lear-eyed men near by, himself stretched
at full length on sleeping car cushions on the floor of the doghouse.
He sat up promptly. There was a momentary blur to his sight, but this
quickly passed away.

"Aha--only a bump--I told you so!" cried bluff-hearted Tim Forgan, the
foreman, jumping from a bench and approaching Ralph.

"All right, Fairbanks?" questioned John Griscom, coming to his side.

"Right as a trivet," reported Ralph, getting to his feet. "What hit
me?"

"The step of a coach, it seems," explained Forgan.

Ralph passed his hand over his head until it rested on a lump and a
sore spot near one ear. It was wet and greasy where some liniment had
been applied.

"The master mechanic?" he asked, with a quick memory of what had
happened.

"Ankle wrenched," said Griscom. "We made him get to a surgeon on a
litter. He minded nothing but you, till he was sure that you were all
right."

Ralph uttered a vast sigh of relief and satisfaction. Forgan led him
to his own special office armchair. Half-a-dozen crowded about him,
curious for details of the accident no one of them had witnessed.

Ralph gave them the particulars as he could remember them. He asked
for a drink of water, felt of the bump again with a smiling grimace,
and arose to his feet.

"Same schedule, I suppose?" he inquired, starting to go outside the
doghouse and inspect the bulletin board on which daily orders were
posted.

"You don't mean that you are going to make your run to-day,
Fairbanks?" asked the foreman.

"Why not?"

"Used up."

"Am I?" queried Ralph with a smile. "Then I don't know it. I fancy it
was a narrow escape, and I am grateful for it."

"The master mechanic was looking for you when he got frogged,"
observed Griscom.

"Yes, I thought he was," nodded Ralph.

"Here, Fairbanks," broke in the foreman of the roundhouse, "tack up
this flimsy with the rest, will you?"

Ralph took the tissue sheet tendered, stepped through the open doorway
into the roundhouse, and set the sheet upon two tacks on the bulletin
board. He started to stroll over to No. 999 in her stall.

"Hold on," challenged Forgan; "that flimsy just came in. It's an
important order. Better read it, Fairbanks."

"All right," assented Ralph, and turning, cast his eyes at the sheet.
They distended wide, for this is what he read:

"No. 7, new train, Overland Express, Mountain Division, 6.12
p. m., beginning Monday, the 15th. Engineer: Fairbanks--Fireman: