Racing A Tornado

It was sonie time in July. The weather aad USen pretty hot, and it was ju.st the jort oí a day for breeding a tornado. I was working on a oue horse railroad in southern Kansas. The superintendent wired me to fetch my engine a distance of about 70 ïïiiles to a place called Peterstown. Well, I got fuel and water aboard as (uickly as possible and started for Peterstown, taking it rather easily, because the track wasn't in conditiou to stand fast running well. I was an hour out froin my starting place and had gone 16 miles perhaps, when I noticed some queer looking clouds on the western horizon. The day was extremely snltry, and there was a curious sort of a glare over the landsoape, wbich made it look sort of feverish. I oan't think of a better WQrd for describing it. There was something unnatural about the appearance of everything. My fireman was a boy who had been brought up in that región, and hesaid tbatit looked like a tornado coming. He ought to have been a good judge of the symptoms because the whole of his family, together with all their property and live stock, had been wiped out by such a "twister," as they called 'em, when he was hardly old enough to toddie. By the time we had gone maybe eight or nine miles farther a dense bank of clouds had spread around toward the southwest. It was black as ink, but beneath it was a blank streak of white. I had never seen anything that looked quite like it before. As ï looked at it, the bank rose higher, and presently I saw something like a sharp point of cloud project itself downward from the black mass. All this time there was no thunder nor lightning, but only a look about the sky that was dreadful to see, because it was so unnaturallike. It se'emed as if something awful was going to happen. It was the boy who called my attention to the pointed cloud, and he said it was a tornado beginning. "Then we'll run away from it, I guess," said I, pulling the throttle wide open. But the boy said nothing- only watched the clouds in the distance. ïfow and then when I could take my eye off the cloud I looked at the boy, but he only sat silent in the cab, staring at the great pegtop with starting eyeballs and white lips. Finally I said: "Doyou think we are going so escape it?" "We are right in its track," he said, without looking at me. You see, we were running in an air line over the prairie directly northeast and pursuing the very path in whicu the tornado was coming. Any other course, with the steam I had on, would have carried us out of the way. The boy shoveled more coal on. He had already done so three or four times since the strange cloud was sighted. But it was no use. The engine was doing its best, and she wasn't capable of more than about 38 miles an hour. "It's gaining on us," I said. "How fas: does such a thing as that travel?" "About a hundred miles an hour," replied the boy, white as a sheet. If that had been true, I would not be here to teil the story. I have since learned that 80 miles an hour 3 supposed to be the best a tornado can do. My belief is that this one was going at about 60 miles. Anyway, it wasn't more than six or seven miles distant by this time and gaining on usrapidly. If my reckoning was correct, it would catch us in a little more than 20 minutes. The way I calculated it was that the great pegtop was moving at the rate of three miles to our two. It was the most frightful spectacle to look at that can possibly be imagined. To me it seemed to be a monstrous giant, pursuing us with an evil intention to destroy. Sow and then its blackness would betransformed into a dark green, and it was constantly lighted up by flashes, as if it were an immense balloon illuminated from within. It appeared to whirl round with inconceivable rapidity, and from it carne a sound across the prairie as of bellowing, with a voice so awful that the rumbling of the locomotive was lost in it. Of the destruction it was accomplishing I could get no notion from my point of view. Fortunately there were few settlements in that part of the country, but as we passed two or three small hamlets at full speed I could see the people running about trying to find some place of safety. The boy staggered at my side - the rocking of the epgine made it difficult to keep one's feet - and clutched my arm. I stooped my head, and he yelled into my ear the words. "Make the bend." I knew what be meant on the instant. Less tban 10 miles anead of us was a bridge over a river, aLter crossing wbich the road turned abruptly southward. It was a freak railway, anyhow, and its zigzags were intended to pass through as ruany supposed centers of future population as possible. The only long streugth of it in a straight line was just where we got caught by the tornado. If wecould get to the bend anead of the monster, we might run out of its track. As you may well imagine, I had no opportunity to consider the plan calmly and in detail, but it struck me like a flash. It was a race for life sure enough. If that engine never did her 40 miles an hour before, I think she must have done that and more, too, then. With the great funnel cloud racing on behind us, steadily approaching, we tore over the rails. Six miles passed as well as I could estímate, and the monster was only about four miles behind. Three miles more, and it lessened the distance by a mile at least. But we weve near the river. A minute later, and wa v.ere crossing the bridge. No time then to heed the warning that "trains must run slowly over thia stream" in obedience to the sinpoht. We flew around the curve and dashed southward, just in time to see the mighty balloon pass by with a whirl and a roar, as if all the demons in the infernal regions were let loos. We could not make out anything very distinctly, the sky beini? darkened and the air filled with dust, bul we knew that we were safe. A few minutes later thecloudsrolled away, and every thingwasas quiet and peaceful as befon the storm. We ran back to the bridge, bu! it wasn't there. It was clean goue. Tii road was so badly torn up, the track for considerable distances being twisted ,:uni broken to pieces, that the expense of re pairing it nearly bankrupted the compauy. Eleven people lost tbeir lives by tbat tor nado, which aftorded me an experience which I would not repeatfor all the money in the