How An Owl Saved A Train

Owls are by common consent adjudgéd to be birds of ill omen, but Eugineer Ned Barnett of the Santa Fe says he happens to know that they are anything but that and tells the following story to prove his assertions: One morning as the east bound overland was pulling through the mountains west of here, Barnett's engine doing the work, a, big horn beaked owl dashed against the front window of the cab with such f orce as to break the window, the bird itself dropping dead at the engineer's f eet. Though Barnett is not, generally speaking, a superstitious man, this seemed so singular an occmrrence that he stopped the train and sent a brakemau ahead to see if the way was cleax. Strange to relate, the brakeman soon returned, reporting a landslide across the track in the rnountain pass abovit 100 yards ahead. Hands were sent at once to clear the track, and iu removing the debris theyfound another owl, no doubt mate to the first, caught in the crotch of an uprooted tree, crushed to death in the f all. Barnett had botli owls stuffed, and the two now adorn his cab, always