he young inventor had
indeed been "inventing" something, that something had slipped a cog,
and that he was responsible for the catastrophe of the moment. Now
Archie looked about him in a stealthy, baffled way, as though he was
anxious to sneak away from the scene.

Half-blinded, sputtering and a sight, "his ludship" struggled out of
the grasp of the fireman. His monocle was gone. His face, divested of
its hirsute appendages, Ralph observed, was a decidedly evil face. As
the train came to a halt the dismantled passenger stepped from the
cab, and wrathfully tearing the remaining false whiskers from place,
sneaked down the tracks, seeking cover from his discomfiture.

"Hi! you've left that nobleman face of yours behind you," shouted Fogg
after him. "What's his game, Fairbanks?"

"It staggers me," confessed Ralph. "Hello, there, Graham!"

But the young inventor with due haste was disappearing over the rear
of the tender, as though he was ashamed of a part in the puzzling
occurrence at the moment.

"Something's wrong," muttered Fogg, and he opened the furnace door
timidly. There was no further outburst of ashes. "Queer," he
commented. "It couldn't have been powder. I noticed a draft soon as we
started. What made it? Where is it now?"

"It was only when we were running fast," submitted Ralph.

The fireman leaped down to the tracks. He inspected the locomotive
from end to end. Then he began ferretting under the engine. Ralph
watched him climb between the drivers. Strange, muffled mutterings
announced some discovery. In a moment or two Fogg crawled out again.

"I vum!" he shouted. "What is this contraption?"

He grasped a piece of wire-netted belting, and as he trailed out its
other end, to it was attached a queer-looking device that resembled a
bellows. Its frame was of iron, and it had a tube with a steel
nozzle.

"I say," observed the young engineer, in a speculative tone, "where
did that come from?"

"I found its nozzle end stuck in through one end of the draft holes in
the fire box," answered Fogg. "This belt ran around two axles and
worked it. Who put it there?"

"Graham," announced Ralph politely. "Well--well--I understand his
queer actions now. Bring it up here," continued Ralph, as the fireman
was about to throw it aside.

"The young fellow who thinks he is going to overturn the system with
his inventions? Well, he must have done a lot of work, and it must
have taken a heap of time to fix the thing so