the traveller from viewing the glorious mountain scenery, in the train's descent from the hills. The great Horse Shoe Bend, with its panoramic views of mountains, woodlands, and valleys; the old grade on the opposite mountains, where—in times of yore—they sailed canal boats over the hills on rails, and deposited them safely in their native elements on the western slope, together with the many enchanting scenes this road runs through, were all lost to him. Nor did he see Johnstown, with its great Cambria Iron and Steel Works, the largest in the world (and a popular resort of hundreds of tramps who journey that way and toast their sides among its many fires and furnaces). Nor could he view the noisy little Conemaugh, that led the rail road along its bank to the foot hills below. We say Ben saw none of these, for, in the first place it was night, and in the second, his patron—the new brakeman—had shut him up in the car, and told him to keep the doors and end gates closed, both as a matter of protection from the prying eyes of road officials, and to prevent a horde of impecunious travellers—like Ben—from entering. The last was by no means visionary advice, for at nearly every station and side track the doors and windows were tried by tramps, who had awaited the shades of night to aid them in "jumping" a train.
Ben, still somewhat weak from his recent adventure, yet feeling in a peaceful state of mind from the assurance of his ride and the beneficial effect of the hearty supper he had made at the home of the hospitable brakeman in Alatoona, dozed on the pig iron. His bed was a hard one, to be sure; but when one side was dented so as to be no longer endured (which occurred every little while) he turned over on another; and by so revolving discovered the important fact that a man is in possession of four sides with which he may lie on the hardest of beds in comparative comfort by judiciously using them in rotation. That is continually turning from left to right or right to left, as the case may be, so that when No. 1 is worn out No. 4 will be fresh, and ready for use.
When they arrived in the outskirts of the city of Pittsburg, the brakeman appeared at the end gate and told Ben he had best disembark at East Liberty and walk into the city, to avoid being seen by watchmen at the lower yards. Cleveland thanked him for the ride, and, as the train slacked up, dismounted to find himself in the suburbs of the Smoky City, in the grey of the dawn.
"Good enough," said he, stretching himself, and rubbing his stiffened limbs; "good enough. Three days gone and I have made over four hundred and fifty miles. If I can keep up this rate of travel I will win my wager and have time to spare."
As he walked toward the heart of the city, he met several knights of the foot-path who had rolled out of lumber yards and from about the furnaces of iron mills. These informed him that Pittsburg was considered an excellent tramp town by the fraternity. Indeed the generous citizens had established a home for them on Duquesne Way, where they were both lodged and fed in gorgeous style. But, he was told, breakfast would be over before he could reach the "home," and as the tramps did not dine until six P.M., and guests were not allowed to remain in thesalonduring the day time, our traveller reflected that it would do him no good to visit the institution until hospitalities opened. As he still felt too weak for the road, he resolved to spend the day in fasting and viewing the iron industries for which the city is famous. He strolled around among these and chatting with the hands was told that the good town's glory was departing from out its hands. Years ago, before it became a great iron mart, the city had been the most extensive shipping point in thethen"Great West." Steamboats crowded one another at its levees, and the manufacturers of the east were continually departing down the Ohio, for the southern and western countries, in vast quantities. Then came the era of rail roads and the rapid settlement of the far west, and Fort Duquesne, as a great shipping point, ceased to exist. But when this industry was wrested from it, the brave old town adopted another. The transportation center of vast coal fields and iron deposits, she soon became a manufacturing hive, unequalled on the continent, and for many years upheld the reputation of the Birmingham of America.
But there came a change.
Capital ripped open the bowels of Mother Earth, and stole the ores with which the good dame was pregnant, in other and newer localities, far away. Iron works shot up their tall chimnies all over the west; at Cleveland, Columbus, Chicago, Joliet, Indianapolis, Terra Haute, St. Louis and elsewhere. As a consequence the good town found its second sceptre taken away, and the grip it had held upon the Great West, so long and well, Ben found had dwindled down to its coal fleets, which, with the vast natural resources of Pittsburg's water-ways, it is never likely to be deprived of. All this he heard, and much more. He learned that the city had a magnificent debt—that was a thing of beauty and apparently a joy forever. No one appeared to know just how much it was, but all agreed that it was ahead, per capita, of any other city in the Union—and this was a source of much honest pride. For though the city's commerce and manufactures might be stolen from it by western upstarts, they could not take its debt.
Ben discovered more real courtesy and kindness toward poverty in Pittsburg, than in any other town he visited during his tramp. The inhabitants were sociable, generous and unpretending.
While our friend was standing in the doorway of a mill, observing the men draw out the glowing, cherry-red bars from the rolls, and listening to the "bloom" snap and crackle, like a roll of musketry, in the jaws of the squeezer, he heard a little exclamation in a female voice. It was simply "Oh, my!" but it sent a thrill through every nerve in his body, for it was the voice of her he nightly met in his dreams. He dared not look up, but stood there,feelingher presence, and with the music of her voice ringing in his ears, waiting to hear her speak again.
But the "Oh, my!" was not repeated, as she of the grey, glorious eyes had only made the exclamation while passing in company with an elderly gentleman, and observing the glowing "bloom" pass into the squeezer. When Ben looked up, they were no where to be seen.
"Well," he muttered, "what is to be, will be. Tommy said they were going to St. Louis, and I may see her there. In my present condition it would do me but little good to meet her, anyway, I presume. I'm a tramp! Actually and professionally, atramp, and I begin to look and feel like one. Should I lose my wager, I may adopt the business permanently," and he laughed not altogether well pleased with himself.