s whole world.

When Georgie Sinclair began pulling the Limited, running west opposite
Foley, he struck up a great friendship with Sankey. Sankey, though he
was hard to start, was full of early-day stories. Georgie, it seemed,
had the faculty of getting him to talk; perhaps because when he was
pulling Sankey's train he made extraordinary efforts to keep on
time--time was a hobby with Sankey. Foley said he was so careful of it
that when he was off duty he let his watch stop just to save time.

Sankey loved to breast the winds and the floods and the snows, and if he
could get home pretty near on schedule, with everybody else late, he was
happy; and in respect of that, as Sankey used to say, Georgie Sinclair
could come nearer gratifying Sankey's ambition than any runner we had.

Even the firemen used to observe that the young engineer, always neat,
looked still neater the days that he took out Sankey's train. By-and-by
there was an introduction under the catalpas; after that it was noticed
that Georgie began wearing gloves on the engine--not kid gloves, but
yellow dogskin--and black silk shirts; he bought them in Denver.

Then--an odd way engineers have of paying compliments--when Georgie
pulled into town on No. 2, if it was Sankey's train, the big sky-scraper
would give a short, hoarse scream, a most peculiar note, just as they
drew past Sankey's house, which stood on the brow of the hill west of
the yards. Then Neeta would know that No. 2 and her father, and
naturally Mr. Sinclair, were in again, and all safe and sound.

When the railway trainmen held their division fair at McCloud, there was
a lantern to be voted to the most popular conductor--a gold-plated
lantern with a green curtain in the globe. Cal Stewart and Ben Doton,
who were very swell conductors, and great rivals, were the favorites,
and had the town divided over their chances for winning it.

But during the last moments Georgia Sinclair stepped up to the booth and
cast a storm of votes for old man Sankey. Doton's friends and Stewart's
laughed at first, but Sankey's votes kept pouring in amazingly. The
favorites grew frightened; they pooled their issues by throwing
Stewart's vote to Doton; but it wouldn't do. Georgie Sinclair, with a
crowd of engineers--Cameron, Moore, Foley, Bat Mullen, and Burns--came
back at them with such a swing that in the final round up they fairly
swamped Doton. Sankey took the lantern by a thousand votes, but I
understood it cos