ng "Yah! Yah! Yah!" A headlight twinkled on the horizon
like a star, grew an overpowering blaze, and whooped up the humming
track to the roaring music of a happy giant's song:

"With a michnai--ghignai--shtingal! Yah! Yah! Yah!
Ein--zwei--drei--Mutter! Yah! Yah! Yah!
She climb upon der shteeple,
Und she frighten all der people.
Singin' michnai--ghignai--shtingal! Yah! Yah!"

The last defiant "yah! yah!" was delivered a mile and a half beyond
the passenger-depot; but .007 had caught one glimpse of the superb
six-wheel-coupled racing-locomotive, who hauled the pride and glory of
the road--the gilt-edged Purple Emperor, the millionaires' south-bound
express, laying the miles over his shoulder as a man peels a shaving
from a soft board. The rest was a blur of maroon enamel, a bar of white
light from the electrics in the cars, and a flicker of nickel-plated
hand-rail on the rear platform.

"Ooh!" said.007.

"Seventy-five miles an hour these five miles. Baths, I've heard;
barber's shop; ticker; and a library and the rest to match. Yes, sir;
seventy-five an hour! But he'll talk to you in the round-house just as
democratic as I would. And I--cuss my wheel-base!--I'd kick clean off
the track at half his gait. He's the Master of our Lodge. Cleans up at
our house. I'll introdooce you some day. He's worth knowin'! There ain't
many can sing that song, either."

.007 was too full of emotions to answer. He did not hear a raging of
telephone-bells in the switch-tower, nor the man, as he leaned out and
called to .007's engineer: "Got any steam?"

"'Nough to run her a hundred mile out o' this, if I could," said the
engineer, who belonged to the open road and hated switching.

"Then get. The Flying Freight's ditched forty mile out, with fifty rod
o' track ploughed up. No; no one's hurt, but both tracks are blocked.
Lucky the wreckin'-car an' derrick are this end of the yard. Crew 'll be
along in a minute. Hurry! You've the track."

"Well, I could jest kick my little sawed-off self," said Poney, as .007
was backed, with a bang, on to a grim and grimy car like a caboose, but
full of tools--a flatcar and a derrick behind it. "Some folks are
one thing, and some are another; but you're in luck, kid. They push a
wrecking-car. Now, don't get rattled. Your wheel-base will keep you
on the track, and there ain't any curves worth mentionin'. Oh, say!
Comanche told me there's one section o' sawedged track tha