ill Greene. Having secured work the
old engineer called upon the widow, for he could tell her, now, all
about the dynamite. Three years had brought little change to her. She
might be a little bit stouter, but she was handsomer than ever, Dan
thought. The little girl, whom he remembered as a toddling infant, was a
sunny child of four years. Bennie was now fourteen and was employed as
caller at the round-house, and his wages, thirty dollars a month, kept
up the expenses of the home. He had inherited the splendid constitution
of his father with the gentleness and honesty of his mother. The foreman
was very fond of him, and having been instructed by the old general
manager to take good care of the boy, for his mother's sake, he had
arranged to send him out firing, which would pay better, as soon as he
was old enough. So Moran found the little family well, prosperous, and
reasonably happy. Presently, when she could wait no longer, Mrs. Cowels
asked the old engineer if he had come back to stay, and when he said he
had, her face betrayed so much joy that Moran felt half embarrassed, and
his heart, which had been so heavy for the past four years, gave a thump
that startled him. "Oh! I'm _so_ glad," she said earnestly, looking down
and playing with her hands; and while her eyes were not upon his, Moran
gazed upon the gentle face that had haunted him day and night in his
three years' tramp about the world.

"Yes," he said at length, "I'm going back to the 'Q.' It's not
Blackwings, to be sure, and the Denver Limited, but it's work, and
that's something, for it seems to me that I can bear this idleness no
longer. It's the hardest work in the world, just to have nothing to do,
month in and month out, and to be compelled to do it. I can't stand it,
that's all, and I'm going out on a gravel train to-morrow."

Moran remembered now that Bennie had come to him that morning in the
round-house and begged the engineer to "ask for him," to go out as
fireman on the gravel train, for it was really a boy's work to keep an
engine hot on a side track, but he would not promise, and the boy had
been greatly disappointed.

"I'd like to ask for the boy," said Moran, "with your permission. He's
been at me all morning, and I'm sure the foreman won't object if you
consent."

"But he's so young, Dan; he could never do the work."

"I'll look out for him," said the engineer, nodding his head. "I'll keep
him busy waiting on me when we lay up, and when