RACING FOR LIFE.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3225, 31 October 1881, Page 4

RACING FOR LIFE.

(Tucson Journal, August 6th.)

Deeds of daring are never scarce in frontier settlements, and the news gatherer, who is always in search of the sensational and the interesting, every day meets with incidents wherein the heroic nature of man stands in prominent relief. Only yesterday the Journal contained the particulars of a locomotive trip, during which great dangers were unwaveringly faced, and now another act of bravery of a railroad engineer deserves attention. At Patano, on Wednesday afternoon, the breaks of a flat car loaded with ties became loosened in some inexplicable manner, and the car began to move down the steep grade . towards Cienego. A bystander jumped aboard and endeavoured to tighten the brakes. He, however, found them unmanageable. Another tried and failed. A regular brakesman then boarded the car and quickly discovered that the brakes were otit of order. The car by that time had increased its speed to fully 20 miles an hour, and to remain upon it would be almost sure death when the first washout was reached. He therefore called to the other two men on the car to jump, and this they did. Engineer Prank Shaw at tln3 time was sitting on his engine at Patano, and attached to his locomotive was a car filled with Chinamen. He at once realised the terrible result if this runaway flat car was allowed to proceed unchecked on its way, for a score or more of labourers were engagod far down a deep gulch in the Cinego Pass strengthening the braces of the broken bridge that spenned it. They would not be able to hear theapproching car, and it would sorm crash through the weakened timbers and probably crush many beneath its weight. As these thoughts flashed through his mind he pulled wide open the throttle-valve and started in pursuit of the fast-receding car. It was a race for life, and Shaw soon thundered down the track at 60 miles an hour, with the car-load of terrified Chinamen behind him. The flat ear ahead was increasing its speed at every turn of the wheels, and the grade there is very steep. Tho locomotive, however, kept gaining, and finally Shaw, placing the lever in charge of his fireman, crawled to the cow-catcher and, taking the heavy coupling-rod in bis hand, stood in that perilous position until the car was reached. The chasm where the men were working came in sight, and still the fugitive car was two hundred yards away. He called to the fireman to open wider the valve, and the labouring engine made a lurch that showed that she had felt the increased volume of steam. She sped on with lightning rapidity. The space between them gradually lessened. Shaw stood with the rod in one hand and a coupling pin in the other. Finally the few feet intervening disappeared, and with a dexterity that comes from practice and a cool brain, the coupling was mado. The locomotive was reversed, and the train came to a standstill, and within 50 feet of the bridge. This is the way one man saved many lives.