"Then come on! I'll take you up and fix it with Barney, the engineer."

As the train stopped, with a loud creaking of brakes and groaning of
wheels, Bob jumped from the caboose and accompanied the burly conductor
to the head of the train.

"Hey, Barney!" he hailed the engineer.

The man thus addressed poked a coal-begrimed face from the window of his
cab, asking:

"What is it--wait orders?"

"Not this time. I've got a boy here--Bob Chester--who wants to ride with
you to the next station."

For a moment the engineer scowled, and Bob feared he would refuse. But
quickly the grimy face broke into a smile, as Barney asked:

"Is that the kid with a pass Jenkins left?"

"Yes."

"Sure he can ride with me. Help him up."

Bob, however, needed no assistance, and no sooner had the permission
been granted than he was climbing into the engine cab.

Before he had succeeded, Hosmer whispered:

"Barney's all right--and he doesn't like Jenkins. Tell him about the
joke the boys are going to play." And then he continued aloud: "I'll
either come for you, myself, or send some one when we reach Hastings.
Orders give us the right of way to Hastings, Barney."

"O.K.," grunted the engineer, as he turned to scrutinize Bob, at the
same time standing so that he could glance up the track toward the
station to catch the signal to start.

Acting on the conductor's advice, Bob narrated the plan Tom had devised
for having fun at Jenkins' expense, and was rewarded by seeing the
engineer's face break into a broad grin, and then to hear him roar with
laughter.

"That'll make 'Old Miser's' hair turn gray," he gasped between laughs.
"He'll never get over it, never!

"Oh, Ned," he called to his fireman, who had been out oiling some part
of the engine, "the boys are going to put one over on 'Miser' Jenkins."

But before the engineer had an opportunity to tell of the contemplated
joke, he caught the signal from the conductor to start.

"Get up on that seat on the left-hand side, and hang on," warned Barney,
and, as Bob obeyed, he pulled open the throttle.

As the iron monster began to move, puffing and smoking at the task of
starting the long train, it seemed to the boy that the noise would
deafen him. But he soon forgot it in the absorption of watching the
fireman open the doors of the firebox, throw in shovels-full of coals,
and then inspect the water and steam gauges.

With the gradual increasing of the speed, the din subsided. Y