s pipe toward
the great outdoors. "'S big world, when it's all spread out in sight,"
he volunteered.

"Can't you--can't you even go down to the lake and fish, when you want
to?"

"Nope. Four days a month--and if they didn't happen to have a spare
man lying round handy, to send up here to take my place, I couldn't go
then even."

Marion regarded him meditatively. "You can have an hour's recess now,
if you like," she offered generously after a minute. "I'll stay and
answer the phone, and stand them off if they want to talk to you. I'm
good at that. You can go and climb down to the lake and fish, and have
fun."

"Tell me to go and jump in the lake and I might do it," Jack returned
gloomily. He found it rather pleasant to be sympathized with and
pitied. "What if a fire broke out while I was gone?"

"Well, what if? I could do what you would do, couldn't I? What do you
do when a fire breaks out?"

That gave Jack a fair excuse for leaving his place by the shelf, and
coming around to her side of the table, and for taking the pointer
from her and standing close beside her while he explained the chart.
Needless to say, he made use of the excuse immediately.

"First off," he instructed, "you don't want to be a boob and go
reporting train smoke, like I did the first day I was here. Picked up
a black smoke down below, here--right down there! I got the number on
the chart and phoned it in, and the lookout on Claremont didn't yeep
about it. So they called up and asked him to come alive and report. By
that time the smoke had moved from where I saw it, and the whole train
was in sight from his station, coming round the hill into Marston. He
never thought of that being it, he said afterward. They got busy in
the office and called me up again, and I located her again--only in a
different place. Fellow on Claremont--that's it away over there; see
that white speck? That's the station, just like this one. He's an old
crab, Hank tells me. He said I must be bugs. Had him squinting around
some, I bet! Then they got wise that I was reporting a through
freight, and they kid me about it yet. But they fell for it at first
all right!"

"What do you know about that!" Marion melodiously exclaimed, and
laughed companionably.

She wanted to know all the things that real tourists want to know, and
Jack forgot that he hated to answer foolish questions. The piles of
empty coal-oil cans, for instance--she should have known that they had
been p