eps
from the engine a sentinel steadily walked his beat, rifle
on shoulder.

One of the men climbed into the engine. The sentinel paid no
heed to him. Another slipped in between two cars, and pulled
out a coupling-pin. The sentinel failed to observe him. A
group of others climbed quickly into an open box-car. The
sentinel looked at them, and walked serenely on. The last
man of the party now strode rapidly up the platform, nodded
to the one in the locomotive, and swung himself lightly into
the cab. The sentinel turned at the end of his beat and
walked back, just beginning to wonder what all this meant.
Meanwhile famine was being rapidly appeased at the
lunch-counter within, and the not very luxurious display of
food was vanishing like a field of wheat before an army of
locusts.

Suddenly the sharp report of a rifle rung with warning sound
through the air. The drowsy tenants of the camp sprang to
their feet. The conductor hurried, out to the platform. He
had heard something besides the rifle-shot,--the grind of
wheels on the track,--and his eyes opened widely in alarm
and astonishment as he saw that the train was broken in two,
and half of it running away. The passenger-cars stood where
he had left them. The locomotive, with three box-cars, was
flying rapidly up the track. The sentinel, roused to a sense
of the situation only when he saw the train in actual
flight, had somewhat late given the alarm.

The conductor's eyes opened very wide. The engine, under a
full head of steam, was driving up the road. The locomotive
had been stolen! Out from the refreshment-room poured
passengers and trainmen, filled with surprise and chagrin.
What did it mean? What was to be done? There was no other
engine within miles. How should these daring thieves ever be
overtaken? Their capture seemed a forlorn hope.

The conductor, wild with alarm and dreading reprimand,
started up the track on foot, running as fast as his legs
could carry him. A railroad mechanic named Murphy kept him
company. To one with a love of humor it would have been an
amusing sight to see two men on foot chasing a locomotive,
but just then Conductor Fuller was not troubled about the
opinion of men of humor; his one thought was to overtake his
runaway locomotive, and he would have crawled after it if no
better way appeared.

Fortune comes to him who pursues her, not to him who waits
her coming. The brace of locomotive chasers had not run down
their strength b