d advised the youthful fireman to stretch a piece of bell-rope from
the cab to the tank to prevent him from falling out through the gangway,
for he intended to make up the ten minutes if it were in the machine.
The storm had increased so that the rail had passed the slippery stage,
for it is only a damp rail that is greasy. A very wet rail is almost as
good as a dry one, and Blackwings was picking her train up beautifully.
This was the engine upon which Guerin had made his maiden trip as
fireman, and the thought of that dreadful night saddened him. Here was
where Cowels sat when he showed him the cruel message. Here in this very
window he had held him, and there was the identical arm-rest over which
hung the body of the dead engineer. And this was his boy. How the years
fly! He looked at the boy, and the boy was looking at him with his big,
sad eyes. The furnace door was ajar, and the cab was as light as day.
Guerin had always felt that in some vague way he was responsible for
Cowels's death, and now the boy's gaze made him uncomfortable. Already
the snow had banked against the windows on his side and closed them. He
crossed over to the fireman's side, and looked ahead. The headlight was
almost covered, but they were making good time. He guessed, from the
vibration that marked the revolutions of the big drivers, that she must
be making fifty miles an hour. Now she began to roll, and her bell began
to toll, like a distant church-bell tolling for the dead, and he crossed
back to his own side. Both Moran and Patsy were pleased for they knew
the great engine was doing her work. "When one of these heavy sleepers
stops swinging," said Patsy, "and just seems to stand still and shiver,
she's going; and when she begins to slam her flanges up against the
rail, first one side and then the other, she has passed a sixty-mile
gait, and that's what this car is doing now."

Mrs. Moran said good-night, and disappeared behind the silken curtain of
"lower six," where her little girl was already sound asleep. Only a few
men remained in the smoking-rooms, and they were mostly English.

Steam began to flutter from the dome above the back of Blackwings. The
fireman left the door on the latch to keep her cool and save the water;
the engineer opened the injector a little wider to save the steam; the
fireman closed the door again to keep her hot; and that's the way men
watch each other on an engine, to save a drop of water or an ounce of
steam,