er!"

With a yell the fireman of No. 999, as he opened the furnace door to
throw in more coal, leaped to one side.

A cyclonic stream, like the sudden blast of a volcano, poured out into
the cab.

CHAPTER XXI

ARCHIE GRAHAM'S INVENTION

The cab was suddenly filled with smoke, ashes and steam. Something
unusual had happened. Unable to determine it all in a minute, Ralph
pulled the lever and set the air brakes.

Mingled with the jar and the hiss of steam there arose a great cry--it
was a vast human roar, ringing, anguished, terrified. It proceeded
from the lips of the self-dubbed Lord Montague, and glancing towards
the tender Ralph witnessed a startling sight.

The monocled, languid-aired nobleman had struck a pose against the
tender bar, and as Fogg opened the furnace door and the fire box
suddenly belched out a sheet of flame and then a perfect cloud of
ashes, the passenger of high degree was engulfed. Fogg, alert to his
duty, after nimbly skipping aside, had kicked the furnace door shut.
He was not quick enough, however, to prevent what seemed to be half
the contents of the furnace from pouring out a great cascade of ashes
as if shot from a cannon, taking the astounded and appalled Montague
squarely down his front.

"Murder!" he yelled, and grasped his head in his hands to brush away
the hot ashes that were searing his face.

As he did so he became a new personality. His mustache was brushed
from his lip and fell to the bottom of the cab, while its former
possessor made a mad dive to one side.

"Here, you chump!" cried Fogg; "do you want to kill yourself?" and
grabbing the singed and frightened passenger, he pinned him against
the coal and held him there. In doing this he brushed one whisker from
the side of his captive's face, and the latter lay panting and
groaning with nearly all his fictitious make-up gone and quite all of
his nerve collapsed.

"What's happened?" asked Ralph, as they slowed down.

"It felt like a powder blast," declared Fogg.

Archie Graham had uttered a cry of dismay--of discovery, too, it
seemed to Ralph. The young engineer glanced at his friend perched on
the top of the tender tank. The face of the young inventor was a
study.

Archie acted less like a person startled than as one surprised. He
appeared to be neither shocked nor particularly interested. His
expression was that of one disappointed. It suddenly flashed across
Ralph, he could scarcely have told why, that t