The Life and Adventures of Nat Love Part 6

I first saw my sweetheart as we were driving the herd along the dusty road, pa.s.sing a small adobe house near the city of Old Mexico. I saw a handsome young Spanish girl standing in the yard and I suppose I fell in love with her at first sight, anyway I pretended to be very thirsty and rode up and asked her for a drink. She gave it to me and I exchanged a few words with her before joining the boys and the herds.

After that I saw her quite often during my stay in Old Mexico before we again returned home. One day shortly before I was to leave for the North I went to see her and overheard a conversation between her and her mother, in which her mother said to her: "My daughter will you leave your mother for to go with the wild cowboy?" And she answered no mother I will not leave you to go with any wild cowboy. On hearing this I bid her goodbye and a long farewell, as I told her I did not expect to ever see her again. Then leaping to the back of my faithful horse I rode like mad across the Mexican plains, until I had somewhat cooled down, but it was a hard blow to me, as I truly loved her. After that I joined the boys and returned up the trail with them. Six or seven months later we were again in Old Mexico with a herd of cattle and went in camp some distance out from the city, and as soon as she heard our outfit had returned she rode out to the camp and after looking around and not seeing me, she said to the camp boss, "Where is the wild cowboy that was here with you last time? Did he not come up the trail with you". The boss told her I had come up the trail but that I had not been seen since crossing the last mountains as of course he knew whom she meant as my little love affair was pretty generally known among the boys. When the boss told her that I had not been seen since they had crossed the last mountains, she hung her head and looked completely heart broken. I was lying in the mess wagon at the time an interested spectator of all that took place, and seeing her looking so downhearted I could hardly restrain myself from jumping out of the wagon and taking her in my arms.

After a time she slowly raised her head and looked long and wistfully up the trail. Then turning to the camp boss again she said, "Camp boss tell me truly if Nat Love works with you and did he come on this trip with you". The boss answered her as before that I had not been seen since crossing the last mountains, which was true as I had been riding in the mess wagon. On hearing the boss' answer she took it as final and started to ride away.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The First Glimpse of My Spanish Sweetheart]

I thought it high time to make my presence known, as with the sight of her, all my old love returned, and I forgot every thing except that I loved her. So I jumped out of the wagon exclaiming here I am, and in a minute we were locked in each others arms and I believe I kissed her before all the boys, but I didn't care, she was mine now. We became engaged and were to be married in the fall and were to make our home in the city of Mexico, but in the spring she took sick and died. Her death broke me all up and after I buried her I became very wild and reckless, not caring what happened to me and when you saw me in the saddle you saw me at home, and while I saw many women since I could never care for any as I did for her. And I vainly tried to forget her and my sorrow in the wild life of the plains and every danger I could find courting death in fights with Indians and Mexicans and dare devil riding on the range, but it seemed to me that I bore a charmed life. Horses were shot from under me, men were killed around me, but always I escaped with a trifling wound at the worst. As time pa.s.sed I began to recover from my disappointment and to take my old interest in the work of the ranch, and as my reputation had spread over the country I did not lack work, but was kept on the go all the time, first with one large cattle owner, then with another. Most of my working being in the round ups and brandings, brand reading, and with large herds on the trail, as during my long experience in the cattle country I had traveled every known trail, and over immense stretches of country where there was no sign of a trail, nothing but the wide expanse of prairie; bare except for the buffalo gra.s.s, with here and there a lone tree or a giant cactus standing as a lone sentinel in the wildest of long stretches of grazing land rolling away in billows of hill and gully, like the waves of the ocean. Likewise I could read, identify and place every brand or mark placed on a horse or steer between the Gulf of Mexico and the borders of Canada, on the North and from Missouri to California. Over this stretch of country I have often traveled with herds of horses or cattle or in searching for strays or hunting the n.o.ble buffalo on his own native feeding grounds.

The great buffalo slaughter commenced in the west in 1874, and in 1877 they had become so scarce that it was a rare occasion when you came across a herd containing more than fifty animals where before you could find thousands in a herd. Many things were responsible for the slaughter, but the princ.i.p.al reason that they had now become so scarce was that in 1875 and 1876 the Indians started to kill them in large numbers for their skins. Thousands were killed by them, skinned and the carca.s.ses left as food for the wolves and vultures of the prairie. Many were killed by the white hunters to furnish meat for the railroad graders and the troups at the frontier forts.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Does the Wild Cow Boy Work With You?"]

While the big cattle ranches were always kept well supplied with buffalo meat, on the stock of my rifle is one hundred and twenty-six notches, each one representing a fine buffalo that has fallen to my own hand, while some I have killed with the knife and 45 colts, I forgot to cut a notch for. Buffalo hunting, a sport for kings, thy time has pa.s.sed.

Where once they roamed by the thousands now rises the chimney and the spire, while across their once peaceful path now thunders the iron horse, awakening the echoes far and near with bell and whistle, where once could only be heard the sharp crack of the rifle or the long doleful yelp of the coyote. At the present time the only buffalo to be found are in the private parks of a few men who are preserving them for pleasure or profit.

With the march of progress came the railroad and no longer were we called upon to follow the long horned steers or mustangs on the trail, while the immense cattle ranges, stretching away in the distance as far as the eye could see, now began to be dotted with cities and towns and the cattle industry which once held a monopoly in the west, now had to give way to the industry of the farm and the mill. To us wild cowboys of the range, used to the wild and unrestricted life of the boundless plains, the new order of things did not appeal, and many of us became disgusted and quit the wild life for the pursuits of our more civilized brother. I was among that number and in 1890 I bid farewell to the life which I had followed for over twenty years.

It was with genuine regret that I left the long horn Texas cattle and the wild mustangs of the range, but the life had in a great measure lost its attractions and so I decided to quit it and try something else for a while. During my life so far I had no chance to secure an education, except the education of the plains and the cattle business. In this I recognize no superior being. Gifted with a splendid memory and quick observation I learned and remembered things that others pa.s.sed by and forgot, and I have yet to meet the man who can give me instruction in the phases of a life in which I spent so long. After quitting the cowboy life I struck out for Denver. Here I met and married the present Mrs.

Love, my second love. We were married August 22, 1889, and she is with me now a true and faithful partner, and says she is not one bit jealous of my first love, who lies buried in the city of Old Mexico.

One year later, in 1890, I accepted a position in the Pullman service on the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad, running between Denver and Salida, Colorado. The Pullman service was then in its infancy, so to speak, as there was as much difference between the Pullman sleeping cars of those days and the present as there is between the ox team and the automobile.

[Ill.u.s.tration: My First Experience as a Pullman Porter]

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE PULLMAN SERVICE. LIFE ON THE RAIL. MY FIRST TRIP. A SLUMP IN TIPS. I BECOME DISGUSTED AND QUIT. A PERIOD OF HUSKING. MY NEXT TRIP ON THE PULLMAN. TIPS AND THE PEOPLE WHO GIVE THEM.

After my marriage in Denver, I rented a small cottage which I comfortably furnished and we, Mrs. Love and myself, started to housekeeping in a modest way. Then I began to look around for a job, but to a man who was used to the excitement and continual action of the range and the cattle ranches, the civilized and quiet life of the city is apt to prove stale and uninteresting. It was that way with me, and after pa.s.sing up several jobs offered to me I thought I would try railroading for awhile, probably for the same reason that prompted me to leave home twenty years before; I still wanted to see the world. With that idea in mind, I went to the Pullman offices in Denver, and after making some inquiries I was directed to the office of Superintendent Rummels who was at that time superintendent of the Pullman service.

A Mr. Wright was his a.s.sistant. I found Superintendent Rummels in his office, and I asked him if he wanted to hire any more porters. He asked me if I had ever worked for the Pullman company. I told him no that I had been a cowboy ever since I was 16 years old. He then asked me if I had money enough to buy my pullman uniform. I asked him how much it would cost and he said $22.00. I told him yes, I had the price. He asked me if I knew any one in Denver. I told him yes and gave him the name of Mr. Sprangler who had my money in his bank. Supt. Rummels told me to get a letter from Mr. Sprangler and he would put me on. So I went and got the letter and with it the money to pay for my uniform, after having my measure taken and sending for my suit. I borrowed a uniform from one of the other porters and the second day after I called on the superintendent I was sent on the run between Denver and Salida. One of the old men put me on to my duties and showed me how to make up my car and the general run of things.

On my first trip I found a kind friend in the Pullman conductor, a Mr.

Keely, who helped me in many ways and I suppose I made many blunders as the difference between a Pullman car and the back of a Texas mustang is very great. However I managed to get around among the pa.s.sengers in my car, and attend to their needs in some sort of a way.

My first trouble commenced when I succeeded in getting the shoes of pa.s.sengers which had been given to me to polish, badly mixed up. The shoes of a portly red faced man whose berth was in the forward end of the car, I placed by the berth of a tall and slim western yankee at the other end of the car, while a number 7 and a number 9 shoe were placed decorously by the berth of a sour spinster from New York. This naturally caused a good sized rumpus the next morning. And sundry blessings were heaped on the head of yours truly. Nearly all the pa.s.sengers were mad and the tips were conspicuous by their absence. That made me mad and thoroughly disgusted with the job. On returning to Denver I again called on Superintendent Rummels and told him that I had enough of the Pullman service, and would rather go back to the cattle and the range.

Superintendent Rummels tried to persuade me to stay with it saying I had done all right, and would improve with experience but I was thoroughly disgusted and wanted no more of it, so I turned in my keys, got my uniform and walked out. So again I was without a job.

After going around Denver for several days, it struck me that there was money to be made selling fruit, vegetables, honey and chickens around the town. Accordingly I purchased a horse and wagon and an a.s.sorted stock and started out on my new vocation. This proved profitable from the start and I made good money which caused me to stay with it for nearly a year, when my natural restfulness caused me to become discontented and to yearn for more excitement and something a little faster so I disposed of my stock, horse and wagon, and started out to look for something else to do, but that something else was about as hard to find as the proverbial needle in the straw stack, at that particular time. Whether it was fate or the talk of the other porters whom I met I finally concluded to give the Pullman service another try. Accordingly I called on Mr. J. M. Smith who was now district superintendent of the Pullman service and asked him for a job. He asked me if I had been in the company's service before and I told him yes. He asked me how long and I told him one trip, and I told him why I quit, and that the tips were too slow for me. He asked me if I thought it was any better now, and I said I did not know whether it was any better or not but that I thought I could do better.

He told me the whole secret of success was in pleasing all my pa.s.sengers. I told him I thought it was all right about pleasing two or three pa.s.sengers but when it came to pleasing a whole car full of pa.s.sengers, that was another matter. He said to try anyway. He than a.s.signed me to a car running on the narrow gauge line between Denver and Alamosa, Creed and Durango. This was the real beginning of my Pullman service.

I ran on the Colorado roads under Superintendent Smith for a number of years and always found him courteous and obliging, always ready and willing to help us with advice and counsel, but what proved a mystery to me for a long time was how the superintendent managed to find out things that happened on my car when he was not present. Sometimes when I went to report or met him he would question me about things that happened on my run, such as pleasing the pa.s.sengers and other things, which I did not suppose he knew a thing about and inquiries among the other trainmen only deepened the mystery.

I would ask the Pullman conductor if he told the superintendent such and such a thing and he would say no. Then I would ask him how the superintendent knew about them as he was not on the train. He would say he did not know. This kept up until finally I made up my mind that if there ever was a clairvoyant the superintendent certainly was one.

The fact that he was able to find out things that happened hundreds of miles away without any one telling him, kept me worked up for a long time until I finally tumbled to the special agents who are employed to travel as common pa.s.sengers and report how things are going to the superintendent. That explained the whole mystery, but it did not in any way make me move easy in my mind, because if a special agent was along one trip, there was no reason to think that one was not along every trip. At least I made up my mind there was, and governed myself accordingly, but the increased attention given to my pa.s.sengers as a result caused an increase in the tips, that came my way. With the increase in my earnings and the experience I was gaining I came to have a liking for the service, which is in no wise diminished at this time. I soon learned the knack of pleasing the greater number of my pa.s.sengers, and this reported to the superintendent by the special agents raised me in the official's favor with the result that I was given more extensive and more profitable runs and soon became one of the most popular porters in Colorado. This brought with it increased responsibilities as well as increased profits and favors enjoyed.

When I started to work it was for $15.00 per month this has been increased from time to time until at present owing to my long service and having gained a thorough knowledge of my business, I am often made porter in charge. This position pays me as high as $40.00 per month. The difference between a porter and a porter in charge is that a porter generally has a car over which a Pullman conductor presides, which the porter in charge owing to his long service and his knowledge of the business is placed in full charge of a car, making the services of a Pullman conductor unnecessary. A porter in the employ of the Pullman company for ten years and giving good service for that time receives from the company two suits of clothes per year, and other privileges not enjoyed by the beginner.

A porter just beginning in the service has to purchase his own uniform, the cost of which is never less than $20.00 for the summer suit or $22.00 for the winter suit. After five years of good service a porter is ent.i.tled to wear one white stripe on his coat sleeve to which one is added for every succeeding five years of good service. Naturally the porter that understands his business and gives his whole attention to the pa.s.sengers in his car and to his work, will make more money than the porter who has not the patience to try and please his pa.s.sengers. I have had porters complain to me about the small amount they were able to earn in the service and on questioning them I found it was wholly because they did not think it necessary to try and make friends of the people in their car. I early recognized the fact that if I expected to succeed in the Pullman service I must make all the friends I could on my runs, and the cases are very rare where I have failed to receive a tip of some kind from my pa.s.sengers, although as it happens sometimes I have people in my car who are not very well blessed with this world's goods, and who can ill afford to spend money in tips. To such people I always give the same attention and care, as if I was sure to receive a $10 tip, and they rarely failed to give me a kind thank you, on leaving my car. In the course of our duties we naturally meet all manner of people, the business man out for business or pleasure, the drummers who nearly always give us a tip; the wife going to join her sick husband or the husband hurrying home to the bedside of his sick child; the invalid in search of health, or the family going home to attend the funeral of a loved one; the young man going to be married, and the young couple on their honeymoon; the capitalist, the miner, the sportsman and the vast army of people that go to make up the traveling public, who like the sands of the desert are forever shifting around from place to place, and with whom we porters are brought in closer contact perhaps than any one else on their travels. We must necessarily be good judges of human nature to be able to please the majority of the people who travel under our care. We nearly always receive a tip from those who ride with us for any distance. The size of the tip often depends on the mode of the pa.s.senger giving it. Even those who ride with us only a short distance often give us a tip of more generous proportions than will the man who has ridden with us several thousands of miles. The superintendent himself when he rides in our car, we are sure to receive from him 25 cents or 50 cents for a day or a day's ride.

The smallest tip I have received from a pa.s.senger during my service was 2 cents. This amount I received from a rather cranky individual, who when I went to brush him off handed me two copper cents and followed them up with the remark that some of us porters needed calling down and some needed knocking down. My opinion if what he needed caused me to smile, wherein he wanted to know what I was smiling at. Needless to say I did not feel like wasting any more breath on him so I bundled his boxes and satchel out on the platform and left him to follow at his leisure.

The largest tips I ever received from a single traveler was $25.00 given me by one of the Rothschilds whom I brought from Chicago to Frisco, but this has been largely surpa.s.sed several times in car tips or trips. The Knights Templar one of whose cars I had charge of between Denver and Boston made, up a purse of $150.00 and presented it to me with the compliments of the pa.s.sengers in recognition of the good service I had rendered them. While in charge of the private car of General Manager Fisher in a trip through California and Mexico, Mr. Fisher made up a purse of $75.00 for me, in recognition of my attentions to the members of his party. But the man who gave me 5 cents received as much attention from me as the man who gives me $5.00. It is perhaps all he can afford and the manner in which he gives it often makes up for the smallness of the tip.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE PULLMAN SLEEPING CAR. LONG TRIPS ON THE RAIL. THE WRECK. ONE TOUCH OF NATURE MAKES THE WHOLE WORLD KIN. A FEW OF THE RAILROADS OVER WHICH I HAVE TRAVELED. THE INVALID AND THE CARE WE GIVE THEM.

The modern Pullman sleeping car is a veritable palace on wheels furnished in the best materials, without regard to expense, comfort, convenience and the safety of the pa.s.sengers being the main object. To say that the builders of the Pullman cars have succeeded in attaining this object is but a mild expression. Fine carpets cover the floors, the seats and chairs are upholstered in the best and softest of material, while every convenience is provided for the use of the lucky mortal who is called across the continent on business or pleasure, and whose pleasure it is to travel and sleep in the Pullman sleeping car of the present day. The traveler of today when he has to go from Chicago to San Francisco, simply throws a few things in a grip, is driven to the Union terminal station in Chicago, where he secures a through ticket and a sleeping car berth. At the car steps he is met by the Pullman porter who relieves him of his grip and a.s.sists him on the train if necessary. From that time until four days later when he arrives in San Francisco, he has no more care. If he wishes to write letters there is a handy writing tablet with stationery and everything needful. He can write his letters and hand them to the porter to mail and continue his perusal of the morning paper. If he gets hungry he has but to step in the dining car, where he will find viands fit for a king. If he wants a shave or a haircut, the barber is in the next car. If he wants to view the scenery en route, the observation car is but a few steps away. When he gets sleepy and wishes to retire he presses the electric b.u.t.ton at his elbow and the porter will do the rest, but if he prefers to lay in his luxurious bed and read, he has but to turn on the electric light at his bedside and he can read as long as he pleases, and when he arrives at San Francisco he will be cleanly shaven, nicely brushed, with his shoes freshly shined, and on the outside of a good breakfast, ready to tackle at once the business or the pleasure that brought him across the continent. Or, if the traveler prefers, he may swing aboard the magnificently equipped and royally appointed Los Angeles Limited, one of the finest through trains that this mundane sphere can boast. Catch this train in Chicago, which you may do any day in the year, and it will carry you with safety, speed and comfort over the fertile farms, meadows and plains; through the City of the Saints on the second day; then around the Great Dead Sea of America, over the sage brush plains and grazing ranges of southern Nevada, and into the Land of Sunshine and Flowers and the City of the Angels on the third day after leaving your home in Chicago.

What a contrast to the mode of travel our grandfathers were forced to adopt, a decade ago, when the old ox team and the prairie schooner wended its slow way over the mountains and plains, over trails in every turn of which lurked danger and death. "Verily the sun do move." During my service with the Pullman company I have traveled from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from the Gulf of Mexico to the borders of Canada, over nearly all the many different lines of railroad that makes the map of North America look like a spider had been crawling over it in search of a fly. I have visited all the princ.i.p.al cities and towns where the sound of the bell and the whistle is heard, and I have in a great measure satisfied my desire to see the country. Among the great lines of railway over which I have traveled are the Union Pacific, whose overland limited, the Atlantic Express and the Portland-Chicago Special, are the acme of quick, safe and comfortable travel. The overland limited is electric lighted, steam heated and contains every known luxury and convenience of travel. The Denver and Rio Grande Railroad is noted the world over for its quick time, fine scenery, comfort and safety. The Southern Pacific, the Baltimore & Ohio Southwestern, the Missouri Pacific between St. Louis and all points east all electric lighted trains with observation, parlor, cafe dining cars and Pullman sleeping cars; the Chicago & Northwestern, whose through train service to Chicago and the East from San Francisco, Los Angeles, Portland, Salt Lake, Ogden and Denver is not excelled in any land; the Illinois Central Railroad, whose eight track entrance to Chicago from the south along the lake front is one of the triumphs of Yankee railroading, and whose train service is elegant in the extreme. The Pennsylvania lines which will take you from Chicago to New York in eighteen hours and make you feel thoroughly comfortable while doing it. The Louisville and Nashville Railroad, whose lines reach every town and hamlet in the solid South.

The Nickel Plate road, the direct line from Chicago to New York, Boston and all points east, all trains of the Nickel Plate road arrive and depart from the new LaSalle Street station, one of the finest railroad stations in the country. The Santa Fe, from whose trains you can view some of the finest scenery in the Rocky Mountains, including the Grand Canyon of Arizona, a mile deep, thirteen miles wide, two hundred and seventeen miles long and painted like a flower. The Lehigh Valley Railroad to Chicago, New York and Philadelphia, from whose car windows one may view the world-famous Niagara Falls. The Colorado & Southern, the Colorado road over which travel is one continuous delight. The San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad, one of the youngest but by no means the least of railroads, the road that lies as straight as the crow flies, linking together the City of the "Saints" and the City of the "Angels." The snow-capped Rocky Mountains and the sun-kissed sh.o.r.es of the Pacific Ocean, the dead sea and the live sea; the railroad that makes it possible to have a sleigh ride with your second wife in the City of the "Saints" on Sunday and pick flowers and eat oranges with your first wife in the City of the "Angels" on Tuesday. Over this line I am running at present, and while it has only been in operation a short time, yet the time and service equals and in some cases surpa.s.ses the time and service of the great Trunk Lines of the east. We often make ninety miles an hour over the standard gauge roadbed, that equals any in this country. The cars are all new, the engines are the latest up-to-date kind. The cars are built for comfort and convenience, the trains are all electric lighted, steam heated and have every modern convenience for the safety and comfort of the pa.s.sengers. This road, in common with some of the eastern roads employs chair car porters in addition to the Pullman porters. On all trains from Salt Lake to Los Angeles there are three or four Pullman porters and one chair car porter.

All trains have dining cars, which are in reality magnificent dining rooms, where three times a day the dainties of the season are prepared by a competent chef to satisfy the most discriminating inner man. The furnishings of these cars, the fine linen, the artistic gla.s.s, china and silverware, are guaranteed to make you enjoy your meal, even if you have got dyspepsia. Besides the dining car and the Pullman sleeping cars, there is attached to all overland trains on the Salt Lake route, a through tourist sleeper, which differs from the Pullman sleeper only in a slight difference in the furnishings. The service is the same, but the cost of a berth in them between Salt Lake and Los Angeles is just one-half that of the standard sleeper. I have never run on a road where better service, more courteous treatment or better time was made than on the S. P., L. A. & S. L. Railroad.

In these latter years, when progress is the watchword of the railroads in common with the other industries of the country, no expense or pains are spared by the railroad people to add to the comfort, enjoyments, safety and convenience of the traveling public, until now it is about as safe to travel as it is to stay at home, and not much if any more expensive. But in spite of all safeguards adopted by the railroads a wreck occurs once in a while the same as accidents occur at home.

The first wreck I was in the train struck a split switch with the result that the cars turned over and piled up in a ditch. That happened in Colorado. We were forced to crawl out through the windows, like a prairie dog out of his hole. No one was killed but the pa.s.sengers were all pretty well shaken up and somewhat scared. As soon as the cars got comfortably piled up and the pa.s.sengers were able to speak they all commenced yelling for the porter. But at that particular moment the porter was busy rubbing his shins and a.s.suring himself there was nothing to be scared about. The pa.s.sengers at such times are apt to forget that the porter is as scared as they are, and has forgotten all about tips and such commonplace matters as that, but after he gets his wits about him he loses no time in looking after his flock, and rendering a.s.sistance to such of his pa.s.sengers as need it, and most of them do need a.s.sistance of some kind if for no other reason than to be a.s.sured that they are not hurt. The Pullman porter of today must be a very versatile sort of a person, he must have plenty of patience, be a good judge of human nature, quick, kind and observant. Many are the times a gouty and crusty pa.s.senger has traveled in my car, who was in such a bad humor that it was next to impossible to please him, yet before he had ridden a hundred miles with me, I had him in good humor and laughing with the rest of the pa.s.sengers. "Laugh and the whole world laughs with you."

It is by no means an uncommon thing for us porters to be called upon to turn nurse for sick or invalid pa.s.sengers in our car, and often have I watched by the bedside of a sick pa.s.senger, feeding him, giving him medicine, bathing him and in fact becoming for the time being a hospital nurse, and many are the blessings I have received from my sick pa.s.sengers, both men and women, whose pain I have eased, and their last moments on earth I have cheered. And this, dear reader, we do in the name of humanity and not in the name of tips.

CHAPTER XX.

THE TOURIST SLEEPING CAR. THE CHAIR CAR. THE SAFEGUARDS OF MODERN RAILROADING. SEE AMERICA, THEN LET YOUR CHEST SWELL WITH PRIDE THAT YOU ARE AN AMERICAN.

The Pullman tourist sleeping car, which you can find on all through trains of the different railroads throughout the United States, are to the traveler of moderate means what the Pullman car is to the millionaire traveler. They are designed for the comfort and convenience of the traveling public to whom the expenditure of a dollar more or less is a matter of moment, and who cannot afford or do not care for the small extra show and tinsel of the Pullman sleeping car, but whose only desire is to make their journey pleasant, comfortable and safe. This they can do as well in the tourist as in the standard sleeping car.

There is a difference in price that will amount to a tidy sum in a long trip across the continent, but that fact does not always appeal to the traveling public, as I have had the poorest of pa.s.sengers in the palace car and at other times a millionaire and his family would be my pa.s.sengers in the tourist cars. It seems to me a matter of fact and one which my long experience seems to verify, that the American traveler does not care so much about his comfort as his ability to get there, as the average American traveler is always in a hurry and in nine cases out of ten, he is thinking more about the speed of the train than he is about his immediate surroundings or the price he had paid for his ticket. The railroads, knowing this, have made and are continually making every effort to add to the speed and safety of their trains, but traveling long distances is a tiresome matter at the best and for that reason the railroads are continually making improvements with a view to add to the comfort, convenience and pleasure of the traveler, and in a journey such as one from Chicago to Los Angeles, for instance, there is no time to stop for meals and such trivial matters as a shave, as time is money lost to most of the pa.s.sengers and to the railroad company also. For that reason the sleeping car is provided that you may sleep with as much comfort as if you were in your own home, the dining car is provided to furnish you a good meal on the fly and at a price that all can afford. The library and drawing room cars are provided, where you can make yourself as comfortable as you can in your own house. The porter will get your morning paper, furnish you with writing materials or your morning high ball, and look after you like a hen after her brood.

But on all railroads there are rules governing the pa.s.sengers as well as the employees, the same as there are in all lines of business. A pa.s.senger may not, for instance, smoke in the body of the Pullman car, but must retire to the drawing room or his stateroom. As an instance in point, I had J. J. Corbett for a pa.s.senger in my car between Ogden and Chicago, a gentleman who was at that time in the height of his career and naturally thought he owned the earth or a large part of it, at any rate he came in the sleeper from the dining car, lit a cigar, propped his feet upon the opposite seat and prepared for a comfortable smoke.

But it was against the rules to smoke in that part of the car, so I approached him and politely requested him not to smoke in that part of the car. He regarded me a few moments and with a sneer said, "So you are Mr. Pullman, are you?" I told him I was not Mr. Pullman, but I was in charge of one of Mr. Pullman's cars, and for that reason I was a representative of Mr. Pullman, and that it was strictly against the rules to smoke in that part of the car, and that if he wished to smoke he would have to go to the drawing room. He went, but the sleeping car conductor, who had watched the incident, told me I had better look out or Corbett would have my scalp. I told the conductor I was not scared and that if Corbett hadn't gotten out I would have thrown him out, all of which I meant, but the conductor shook his head and said to look out.

Sure enough the matter was reported to the superintendent, but that official on hearing the facts in the matter said I had done perfectly right, and what I was paid to do.

It is necessary that all pa.s.sengers as well as all employees shall observe the rules of the company, for the benefit, safety and enjoyment of all the pa.s.sengers and employees alike.