minute, and calculated the speed of the train, by allowing
thirty-five poles to the mile.

All this time, however, he was under orders to keep a watch on the
movements of the brakemen ahead of him, and to set up, or throw off,
brakes on at least two of the six cars under his charge, whenever he
noticed them doing so. He was surprised to learn that it was by no means
necessary to put on all the brakes of a train to check its speed, or even
to stop it, and that the application of those on a third, or even a
quarter of its cars answered every purpose. He also soon learned to jump
quickly whenever brakes were called for by a single short whistle blast
from the locomotive, and to throw them off at the order of the two short
blasts that called for brakes to be loosened. At first he thought it
curious that the other brakemen should run along the tops of the cars, and
wondered why they were always in such a hurry. He soon discovered though
that it was much easier to keep his footing running than walking, and
safer to jump from car to car than to step deliberately across the open
spaces between them.

Once, during the night, when he and Conductor Tobin were seated in the
caboose eating their midnight lunch, the latter began to sniff the air
suspiciously, and even to Rod's unaccustomed nostrils, there came a most
unpleasant smell. "Hot box!" said Conductor Tobin, and the next time they
stopped, they found the packing in an iron box at the end of an axle,
under one of the cars, blazing at a furious rate. The journals, or
bearings, in which the axle turned, had become dry and so heated by
friction as to set the oil-soaked cotton waste, or packing, with which the
box was filled, on fire. The job of cooling the box with buckets of water,
and repacking it with waste, and thick, black, evil-smelling oil was a
dirty and disagreeable one, as Rod quickly learned from experience. He
also realized from what he saw, that if it were not done in time, the car
itself might be set on fire, or the axle broken off.

These, and many other valuable lessons in railroading, did Rod Blake
learn that night; and when in the gray dawn, the train pulled into the
home yard, with its run completed, he was wiser, more sleepy and tired,
than he had ever been before in all his life.

CHAPTER XVIII.

WORKING FOR A PROMOTION.

For several weeks Rod Blake continued to lead the life of a brakeman on
Conductor Tobin's train. Although it was a very humb