d a new
gang that appeared in town rather opportunely, as it seemed, were hired
to take their places.

The most of those who were talking together so secretly were members of
this gang; and quite prominent among them was Steve Croly.

Joe Cuttle was firing up, the red glare from the glowing furnaces
lighting up his homely face.

"What were those men talking about out by the entrance just now?" Larry
asked, as Joe looked up.

"What men, lad?"

And the single eye was expressionless as it met the questioning glance
of the young engineer.

"Steve Croly was one; most of them were the new hands."

"He might be telling of them how he coom oot of here when A toald him to
goo," said the fireman, with his hideous grin.

"Not very likely, Joe," Larry replied, as he passed on into the
engine-room.

The boy was troubled and mystified now from a new cause.

Joe Cuttle was one of the new men, and, although he had been uniformly
faithful, Larry was sure that he was standing in the doorway of the
fire-room when he first came inside the gates, and that Joe must have
seen those who were only a few yards distant conversing so
mysteriously.

If he saw them, why did he try to evade the fact?

It was this more than any other circumstance that made Larry uneasy. He
did not think the difficulty bore any relation to his encounter with
Steve Croly in the morning, for of course Joe would not try to withhold
any knowledge of that affair.

Not until late in the afternoon did the superintendent visit the
engine-room.

He was a short, brisk man, with small, alert eyes that had a faculty of
seeing more in one minute than most men could take in in half an hour.
His face was dark almost to swarthiness and his cheeks and chin were
smoothly shaven.

He popped his head into the engine-room and called out:

"Hi, there, Kendall! What's the word to-day? Eh, so it's the boy! Well,
come here."

Larry came forward promptly; he knew this brisk gentleman liked him,
and, but for the mysterious trouble at home, he would have rather seen
him than not.

"Your father under the weather to-day, Larry?" was his first question,
while his quick eye noted that the polished floor of the engine-room had
been freshly washed and that the engine itself was doing its ponderous
work with its accustomed silence. Even his ear would have detected a
wrong note in the click and whir of the mechanism, though he would not
have known how to repair the difficulty.