waste-box. The dead-head took off his coat, folded it carefully,
laid it on the box, and reached for the shovel. "Not yet," said Martin,
"dare is holes already in de fire; I must get dose yello smoke from de
shtack off."

The dead-head leaned from the window, watching the stack burn clear,
then Martin gave him the shovel. Half-way up a long, hard hill the
pointer on the steam-gauge began to go back. The driver glanced over at
Martin, and Martin took the shovel. The dead-head climbed up on the tank
and shovelled the coal down into the pit, that was now nearly empty. In
a little while they pulled into the town of M.C., Iowa, at the crossing
of the Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul. Here the Englishman had to
change cars. His destination was on the cross-road, still one hundred
and eighteen miles away. The engine-driver took the joint agent to one
side, the agent wrote on a small piece of paper, folded it carefully,
and gave it to the Englishman. "This may help you," said he; "be
quick--they're just pulling out--run!"

Panting, the Englishman threw himself into a way-car that was already
making ten miles an hour. The train official unfolded the paper, read
it, looked the Englishman over, and said, "All right."

It was nearly night when the train arrived at W., and the dead-head
followed the train crew into an unpainted pine hotel, where all hands
fell eagerly to work. A man stood behind a little high desk at the door
taking money; but when the Englishman offered to pay he said, "Yours is
paid fer."

"Not mine; nobody knows me here."

"Then, 'f the devil don't know you better than I do you're lost, young
man," said the landlord. "But some one p'inted to you and said, 'I pay
fer him.' It ain't a thing to make a noise about. It don't make no
difference to me whether it's Tom or Jerry that pays, so long as
everybody represents."

"Well, this is a funny country," mused the Englishman, as he strolled
over to the shop. Now when he heard the voice of the foreman, with its
musical burr, which stamped the man as a Briton from the Highlands, his
heart grew glad. The Scotchman listened to the stranger's story without
any sign of emotion or even interest; and when he learned that the man
had "never railroaded," but had been all his life in the British
Government service, he said he could do nothing for him, and walked
away.

The young man sat and thought it over, and concluded he would see the
master-mechanic. On the following