Then the wind whirled
around the depot and banged the blinds on the window of his room, and he
lifted his hand and cried out:
"Jack-son! Passengers going north by the Saginaw Road change cars!"
The men understood. The brakeman thought he was coming east on the Michigan
Central. The effort seemed to have greatly exhausted him, for he lay like
one dead for the next five minutes, and a watcher felt for his pulse to see
if life had not gone out. A tug going down the river sounded her whistle
loud and long, and the dying brakeman opened his eyes and called out:
"Ann Arbor!"
He had been over the road a thousand times, but had made his last trip.
Death was drawing a spectral train over the old track, and he was brakeman,
engineer, and conductor.
One of the yard-engines uttered a shrill whistle of warning, as if the
glare of the headlight had shown to the engineer some stranger in peril,
and the brakeman called out:
"Yp-silanti! Change cars here for the Eel River Road!"
"He's coming in fast," whispered one of the men.
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